 | Peter Pilgrim, or, A rambler's recollections |  |
A TALE
OF
A SNAG.
1. CHAPTER I.
Every body remembers the complimentary
admission of the Englishman in relation to
the Mississippi—that it was a very fine river
for a new country; a declaration which is,
however, only remembered to be laughed at
as an excellent joke, illustrative of the illiberal,
all-decrying spirit of so many British
travellers in America. The jest would not
have been so obvious, had the traveller added
that “the Mississippi would have been a much
finer river if in an old country;” for he would
have then spoken a truth not to be denied by
any informed and reflecting mind. It is only
in a mountainous country—the only old portion
of a continent, as every one with the
least tincture of geological science knows—
that rivers appear in their true grandeur and
leagues of length, are as nothing, without the
accompaniments of noble scenery along the
banks. The Amazon and the Nile, ploughing
their way through flat deserts of mud and sand,
are but overgrown, unromantic ditches, from
which the traveller longs to escape, to exchange
their gigantic tameness for the smallest
brooks chattering among cliffs and foaming
over precipices. It is more to his magnificent
banks than to the historic associations
connected with them, that father Rhine
owes his supremacy over all the rivers of
Europe; and the same cause—the glorious
assemblage of hills that follow him almost to
the ocean—has elevated the Hudson into a
similar pre-eminence among the navigable
rivers of the United States, nearly all of
which flow, for two-thirds of their length,
through a level alluvion of their own forming.
Of such a character is the Mississippi, a dull
monster, winding his sluggish way through
a wilderness of bog and forest, and often
swelling above it. When Nature, in some
new act of creation, has heaved up the reeking
valley a few thousand feet higher, and
studded it with peaks and promontories, with
chains of Alps and Andes, the Father Water
claim only as being the finest canal for commercial
purposes in the whole world.
But, destitute of beauty, of every element
of the romantic and picturesque, as the Mississippi
really is, it must be confessed that it
possesses many remarkable features of interest,
and that the impression it leaves on
the traveller's mind is deep, strong, and abiding.
Its very deformity becomes, after a
time, impressive; and the imagination is stirred
by the desolation that haunts its borders
—those banks of mouldering clay, bristling
with dead trees, or tumbling under the weight
of the green forests they bear with them pell-mell
into the flood—those never-ending
groves of cottonwoods springing from the
flats—those walls of willows sagging to and
fro in the current, in imitation of the more
formidable snags and sawyers that vibrate in
deeper water, hard by—those verdant pillars,
the ruins of branchless trees matted over
with ivies and peavines, jutting from protruding
banks—those long festoons of Spanish
moss swinging from the boughs, like cobwebs
spun by Brodignagian spiders—those rafts of
drift-timber lodged upon the low islands; in
short, the thousand other features that mingle
river from the Ohio to the sea.
The first effect of the Mississippi on the
mind of the traveller ascending it—the Coast,
or region of plantations, once left behind—
is undoubtedly weariness, if not even disgust.
Its scenery, varied only by alternations of
river and chute—the one wide, proud, majestic,
the other narrow, with a fierce and turbulent
flood—by windings and contortions that
exclude all distant prospects, and make one
feel as if in a kind of moving prison—oppresses
and almost stupifies the spirit. A
feeling of exile, of exclusion from the world,
preys upon it; and melancholy creeps over
every thought. The solitudes become more
solitary; the cottonwoods rise in double
gloom; the boughs and the tree-tops, as you
brush by them round some projecting point,
rustle in sadness; and the gush of the river
has in it something sullen and sorrowful.
It is then, amid these solitudes, that the
voyager begins to feel an interest in the river.
A species of superstition steals into his mind,
and gradually endows the flood with vitality.
He is no longer floating along a mere watercourse;
he feels as if resting on the bosom
of some sublime monster, which heaves under
human yearnings. In all common rivers,
a little poetic feeling enables one to find something
like sentience and congeniality in their
waters. One can fancy that a bubbling brook
rejoices with him; that a river, dashing gaily
along over bright pebbles and sands, ripples
up to his feet as if with the sportful inclinations
of a living creature; or, if his mood be
darker, he can discover in the sounds the
echoes of his own plaintive murmurs. At
least, if we do not not think so, we act as if
we felt it, and rejoice or murmur with ordinary
waters as with a friend. But there is no
feeling of companionship in the Mississippi.
A few days upon his bosom, and we feel ourselves
unworthy his regards; we laugh or
mourn, and the monarch of rivers passes on
with majestic unconcern. He is too great
for friendship; he was made for reverence, for
fear, for awe; feelings which creep, one after
the other, into the mind, and subdue it.
And then comes the thought of his prodigious
length, of the vast volumes of element
collected from the four quarters of the wind,
and borne, with the wreck and ruins of
mountain, prairie, and forest, and of all living
things that peopled them, to the Mexican sea,
destined, sooner or later, to convert into dry
land. That withered branch floating by may
have been torn from a fir on the ridge of the
Chippewyan; that quivering log flourished
once, perhaps, a noble pine, on the top of the
Pennsylvania Alleghanies or the Unikas of
North Carolina; that bundle of grassy weeds
was a sheaf of wild rice from the neighbourhood
of the Lake of the Woods; and that
stalk of prickly pear has wounded the foot
of the hunter on the plains of Mexico.
One thinks of his boundless extent, and
looks upon his surface for the evidences of
his boundless power. There is a treacherous
calmness over it all; the noisy billows, the
merry ripples, that animate common rivers,
are here seldom seen. The Mississippi flows
along like a river of oil or lava, `still-vexed,'
not agitated, a succession of secret whirlpools,
of sucks and eddies that boil below,
with scarce a mark of their fury visible on the
surface. It is a flood that seems to be constantly
convulsed—but convulsed like a
strong-hearted sufferer, who conceals his
throes in his own bosom, bearing a placid
countenance even when the turmoil within is
greatest. One cannot look long at the Mississippi,
swimmers who have fallen into it, have sunk,
never again to rise.
In a word, the Mississippi is the most august
of rivers, and few men can ascend it
without paying, in some mode and at some
time or other, the homage of awe. I have
often, in the gloom of evening—for at that
hour a double solemnity rests upon the scene
—watched its effects on the minds of my fellow-voyagers—men
of all characters, grave
and gay, the boisterous and the thoughtful—
thronging the boiler-deck of our goodly
steamer, all engaged in their several amusements.
The cards (wo's the word!) rattle
on the table, (if a table be there,) the jest
goes round, prankish tricks are played, songs
sung, and merry stories told; all is jollity and
laughter. But by and by, as the evening
darkens on, some one more contemplative
than the rest casts his eyes upon the tide,
forgets the mirth around him, and is subdued
to reverential awe. He calls the attention
of those near him to some customary object
—a great tree gliding along, a sawyer rising
to the surface, a raft collected at the head of
an island, a bank falling in, a torrent whirling
from a chute, a distant steamboat flashing
below, or a whirlpool sucking down a floating
bough—all common-place and every-day
objects, but all equally significant of the
power of the great river: they look on, and
also forget the song and jolly story. Others
imitate them, one by one; and presently all
eyes are fixed upon the river, all lips are for
awhile silent, all breasts filled with vague
reverence. Such is the tribute that human
nature—often unconsciously—pays to the
Mississippi.
It is in those serious evening moments that
men, who have voyaged often and long on the
Mississippi, and stored their memories with
the thousand dismal legends of disaster with
which its history is fraught, feel most inclined
to unlock their stores for the benefit of their
neighbours. They are then sure of listeners,
and of listeners in the right frame of mind.
The solemn feeling awakened by the river itself,
is doubly increased when we listen to
the tales of tragedy, now associated with
almost every point of its navigation.
Of these stories I have heard, and could
record enough to fill a volume; and, indeed,
I once had some thoughts of venturing before
the world with such a publication, not doubting
name—“Steamboat Chronicle, or a History of
Disasters by Steam on the Mississippi,”—
would ensure great success to the undertaking;
but upon informing a bookseller of my
design, he assured me the work would not
do. “There is no occasion for it,” said he;
“men that are curious about steamboat accidents
on the Mississippi, have but to refer to
the daily papers, each of which is a history
—or each of which, at least, contains a history,
a never-ending history, of steamboat
disasters, published one chapter a-day!” My
bookseller was right, and I was convinced.
I leave the subject to be handled, as usual, by
its daily historians.
It was my fate, however, to hear, on one
of the occasions spoken of, a story of a remarkable
catastrophe, a tale of a Snag,
which, I believe, has never made its way into
any newspaper; for which reason, and because
it is in some respects very different
from the common run of “Deplorable Accidents,”
I think it worthy of being laid before
the reader.
2. CHAPTER II.
The narrator was a very odd looking and
oddly behaved personage—an Englishman,
as he took occasion to assure his fellow-travellers,
and a commercial traveller or agent,
as I suspected, though of that he himself said
nothing. When and where he got into the
boat I never knew. I did not observe him
until the day he thought fit to leave us; and
then it was at the dinner table, where he was
suddenly made conspicuous by the act of a
Red River Kentuckian—that is to say, a
Kentuckian who had migrated a few years
before to the Red River country—who, being
seated opposite to him at table, drew all eyes
upon the gentleman, on whom, during the previous
five minutes, his own had been fastened,
by exclaiming with much earnestness and
your feelings—but you are the ugliest man
that was ever turned out of the workshop of
creation!”—a salutation which he concluded
by a thump on the table that set dishes aud
cutlery in commotion.
“Sir-r-r!” sputtered the gentleman, in wrath
and confusion, “if you mean to insult me —”
“By no means,” quoth the son of Red
River, with a gracious nod; “but the thing
was on my mind, and I couldn't help telling
you so.” With which explanation, which
was doubtless meant to be, and was by the
speaker himself considered, a sufficient apology
for the liberty he had taken, he fell
to work on his dinner; leaving the unlucky
Englishman to digest the observation, and the
merriment it excited among all at the table,
as he could. The poor fellow was wofully
put out, looking daggers and ratsbane, now
at the man who had insulted him, now at
those who laughed loudest or stared hardest;
and, at last, his rage or confusion becoming
insupportable, started up to leave the table;
when the Kentuckian, who was at the bottom
a very amiable personage, perceiving his distress,
rose up in like manner, and stretching
his hand across the table in the most friendly
partner, I did not mean to hurt your feelings
no how; but if you think I've insulted you, I
ask your pardon, and there's my hand on it.
I didn't know you were a foreigner, or I should
have bewar'd the British lion.”
“Hall right!” ejaculated the stranger, looking
vastly relieved, and grinning under the
friendly gripe of the apologist; “hit's all right
sir, and there's no offence. But I must say,
sir, you Americans, sir, are the greatest quizzes
in the world, sir; yes sir, hods bobs, or my
name ha'nt Sniggins, sir.”
Upon which, with a he-he-he, Mr. Sniggins
sat down again to his rations, which he appeared
to discuss with infinite relish.
This little incident has nothing to do with
the Tale of the Snag which I am about to
chronicle; but it was important, inasmuch as
it introduced Mr. Sniggins to the notice of
all on board, and, through him, made us acquainted
with the aforesaid story; which he
would perhaps never have told, being obviously
an uneasy, timorous, jealous-pated
man, who would have kept aloof from all on
board the steamer, had he been left to himself.
However offended, as he seemed to be at first,
by the Kentuckian's extraordinary greeting,
won his heart into the bargain. From that
moment until the hour of his leaving the boat,
which happened the ensuing evening, he became
quite a bustling facetious personage,
making himself very merry on the subject of
the national traits of the Americans, among
which he was pleased to reckon as the chief,
a villanous propensity to quiz and bamboozle
foreigners, particularly Englishmen. It was
to this propensity he attributed the Kentuckian's
attack: “The gentleman,” he said, “knew
he was an Englishman—any one might know
that—he thanked God he bore the mark of
the freeborn Briton on his brow; and the gentleman
thought he might get up a little bit of
fun at his expense. But he was no Johnny
Raw—he had been in the land before, (this
was not even his first appearance on a Mississippi
steamer;) he knew the Americans,
and he was not to be humbugged, no, not he;
gentlemen who tried that thing with him,
would find it was—all around his hat.”
Now, as Mr. Sniggins was no beauty, his
person being small, and the several parts
somewhat awkwardly put together; his visage,
too, uncommonly beefy and rubicund,
with a wide mouth, a preposterous nose, protruding
suffering, suffocating look, a very oddly wrinkled
brow, surrounded by short lint-white
hair of bristling quality, that looked on his ruddy
poll like the pale glory round the head of a
painted martyr; I am not altogether certain
that the Kentuckian was not speaking his true
mind and honest opinion, when he pronounced
him the ugliest person he had ever looked
upon. But Mr. Sniggins satisfied himself that
the whole was a quiz; he knew the Americans,
and they would quiz English travellers:
the present attempt of the Kentuckian was
but a small one; he could tell instances of a
much more extraordinary character, and one
in particular—a most astounding case—where
a whole steamboat's crew, passengers, hands,
and all, had entered into a conspiracy to bamboozle
him, under circumstances, and at a
time, which would seem to have made a jest
the last thing that rational beings would
have thought on. It was an amazing proof
of the incorrigible propensity of Americans
to bamboozle Englishmen; and, as such, he
would relate it.
It was the dusk of evening, and the
steamer was struggling against the fierce
current in the bend of the river below Memphis,
to end his voyage. He had followed his
friend, the Kentuckian, to the boiler-deck,
where, as usual, remarkable cases of boiler-burstings,
burnings, snaggings, &c. were told;
some of them, as it appeared, too remarkable
for Mr. Sniggins, who—if the teller happened
to fix his eyes upon him during the course of
the story—commonly expressed his incredulity
(for he really seemed to believe half the
stories were invented merely to quiz him)
by an expressive grin, and a still more expressive
sweep of his finger round his beaver.
“Hall humbug, gentlemen; can't humbug
me!” he exclaimed with great dignity, after
listening to a dozen or more very credible
anecdotes. “Tell you a better case of bamboozling,
attempted at my expense on this
here hidentical river, but no go: shall remember
it to my dying day; would have sent an
account of it to Blackwood or the Monthly
Magazine, but was principled against writing
about Americans;—cause why?—Americans
too techy—tell truth of 'em, fall in a passion;
telling lying compliments, nobody cares!”
Mr. Sniggins looked around him with a
Pyrrhonical smile, drew forth a red and yellow
handkerchief, blew his nose, restored the
his story.
“Gentlemen have heard of the steamer
Samson Hagonistes? Nice boat, first class
steamer—”
“Ay,” cried one of the gentlemen present,
“I remember her; she blew up somewhere
down the river, and went to Jericho, with all
hands, four years ago.”
Mr. Sniggins took off his hat, swept his
hand round it once or twice, with a look
half smiling, half impatient; and then exclaimed—
“There it is! Americans will make believe
black's white, and white black; no
mercy on a poor Englishman! No sir,” he
added, with much importance, “the Samson
Hagonistes did not blow up, down the river,
four years ago; but was snagged, up the
river, seven years ago! Know all about it,
sir; was in her when she was snagged and
lost; will remember her to my dying day.”
“Well,” said the passenger who had interrupted
him, looking very well satisfied with
the correction; “if you were in her, you must
know. But I have some kind of notion she
blew up.”
“Snagged, sir, hawfully snagged,” said
know all about it, and intend to tell you all
about it; though it isn't the snagging I care
so much about; it was the humbug that followed
after—the attempt at humbug, (for it
was no go,)—the attempt made to cheat me
into a disbelief of the evidence of my own
senses—a most stupendous hattempt, sir! It
was on the 23d day of May, just seven years
ago, when I took passage in the Samson
Hagonistes, at New Horleans bound for
Louisville. First time I was ever on the Mississippi,
but had been in the country before,
and knew the people. Fine set of passengers,
but sad wags, had no mercy on me—told me
lies all day long, and wanted me to put them
in my journal. (Kept a journal then, but
took care what I put in it; never meant to
print—kept my observations to gratify Mrs.
Sniggins.) One gentleman told me it was
these here hidentical cottonwood trees along
the river that produced the famous short-staple
Mississippi cotton—no conscience in
the gentleman! Another would have had me
believe a great troop of turkeys I saw on a
sand-bank, were nothing more than turkey-buzzards.
Told him he was a buzzard himself,
and then hasked his pardon, as he fell
about one matter: There was a gentleman
on board, Mr. Jones, of some place up the
river, at the mouth of the Yellow Stone or
Columbia, don't remember which, but said it
was a fine country for raising cattle and
horses. Well, Jones became my friend, and
was a very good fellow, and I liked him; only
he swore too hard, and would gamble all day
long and sometimes all night. He persuaded
me that a young bear, which somebody had
tied to the stove-pipe on the hurricane deck,
was of the domesticated species, and would
play like a kitten; and I went to play with it,
and it clawed me, and tore a new pair of drab
breeches I had on all to pieces, and scared
me, you've no idea! Well, Jones acknowledged
that was a humbug, as there was no
domesticated species of bears whatever; but
he was sorry for it, and hasked my pardon,
and we became very good friends; and he
helped me to discover and counteract the
tricks the other passengers were trying to put
upon me.”
“Well, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Sniggins,
“we proceeded on our voyage; nothing
of consequence occurring until the night of
the 4th of June, when we got to a dangerous
the `Earthquake Country;' which is somewhere
above, where the river is so full of
snags and halligators.”
Here a young traveller interrupted Mr.
Sniggins, to assure him there were no alligators
so high up the river. Mr. Sniggins
touched his hat with a deprecating look; and
the other passengers interfered, bidding the
youth hold his tongue, as he knew very well
that alligators were found in the Earthquake
Country; while the Kentuckian desired him
to remember how common they were in the
Salt River of Kentucky.
“Yes,” said Mr. Sniggins, triumphantly;
“I remember, Jones told me all about them
Salt River halligators, and that they were so
tame you could see a dozen of 'em at a time
snoozing at any tavern door on the river.
Well, gentlemen,” he continued, resuming his
narrative, “it was the night of the 4th June,
and we were in the Earthquake Country. I
went to the captain, and inquired if all was
safe; and being assured all was well enough,
and no fear of bursting or snagging, I crept
to my berth to sleep, being very drowsy; for
I had been up all the preceding night in consequence
of Jones telling me he thought there
as he acknowledged next morning, he was
entirely mistaken, and had himself slept quite
soundly all night.
“When I got into my berth, the passengers,
and my friend Jones among them, were
at the tables in the cabin, playing Brag and
Old Sledge, and all that sort of thing—that is,
gambling; and, what with scolding, swearing,
whistling, laughing, and quarrelling, they kept
up such a din that I found it impossible to sleep.
Bore it awhile very patiently, waiting till 10
o'clock, when the rules of the boat, which
were hung up in frames about the cabin, required
all playing to be put an end to. But
10 o'clock came, and the gentlemen played
on. Was obliged to remind them that the
hour had passed; no go, no effect, except to
make them laugh, and bid me mind my own
business. I threatened, at last, to call the
captain to enforce the rules of the boat.
Upon this, they all got up, saying that if I
wished them to cease playing, why, certainly,
as I was a foreigner, they would do so to
please me; but they advised me, if I valued
my safety, to get out of my berth and dress
myself; or, if I would not do that, by all means,
not to fall asleep. `The truth is,' said my
place, in the thick of the snags—the earthquake
of 1812 having tumbled all the woods
into the river; and besides, it is a dark, cloudy
night, and the pilot is a hard-drinking character.'
Other gentlemen all joined in, said
Jones spoke nothing but the truth, and swore
it was their unheasiness, their fear of going
to bed while in so dangerous a place, that
kept them up gambling so late; for why, they
would not go to bed, and they must kill time
somehow. Jones asked me if I had a life-preserver,
advised me to tie my trunks to ash
logs for buoys, if I had any thing valuable in
them, and then told me doleful stories of haccidents
by snagging that had happened in this
very part of the river; and the others all did
the same thing: never heard so many dreadful
stories in my life. Didn't believe 'em,
though; thought they wanted to quiz me,
and told 'em so, and they went away, hoping
I would be none the worse for my hunbelief.
They left the cabin, declaring they would be
near the boats in case of haccident.
“I thought they were fibbing, but was a
little uneasy for awhile, and then fell sound
asleep—great fool for doing so; got to dreaming
of the last story they had told me—a most
true: 'twas of a steamer that was snagged up
in the Earthquake Country, somewhere near
where we then were; 'twas night, the mate had
just gone into the forecastle to turn in, when
the snag—a tremendous big one—struck the
boat, pierced the forecastle, took the mate,
just as he was fetching a wide yawn, in the
mouth, and, 'orrible to relate, came out at
the nape of his neck; in which condition he
was borne by the snag clear through the deck,
twelve feet, and left struggling in the air like
a fish strung by the gills to a pole. That
was the story. Hawfulaccident! never hear
of such things in Hengland.
“Well, gentlemen,” continued Mr. Sniggins,
warming with the story, “I dreamed of
seeing the mate sticking on the snag, and
was waked up with fright. Woke up in good
time; heard an 'orrid noise on the decks—
squealing, yelling, swearing; and then, slam-bang—can't
describe it; thought we was running
over another steamboat, there was
such a grinding, and crashing, and cracking,
and tossing topsy-turvy, and I don't
know what: heard people scream, `A snag!
a snag!' and knew all about it. Jumped out
of berth; didn't know what I was about; picked
found steamer sinking by the stern,
going down like a stone; another steamer
alongside, people jumping into her; gave a
jump, too—fell short—caught by the rail—
knocked a tooth out; man drowning caught
me by the leg—kicked him loose—clambered
up—tumbled over a wood-pile—don't know
what happened—great crowd about me—
somebody bled me—lost senses—put to bed;
sound sleep all night—woke in the morning,
and found Jones standing by, looking at me,
and asking how I did. Jumped up quite lively,
but all over sore; thanked God to find him
alive; asked how many had been saved?—saw
a whole heap of 'em: all laughed, and Jones
said, I was out of my head. `No,' said I, `I
am well enough; glad to find so many saved
—what an 'orrid accident!' `What accident
do you mean?' said Jones, looking at
me, I never was looked at so in my life. `The
snag!' said I, `that 'ideous snag, that sunk
us! 'ow lucky there was another boat to pick
us up! quite a nice snug boat—what's her
name?'
“Gentlemen!” cried the narrator, here looking
round upon his deeply interested auditors,
with a martyr-like shrug and twist of the
Jones wanted to quiz me heven then! He—
he—you won't believe it!—he assured me,
upon his soul—yes gentlemen, he tried to
make me believe, we had not been snagged at
all! Yes, gentlemen; and the others all
joined him, swearing point-blank, (I never did
see gentlemen commit perjury so coolly,) that
nothing had happened to our boat at all, except
running into a bank once in the night,
from which we soon backed into deep water.
They swore there had been no snagging, no
drowning, no sinking, no jumping of crew and
passengers into another boat; they swore I
was still in the Samson Hagonistes, steaming
up the Mississippi, fourteen miles an hour!
They swore this, gentlemen! they all swore
it: heven then, hafter that dreadful haccident,
they—was there ever such a people?—they
thought of nothing but bamboozling me! I
showed 'em my bruises, (my head was all
broke and tied up,) my shatterd tooth, my
bandaged arm; and they—what do you think
they said? Why, that—(you'll scarce believe
me!) that I had jumped out of my berth
in my sleep, broke my head and tooth over
the table, and knocked my senses out; and
that they had bled me to bring me to life; in
snagging was a chimera—that I had dreamed
it!
“In short, gentlemen,” added Mr. Sniggins,
who could not sufficiently convey his
wonder at the extraordinary perversity of his
former fellow-voyagers,—“they conspired
against me, all of them, the crew and passengers
of the Samson Hagonistes; and even
those of the boat that had picked us up,
united in the same story. The captain of the
latter (I don't know his name,) had, to
humour the joke, given place to the master
of the Samson, who swore to me, with brazen
effrontery, that the boat was his boat,
the aforesaid Samson Hagonistes,—that the
strange passengers (that is, the passengers of
the second boat,) were persons he had taken
up at a village in the night; and these gentlemen
swore the same thing,—they were all
leagued against me.
“The quiz—that is, the attempt, for it
never succeeded—became hintolerable. My
friend Jones was the honly man who admitted
(and that in secret) that it was a quiz:
and but for him, I believe I should have gone
distracted among them. Never was man so
argued out of his senses! Argument failing,
the preposterous humbug; never was man so
furiously laughed at! In short, the thing was
hinsupportable, I could stand it no longer;
and feeling myself growing stronger and
stronger every hour, and finding that my
friend Jones was about to go ashore at a village
which we reached about mid-day, I resolved
to land with him, to escape what I
now considered the grossest himposition and
persecution. Ashore, accordingly, I went:
and there,” continued the narrator with emphasis,
“my friend Jones pointed out to me,
on the wheel-house of the retreating steamer,
the last and most astonishing proof of the
pains my tormentors had taken to make
their humbug as perfect as possible. I saw,
gentlemen,—what do you think,—what can
you think, I saw upon that wheel-house?”—
cried Mr. Sniggins, panting for breath.
“Why,” cried the youth who had once
before interrupted him, “you saw the name
of the steamboat, I suppose—What was it?”
“No, sir,” cried the traveller, opening his
eyes to express the intensity of his astonishment,
“they had daubed her name out, and
painted over it, in large letters, the name of
the Samson Hagonistes!!”—
“Passengers for Memphis!” roared the
clerk of the steamer, as, at that moment, our
hissing vessel struck the shore. Mr. Sniggins
vanished from our eyes, leaving all in a
stupor of admiration. The next instant he
was seen on the bank, with a porter shouldering
his luggage, and leading the way up the
bluff. The boat had pushed off; Mr. Sniggins
turned round to wave a courteous farewell.
His countenance, radiant with self-approving
sagacity, said, as plainly as countenance
could, “You see, gentlemen, I am
not the person to be humbugged!”
There was no standing that look: it broke
the charm that had kept his hearers dumb
with astonishment; and a roar of laughter,
such as added a year to the life of every soul
on board, it was so loud, so mirthful, so care-killing,
bore the farewell of his late companions
to the retreating Mr. Sniggins.
| Peter Pilgrim, or, A rambler's recollections | |