University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.

The next morning the crew were busy taking in
the freight of the Caution, which consisted principally
of bacon. Most of the hands were negroes, who
beguiled their task with their accustomed song, in
which all joined in the chorus, as they rolled the
heavy hogshead from the landing on to the steamer,
whose head still towered gallantly above the water,
though her deck was but a few inches from it. Several
of the negroes had their faces fantastically
marked with red paint. There was an Indian among
the firemen, who was a Cherokee, and a good hand,
if kept from the bottle. As the hands took their meals
from the rough boards laid on the bacon barrels, with
which the lower deck was crowded, Ralph, as he
looked over at them, observed the Cherokee was an
enormous feeder. His cheeks were big and flabby,
and his expression stolid and unobservant. Alas for
the red men! how changed their fate! The reflection
is a common-place one, but it struck Ralph none the
less because it has struck others. In the light canoe,
how gallantly this man's tribe has bounded over the
waters, monarch of the wave and wild. And knew
he this? perhaps not—and if he did, his look and

manner forced the conviction that he would not have
felt it.

Ralph remained on board all the morning of this
day, in lively conversation with several of his fellow
passengers. In the afternoon, he repaired with the
captain's counsel to the magistrate's, where he went
to take the depositions of the pilot and mate, in the
case of the flat-boat, as the captain had appealed to
a higher tribunal; and as his steamer would not be
at this place, in all human probability, at the sitting
of the court, the depositions were obtained to be read
on the trial. After the depositions were taken. Ralph
walked through the town, and greatly to his surprise,
met the brother of a lady whom he had formerly
known, and who had, a year ago, emigrated to this
flourishing place with her brothers, who were engaged
in mercantile operations.

They held a very lively chat until the approaching
twilight warned Ralph to be aboard, as the captain
had said they should leave for Louisville at night.
Accordingly, they left, and, while snug in their
berths, were borne to the chief city of Kentucky.
Speaking merely of appearances, not of her citizens,
Louisville loses in comparison with Cincinnati. The
landing is narrow, muddy, and uneven; but there is a
great bustle of business about it, more so, apparently,
than at the former city; but this may be owing to the
fact that the landing at Louisville, to use a western
phrase, is a mere circumstance to that of Cincinnati,
where, consequently, the operations of business are
more diffused.

As the Hail Columbia steamer was trying to force
her way through the mud at the entrance of the
canal, in which the boats are transported round the
falls, and as the Caution was to enter it the moment
she got out, and it was not known at what moment
she might succeed, Ralph thought he would step to
a bookstore in sight. He took the precaution of
asking the captain to send for him, should he not be
on board when the Caution was about starting.

Within an hour the captain sent for Ralph. With
a new work under his arm, he hastened on board.
The Hail Columbia had made some demonstrations
of freeing herself from the dominion of mud by the
press of her steam, and the exertions of her crew
with oars, spikes, poles, ropes, &c.; but they proved
so far powerless: she lay but a few feet from where
Ralph last saw her, only emitting an occasional long
breath, like a plethoric man of a hot day, while the
hands were busy unloading to lighten her. From
the deck of the Caution, Ralph for an hour observed
her efforts to come forth, and listened to the crew's
outlandish, odd remarks and jokes upon her. At
last, lumbering from side to side, like a sick elephant,
and creeping like a snail, not as is her wont,
the Hail Columbia passed out of the mouth of the
canal, followed by the General Clarke, which had
come up while the other was struggling to get
through, and had been a half hour astern waiting
her egress. They both dashed into the broad bosom
of the Ohio, the Hail Columbia leading, and made

for the wharf—then, for a moment, they contended
for the best wharfage, side by side. The Hail Columbia
came so near the Caution, that the hands of
the latter were called to keep her off, while the
Clarke pressed against the former, and it seemed
that the three would be jammed together; but the
Clarke shot ahead, and no damage was done.

The Caution now hurried to the mouth of the
canal, hoping, by a press of steam, to pass the barrier
of mud. She went gallantly to the place where
the Hail Columbia had been so long detained, a host
of idlers watching her, but on reaching it, was as
suddenly stopped as that personage who repaired to
the giant's cave without the magic word. Here
they had, emphatically, a trying time. The boat
was backed, and driven forward with the whole
power of her steam, to stick fast again. Then her
stern was dragged round by ropes affixed to stumps
and logs on the right side of the canal, and the effort
made to force her bow a few feet towards the left
bank, so as to loosen her from the mud. After a
desperate effort, the stern was moved, and then the
same means were applied to the bow, while her
wheels were kept in rapid motion. How powerless!
Like the flutter of a wounded eagle's wing, when
the giant bird is gasping in its last agonies. At last
she moved, and was forced so close to the right
bank, that the efforts of the crew to keep her from
pressing against the jagged stone wall of the canal,
—which certainly is not a model of architectural

skill—were entirely fruitless. There were several
hands grasping a long pole, and pressing with all their
might against the stones to fend off. Some pressed
with their hands, others with their feet, in many grotesque
attitudes. One Herculean fellow particularly
amused Ralph. He had planted his feet high up the
wall, and with both hands against the railing, and
his head nearly touching them, was shoving off
with all his might. While thus engaged he grunted
forth:

“Hang these canal fellows! they ought to pay us
for going through their canal, and not take pay. If
we pay 'em, why don't they get us through?”

After half an hour of unremitting exertions, the
boat was forced to the other side, and the same labour
renewed in hopes to advance her a few feet, in
which a huge rope was snapped like a pipe stem.
At last she lumbered through without unloading any
of her cargo. But the “winding way” of the canal,
its obstructions, its jagged walls! It is no wonder a
western steamer, with the fiery force within her, impelling
her ahead, and such impediments on both
sides, before and beneath, does not last long. Either
she must yield or they, and therefore it is no marvel
that buckets are broken, and timbers started. It
took the Caution three or four hours to pass through
the canal, and it was one continued struggle with
obstructions. Here the buckets were smashed with
a tremendous crash, there she bounced against a
rock that seemed to have entered the keel, which

nearly all the time was dragging against the points
of stone with which the canal is built. It was a
source of congratulation to all the passengers, when
the Caution had passed the locks, and was once
more in the Ohio, where she lay by until late the
next morning, to repair the wheels.

Once more she was bounding on the Ohio. A
lovelier sight than the one above him Ralph thought
he had never witnessed. The moon arose like a
virgin queen, who with imperial majesty advances
to her throne, and here and there, in the blue depths
of heaven, the beauties of her court, a beaming star
looked forth. For several melancholy, but not unpleasing
hours, Ralph sat alone on the hurricane
deck, and looked round upon the night. In rippling
sheets of silver the river bounded, and the waves the
steamer threw from her side and left in her track,
seemed like smiles beamed forth by La Belle Revere,
as she welcomed her into her bosom. While far behind,
a melancholy shade spread o'er the waters,
like the parting regret of woman, watching when
her lover's gone. The overhanging banks were
shadowed in the river, in a thousand fantastic
shapes, while the bold bluffs and high woodlands
looked down upon her like a sentinel who watched
and guarded her course. How the past crowded
upon Ralph; nor was it strange that at such an hour
it should come. And her he loved and sought! was
she well? was she all unchanged? had her bright
eye dimmed the least? how touchingly beautiful she

looked when they parted. And when he should
meet her, would her heart be the same, and her faith
undoubting?

The Caution took on board the next day, a gentleman
who was going south, and who had brought
with him four or five horses, and a little negro boy
to attend them. The little blacky looked wobegone
and worried, and gaped about the steamer, and into
the splendidly furnished cabin like one wonder-stricken.
But he soon made the acquaintance of
Antony, the little Dutch cabin boy, and not only became
reconciled but pleased, for in half an hour afterwards,
he was assisting Antony on the guards to
clean the knives, and grinning from ear to ear with
delight and amazement at the account Antony was
giving him of steamboating, and the innumerable fips
he had levied on the passengers. Antony had made
but two trips to New Orleans, and when he first
went on the boat, he was a dull, sheepish boy. Antony
since then had learned a thing or two, and was
conscious of it. His eye, which was much sprightlier
than it had been, betrayed it. His manner of
travelled superiority over the black boy, was just like
that of a gentleman who has taken the grand tour,
towards his neighbour who has never quitted his fireside.
Ralph, who had been observing Antony and
the black boy, was attracted from them by strange
oaths, spoken by some one in a passion, and shouts
of laughter from many voices, from the lower deck.

He advanced to a part of the upper deck, where he
could see what was going on below, and there beheld
the hands in the act of tying, as he was informed,
one of the deck passengers to the rail, for
presuming, by way of amusement, to heave the lead
and test the depth of the Ohio. They had the amateur
navigator on his knees, with his chest against
the rail and his hands over it, and in not the gentlest
manner, with strong cords, were binding him to it,
while he, uttering imprecations and solicitations in the
same breath, trying now to extricate himself, and
now yielding to their superior force, was every moment
losing his relish for the joke, as theirs increased,
becoming more angry, as he was rendered
less capable of resistance. He at last grew furious,
and made several ineffectual efforts to strike them
with the lead which he held in his bound hand, while
they, nothing fearing or caring, tied him hand and
foot. Ralph was amused the while with an old tar,
who had quit the ocean for the river, because he
liked the grub (alias the food) better on the steamers.
He sat on the rail within five or six feet of the
parties, with an enormous south-wester on his head,
a cap made of tarpaulin, with scarcely any brim before,
but which spread out so amply behind as entirely
to cover the collar of his pea-jacket, and thus
protected his neck and head from the rain, or the
wood, which he has to assist in carrying from the
shore to the boat when the steamer is loading. Jack,
seemingly a listless spectator, “a looker on in Venice,”
continued slily to hand, unobserved by the
deck passengers, bits of rope to the wrong doers.

As the amateur navigator turned his head first to
one and then to the other, remonstrating, or imprecating,
and latterly vowing unmitigating vengeance,
the old tar, whenever he caught his eye, would instantly
assume a look of most tender commiseration
for his condition. When at last the hands, filled with
fun, left the poor fellow tied, and walked away to
enjoy it, Jack took a seat by him, and expatiated
upon the enormity of any one, but by the captain's
orders, heaving the lead, saying it was a wonder
they had not chucked him into the boiler, or into
the river, or landed him in the woods, and left him
there after an “almighty lynching with the rope's
end.”

“I'd like to loosen you,” said Jack, “but do you
see they might serve me just so if I did.”

“O! no they wouldn't,” replied the bound man in
a low voice, “I wish you would. If you do I'll
treat, stranger, to a certainty.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I'll try,” casting at the same
time a pretended furtive glance at the hands, as if to
see if they were observing him, he proceeded to untie
him. “It shall be done,” he continued, as he unwound
the rope, “but don't say a word about it to
them fellows, if you do, they'll poke you into a treat
for the whole. We can just take the bottle to ourselves

to-night, when I'm off watch—you can get
the cretur at the bar. These fellows, do you see,
are real alagators, you must let 'em do with you
just as they damn please—but you may depend on
me.”