Chapter 11 - Page 2

nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these chutes were utter solitudes.
The dense, untouched forest overhung both banks of the crooked little crack,
and one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before.
The swinging grape-vines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by,
the flowering creepers waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks,
and all the spendthrift richness of the forest foliage, were wasted and thrown
away there. The chutes were lovely places to steer in; they were deep,
except at the head; the current was gentle; under the 'points' the water
was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluff that where the tender
willow thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you
tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.

Behind other islands we found wretched little farms, and wretcheder
little log-cabins; there were crazy rail fences sticking a foot
or two above the water, with one or two jeans-clad, chills-racked,
yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top-rail, elbows
on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging
the result at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth;
while the rest of the family and the few farm-animals were huddled
together in an empty wood-flat riding at her moorings close at hand.
In this flat-boat the family would have to cook and eat
and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days (or possibly
weeks), until the river should fall two or three feet and let
them get back to their log-cabin and their chills again--
chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise Providence
to enable them to take exercise without exertion.
And this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people
were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year:
by the December rise out of the Ohio, and the June rise out
of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations,
for they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead
now and then, and look upon life when a steamboat went by.
They appreciated the blessing, too, for they spread their mouths
and eyes wide open and made the most of these occasions.
Now what could these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying
of the blues during the low-water season!'

Once, in one of these lovely island chutes, we found
our course completely bridged by a great fallen tree.
This will serve to show how narrow some of the chutes were.
The passengers had an hour's recreation in a virgin wilderness,
while the boat-hands chopped the bridge away; for there was no such
thing as turning back, you comprehend.

From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have
no particular trouble in the