Chapter 23

Chapter 23
Traveling Incognito

MY idea was, to tarry a while in every town between St. Louis
and New Orleans. To do this, it would be necessary to go from place
to place by the short packet lines. It was an easy plan to make,
and would have been an easy one to follow, twenty years ago-but not now.
There are wide intervals between boats, these days.

I wanted to begin with the interesting old French settlements
of St. Genevieve and Kaskaskia, sixty miles below St. Louis.
There was only one boat advertised for that section--
a Grand Tower packet. Still, one boat was enough; so we went
down to look at her. She was a venerable rack-heap, and a fraud
to boot; for she was playing herself for personal property,
whereas the good honest dirt was so thickly caked all over
her that she was righteously taxable as real estate.
There are places in New England where her hurricane deck
would be worth a hundred and fifty dollars an acre.
The soil on her forecastle was quite good--the new crop of wheat
was already springing from the cracks in protected places.
The companionway was of a dry sandy character, and would
have been well suited for grapes, with a southern exposure
and a little subsoiling. The soil of the boiler deck
was thin and rocky, but good enough for grazing purposes.
A colored boy was on watch here--nobody else visible.
We gathered from him that this calm craft would go, as advertised,
'if she got her trip;' if she didn't get it, she would wait
for it.

'Has she got any of her trip?'

'Bless you, no, boss. She ain't unloadened, yit. She only come
in dis mawnin'.'

He was uncertain as to when she might get her trip, but thought it
might be to-morrow or maybe next day. This would not answer at all;
so we had to give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm.
We had one more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,'
was to leave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave
up the idea of stopping off here and there, as being impracticable.
She was neat, clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck,
and bought some cheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a
venerable Irishman with a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily
in the socket, and from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis
thirty-four years and had never been across the river during that period.
Then he wandered into a very flowing lecture, filled with classic names
and allusions, which was quite wonderful for fluency until the fact became
rather apparent that this was not the first time, nor perhaps the fiftieth,
that the speech had been delivered. He was a good deal of a character,
and much better company than the sappy literature he