Four Months in a Sneak-Box Part 8

The little skiff went on its way down the Ohio, and was met with enthusiasm at each landing. The citizens of Hickman, Kentucky, described the voyage of Mr. Cloud as one continuous ovation. Five thousand people gathered along the banks below that town to welcome "the poor northern man who was rowing to New Orleans on a five- thousand-dollar bet, hoping to win his wager that he might have means to support his large family of children." One old gentleman seemed to have his doubts about the truth of this statement, "for," said he, "when the celebrated oarsman appeared, and landed, he repaired immediately to a low drinking-saloon, and announced that he was the greatest oarsman in America," &c.

The "boys" about the town subscribed a fund, and invested it in five gallons of whiskey, which Cloud took aboard his skiff when he departed. He plainly stated that the conditions of the bet prevented his sleeping under a roof while on his way; so he curled himself up in his blankets and slept on the veranda floors. The man must have had great powers of endurance, or he could not have rowed so long in the hot sun at that malarious season of the year. His chief sustenance was whiskey; and at one town, near Cairo, I was a.s.sured by the best authority, ten gallons of that fiery liquor were stowed away in his skiff. Such disregard of nature's laws soon told upon the plucky fellow, and his voyage came to an end when almost in sight of his goal. The malaria he was breathing and the whiskey he was drinking set fire to his blood, and the fatal congestive chills were the inevitable result.

The papers of New Orleans had announced the approach of the great oarsman, and the planters were ready to give him a cordial welcome, when one day a man who was walking near the sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi, in the parish of Iberville, and looking out upon the river, saw a boat of a peculiar model whirling around in the eddies. He at once launched his boat and pushed out to the object which had excited his curiosity.

Stretched upon the bottom of the strange craft was a man dressed in the garb of a northern boatman. At first he appeared to be dead; but a careful examination showed that life was not yet extinct. The unknown man was carried to the nearest plantation, and there, among strangers whose hearts beat kindly for the unfortunate boatman, John C. Cloud expired without uttering one word. The coroner,

[Dying in his boat.]

Mr. Adonis Le Blanc, found upon the person of the dead man a memorandum-book which told of the distances made each day upon the river, while the entries of the closing days showed how the keeper of the log had suffered from the "heavy shakes" occasioned by the malaria and his own imprudence. The story of the cruise was recorded on the boat. Men and women had written their names inside the frail sh.e.l.l, with the dates of her arrival at different localities along the route.

I afterwards examined the boat at Biloxi, on the Gulf of Mexico, where it was kept as a curiosity in the boat-house of a citizen of New Orleans.

They buried the unfortunate man upon the plantation, and Mr. Clay Gourrier took charge of his effects. The most remarkable thing about this rowing match was the credulity of the people along the route.

They accepted Cloud's statement without stopping to consider that if there were any truth in it, the other side, with their five thousand dollars at stake, would surely take some interest in the matter, and have men posted along the route to see that the bet was fairly won.

The fact that no bet had been made never seemed to dawn upon them; but, like too many, they sympathized without reasoning.

Being forced to abandon all hopes of taking the Bayou Manchac and the interesting country of the Acadians in my route southward, I rowed down the river, past the curious old town of Plaquemine, and by four o'clock in the afternoon commenced to search for an island or creek where a good camping-ground for Sunday might be found. The buildings of White Castle Plantation soon arose on the right bank, and as I approached the little cooperage-shop of the large estate, which was near the water, a kindly hail came from the master-cooper and his a.s.sistant. Acceding to their desire "to look at the boat," I let the two men drag her ash.o.r.e, and while they examined the craft, I studied the representatives of two very different types of laboring-men. One was from Madison, Indiana; the other belonged to the poor white cla.s.s of the south. We built a fire near the boat, and pa.s.sed half the night in conversation.

These men gave me much valuable information about Louisiana. The southern cooper had lived much among the bayous and swamps of that region of the state subjected to overflow. He was an original character, and never so happy as when living a Robinson Crusoe life in the woods. His favorite expression seemed to be, "Oh, shucks!" and his yarns were so interlarded with this exclamation, that in giving one of his stories I must ask the reader to imagine that expressive utterance about every other word. Affectionately hugging his knee, and generously expectorating as he made a transfer of his quid from one side of his mouth to the other, he said:

"A fellow don't always want company in the woods. If you have a pardner, he ort to be jes like yourself, or you'll be sartin to fall out. I was riving out s.h.i.+ngles and coopers' stock once with a pardner, and times got mighty hard, sowe turned fishermen. There was some piles standing in Plaquemine Bayou, and the drift stuff collected round them and made a sort of little island. Me and Bill Bates went to work and rived out some lengths of cypress, and built a snug shanty on top of the piles. As it wasn't real estate we was on, n.o.body couldn't drive us off; so we fished for the Plaquemine folks.

"By-and-by a king-snake swimmed over to our island, and tuck up his abode in a hole in a log. The cuss got kind of affectionate, and after a while crawled right into our hut to catch flies and other varmin. At last he got so tame he'd let me scratch his back. Then he tuck to our moss bed, and used up a considerable portion of his time there. Bill Bates hadn't the manners of a hog, and he kept a-droppin' hints to me, every few days, that he'd 'drap into that snake some night and squeeze the life out of him.' This made me mad, and I nat'rally tuck the snake's part, particularly as he would gobble up and crush the neck of every water-snake that c.u.m ash.o.r.e on our island. One thing led to another, till Bill Bates swore he'd kill my snake. Sez I to him, 'Billum,' (I always called him Billum when I MEANT BIZNESS,) 'ef you hurt a hair of the head of my snake, I'll hop on to you.' That settled our pardners.h.i.+p. Bill Bates knowed what I meant, and he gathered up his traps and skedaddled.

"Then I went to New Orleans, and out to Lake Pontchartrain, to fish for market. A lot of cussed Chinese was in the bizness, and when they found COa.r.s.e fish in their nets, they'd kill 'em and heave 'em overboard. Now, no man's got a rite to waste anything, so we fishermen begun to pay sum attention to the opium-smokers in good arnest."

Here I interrupted the speaker to ask him if it would be safe for me to travel alone through the fis.h.i.+ng-grounds of these Chinese.

"Oh, shucks! safe enuf now," he answered. "Once they was a bad set; but a change has c.u.m over 'em--they're CIVILIZED now."

A vision of schools and earnest missionary work was before me while I asked HOW their civilization had been accomplished.

"Shucks! WE dun it--WE WHITE FISHERMEN civilized 'em," was the emphatic reply; "and not a bit too soon either, for the wasteful cusses got so bad they wasn't satisfied with chucking dead fish overboard, but would go on to the prairies, and after using the gra.s.s cabins we WHITE fishermen had built to go into in bad weather, the b.l.o.o.d.y furiners would burn them up to bother us. They thort they'd drive us teetotally out of the diggins; so we thort it was time to CIVILIZE 'em. We hid in the long gra.s.s fur a few nights and watched the cusses. One morning a Chinaman was found dead in a cabin. Pretty soon after, one or two others was found floatin' round loose, in the same way; and after that lesson or two the fellers got CIVILIZED; and you needn't fear goin' among 'em now, fur they're harmless as kittens.

They don't kill coa.r.s.e fish now fur the fun of it. Oh, shucks! there's nothin' like a little healthy CIVILIZATION fur Chinamen and Injuns.

They both needs it, and, any way, this is a WHITE MAN'S country."

"And what of negroes?" I asked.

"Oh, the n.i.g.g.e.rs is good enuf, ef you let 'em alone. The Carpet- baggers from up north has filled their heads with all kinds of stuff, so now they think, nat'rally enuf, that they ought to be office- holders, when they can't read or write no more than I can. I'd like to take a hand CIVILIZING some of them Carpet-baggers! They needs it more than the Chinamen or Injuns."

During part of the evening, Mr. Sewall, the nephew of the owner of the plantation, was with us round our camp-fire. We spoke of Longfellow's Evangeline, the bay-tree, and Atchafalaya River, which he a.s.sured me was slowly widening its current, and would in time, perhaps, become the main river of the basin, and finally deprive the Mississippi of a large portion of its waters. From his boyhood he had watched the falling in of the banks with the widening and increasing of the strength of the current of the Atchafalaya Bayou. Once it was impa.s.sable for steamers; but a little dredging opened the way, while the Mississippi and Red rivers had both contributed to its volume of water until it had deepened sufficiently for United States gunboats to ascend it during the late war. It follows the shortest course from the mouth of Red River to the Gulf of Mexico.

I left White Castle Plantation early on Monday morning, when I discovered a lot of fine sweet-potatoes stowed away in the hold of my boat. The northern cooper had purchased them during the night, and having too much delicacy to speak of his gift, secreted them in the boat. I fully appreciated this kind act, knowing it to be a mark of the poor man's sympathy for his northern countryman. The levee for miles was lined with negroes and white men gathering a harvest of firewood from the drift stuff. One old negro, catching sight of my boat, called out to his companion, "Randal, look at dat boat! De longer we libs, de mor you sees. What sort o' queer boat is she?"

Twenty miles below White Castle Plantation is the valuable sugar estate called Houmas, the property of General Wade Hampton and Colonel J. T. Preston. General Hampton does not reside upon his plantation, but makes Georgia his home. Beyond Houmas the parish of St. James skirts the river for twenty miles. Three miles back from the river, on the left side of the Mississippi, and fifty-five miles from New Orleans, is the little settlement of Grand Point, the place most famed in St. James for perique tobacco. The first settler who had the hardihood to enter these solitudes was named Maximilian Roussel. He purchased a small tract of land from the government, and in the year 1824 shouldered his axe and camping-utensils, and started for his new domain. He soon built a hut, and at once began the laborious task of clearing his land, which was located in a dense cypress swamp, alive with wild beasts and alligators. A rough house was completed at the end of a year, and into it Roussel moved his family, consisting of a wife and four children. Here "he lived till he died," as it has been expressively said.

Octave and Louis, two of his sons, and both now grandfathers, still live on the old place, and are highly respected. Only a few years ago the old homestead echoed to the voices of five of Roussel's sons, with their families; but death has taken two, one has removed, and two only now remain to relate the history of the almost unimaginable hards.h.i.+ps encountered by the old and hardy pioneer.

There are at present nineteen families in the settlement, and they are all engaged in the cultivation of perique tobacco. An average farm on Grant Point consists of eight acres, and the average yield of manufactured tobacco is four hundred pounds to the acre. These simple- hearted people seem to be very happy and content. They have no saloons or stores of any kind, but their place is well filled with a neat Catholic church and a substantial school-house. Every man, woman, and child is a devout Roman Catholic, and in their daily intercourse with each other the stranger among them hears a patois something like the French language. The whole of the land cultivated by these people would not make more than an average farm in the north, while compared with the vast sugar estates on every side of it the dimensions are infinitesimal.

Villages were now picturesquely grouped along the sh.o.r.es, the most conspicuous feature in each being the large Catholic church, showing the religious belief of the people. Curious little stores were perched behind the now high banks of the levee. The signs over the doors bore such inscriptions as, "The Red Store," "The White Store," "St. John's Store," "Poor Family Store," &c. Busy life was seen on every side, but here, as elsewhere in the south, men seemed always to have time to give a civil answer to any necessary inquiries.

Only a month after I had descended this part of the river, Captain Boyton, clothed in his famous swimming-suit, paddled his way down the current from Bayou Goula to New Orleans, a distance of one hundred miles. The incidents of this curious voyage are now a part of the river's history, and this seems the place for the brave captain to tell his story. He says:

"I arrived at Bayou Goula on the 'Bismarck,' about six o'clock on Thursday morning; and, after considerable delay, succeeded in obtaining quarters at the Buena Vista Hotel in that village. At that point I engaged the services of a colored man named Brown, to pilot me down the river. At ten o'clock I took a breakfast, consisting of five eggs, bread, and a gla.s.s of beer, and ate nothing else during the day.

At five o'clock precisely I took to the water and began my trip down to the city of New Orleans--a trip which proved to be a much more arduous one than I had antic.i.p.ated, in consequence of the want of buoyancy in the water, the terrible counter-currents, and the large amount of drift-wood. It was some time before I could master the difficulty about the drift-wood, and at one time I was so annoyed and bruised by the floating debris, that I became somewhat apprehensive about the success of my enterprise. In some of the strong eddies particularly the logs played such fantastic tricks, rolling over and over with their jagged limbs and again standing upon their ends, that I feared I must either be carried under, or have my dress stripped completely off. By constant watching, however, I was enabled to steer out of harm's way and to keep steadily moving down the stream.

"Above Donaldsonville I was met by a fleet of boats filled with spectators, who accompanied me down to that point, which I reached about eight o'clock in the evening. The town was illuminated, and the citizens tendered me a polite invitation to land and take supper; but of course I was obliged to decline, accepting in lieu a drink and a sandwich. Of the sandwich I ate only the bread.

[Boyton descending the Mississippi.]

"Below Donaldsonville I was caught in the great eddy. It was about four o'clock in the morning when I got into it, and it was good daylight before I succeeded in getting out again into the down-stream current. It was a singular sensation, this going round and round over the same ground, so to speak, and for the life of me I could not understand how I seemed now and then to be pa.s.sing the same plantation-houses and familiar landmarks. The skiff which accompanied me was also in the same predicament, sometimes pulling up and sometimes pulling down stream. I tried to guide myself by the north star, but before I was aware of it that luminary, which ought to have kept directly in my front, would pop up, as it were, behind me, and destroy all my calculations. When daylight came, however, and the fog lifted sufficiently, I was able to paddle out into the middle of the stream, and keep down it once again.

"Early in the morning, above Bonnet Carre, I asked several persons on sh.o.r.e for some coffee, but most of them seemed too much excited to attend to this pressing want of mine. At last a gentleman who spoke French got his wife to go and get me a cup of coffee, after drinking which I felt greatly refreshed. The sandwich and drink at Donaldsonville, and this cup of coffee next morning, were the only things in the shape of refreshments which I took during the twenty- four hours' voyage. At times I was almost certain I was being attacked by alligators, and thought I should have to use the knife with which I always go armed, but it only proved to be the annoying drift-wood in which I would become fearfully entangled. I only suffered from the cold in my feet. These I warmed, however, after the sun came out, by inflating the lower part of my dress, and holding them up out of the water.

"The banks all along the way were crowded with people to see me pa.s.s down. At one point, when I had allowed the air to escape from the lower part of my dress, and was going along rapidly, with nothing showing above water but my head and my paddle, I met a skiff, which contained a negro man and woman, who were crossing the river. The woman became fearfully alarmed, and her screams could have been heard for miles away. The man pulled for dear life, the woman in the stern acting the c.o.c.kswain, and urging the boat forward in the funniest manner possible.

"While in the great eddy I drifted into an immense flock of ducks, and but for the noise made by those in the skiff I could easily have caught several of them, as they were not at all disturbed by my presence, but swam leisurely all about me.

"At the Red Church, the wind blowing up against the current kicked up a nasty sea, which gave me a great deal of trouble. By sinking down very low, however, and allowing only my head above water, and taking the shower-bath as it came upon me continuously, I was enabled to keep up my headway down stream. When at my best speed I easily kept ahead of the boats, going sometimes at the rate of seven miles an hour without difficulty.

"This feat was a much more arduous one than my trip across the English Channel. Then I only slept two hours, and was up again, feeling all right; but when this thing was over I slept all night, had a refres.h.i.+ng bath, and still suffered from fatigue, to say nothing of my swollen wrists and neck-glands."

Having finished his remarkable voyage successfully, Captain Boyton concluded that his life-saving dress had been fully tested in America, and determined to rest on his laurels, and avoid Mississippi debris in future. In consequence of being caught in the eddy below Donaldsonville, this great swimmer estimated the distance he traversed from Bayou Goula to New Orleans as fully one hundred and twenty miles.

[* footnote: Since this voyage ended, Captain Boyton has, in the same manner, successfully descended the Ohio and the Mississippi rivers from Cairo to New Orleans.]

About dusk I rowed into a grove of young willows, on the left bank of the river, on the Shepard Plantation. My boat was soon securely fastened to a tree, and having partaken of my frugal meal I retired. A comfortable night's rest was, however, out of the question, for the pa.s.sing steamers tossed me about in a most unceremonious manner, seeming to me in my dreams to be chanting for their lullaby, "Rock-a- by baby on the tree-top." Indeed, the baby on the tree-top was in an enviable position compared with my kaleidoscopic movements among the swashy seas. Many visions were before me that night, of the numerous little sufferers who are daily slung backwards and forwards in those pernicious instruments of torture called cradles.

Memory brought also another picture I hoped it had been my good fortune to forget. It was a scene on the veranda of a country house.

Five sisters, all pretty girls, whose grace arid vivacity I had often admired, were there, each in her rocking-chair, and each swinging to and fro, as though perpetual motion had been discovered. Why must an American woman have a rocking-chair? In no other country in the world, excepting among the creoles of South America, is this awkward piece of furniture so popular. Burn the cradles and taboo the graceless rocking-chair, and our children will have steadier heads and our women learn the attractive grace of quiet ease.

The following day I struggled against head winds and swashy seas, until their combined forces proved too much for me, and succ.u.mbing as amiably as possible under the circ.u.mstances, the little white boat was run ash.o.r.e on the Picou Plantation, where the coast was fortunately low. The rain and wind held me prisoner there until midnight, when, with a rising moon to cheer me, I forced a pa.s.sage through the blockade of driftwood, and being once more on the river, waved an adieu to my last camp on the Mississippi.

I was now only thirty-seven miles from New Orleans. Rowing rapidly down the broad river, now shrouded in gloom, with the fleecy scuds flying overhead in the stormy firmament, I fully realized that I was soon to leave the n.o.ble stream which had borne me so long and so safely upon its bosom. A thunder-shower rose in the west--its ma.s.sive blackness lighted by the vivid flashes which played over its surface.

The houses of the planters along the river's bank were enveloped in foliage, and the air was so redolent with the fragrance of flowers that I seemed to be floating through an Eden. The wind and the clouds disappeared together, and a glorious sunrise gave promise of a perfect day. With the light came life. Where all had been silent and restful, man and beast now made known their presence. The rising sun seemed to be the signal for taking hold where they had let go the night before.

The crowing of c.o.c.ks, the cries of plantation hands, the hungry neigh of horses, the hundred and one sounds of this work-a-day world, greeted my ears, while my eyes, taking a rapid survey of the surrounding steamers, coal-arks, and barges of every description, carried quickly to my brain the intelligence that I was near the Crescent City of the Gulf. Soon forests of masts rose upon the horizon, for there were vessels of all nations ranged along the levee of this once prosperous city.

Anxious to escape the officious kindness always encountered about the docks of southern cities, I peered about, hoping to find some quiet corner in which to moor my floating home. Near the foot of Louisiana Avenue I saw the fine boat-house of the "Southern Boat Club," and being pleasantly hailed by one of its members, hove to, and told him of my perplexity. With the ever ready hospitality of a southerner, he a.s.sured me that the boat-house was at my disposal; and calling a friend to a.s.sist, we easily hauled the duck-boat out of the water, up the inclined plane, into her new quarters.

The row upon the Mississippi from its junction with the Ohio down to New Orleans, including many stoppages, had occupied nineteen days, and had been accelerated by considerable night voyaging. The flow of the Mississippi was about one third faster than that of the Ohio. Lloyd's River Map gives the distance from the mouth of the Ohio to the centre of New Orleans as ten hundred and fifty-five miles, but the surveys of the United States Engineer Corps make this crooked route ten hundred and twenty miles only.

My floating home being now in good hands, its captain turned his back on the water, and took a turn on land, leaving the river bounded by its narrow horizon, but teeming with a strange, nomadic life, the various types of which afforded a field where much gleaning would end in but a scanty harvest of good. Already my ears caught, in fancy, the sound of the restless waves of the briny waters of the Gulf of Mexico, and my spirits rose at the prospect of the broader experiences about to be encountered.

CHAPTER VIII.

NEW ORLEANS

BIENVILLE AND THE CITY OF THE PAST.-- FRENCH AND SPANISH RULE IN THE NEW WORLD.-- LOUISIANA CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES.-- CAPTAIN EADS AND HIS JETTIES.-- TRANSPORTATION OF CEREALS TO EUROPE.-- CHARLES MORGAN.- - CREOLE TYPES OF CITIZENS.-- LEVEES AND CRAWFISH.-- DRAINAGE OF THE CITY INTO LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN.