Near the mouth of the river several islands were missing—­washed away.  Cairo was still there—­easily visible across the long, flat point upon whose further verge it stands; but we had to steam a long way around to get to it.  Night fell as we were going out of the ‘Upper River’ and meeting the floods of the Ohio.  We dashed along without anxiety; for the hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream a long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone into the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has ’made down’ and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly.  The Mississippi is a just and equitable river; it never tumbles one man’s farm overboard without building a new farm just like it for that man’s neighbor.  This keeps down hard feelings.

Going into Cairo, we came near killing a steamboat which paid no attention to our whistle and then tried to cross our bows.  By doing some strong backing, we saved him; which was a great loss, for he would have made good literature.

Cairo is a brisk town now; and is substantially built, and has a city look about it which is in noticeable contrast to its former estate, as per Mr. Dickens’s portrait of it.  However, it was already building with bricks when I had seen it last—­which was when Colonel (now General) Grant was drilling his first command there.  Uncle Mumford says the libraries and Sunday-schools have done a good work in Cairo, as well as the brick masons.  Cairo has a heavy railroad and river trade, and her situation at the junction of the two great rivers is so advantageous that she cannot well help prospering.

When I turned out, in the morning, we had passed Columbus, Kentucky, and were approaching Hickman, a pretty town, perched on a handsome hill.  Hickman is in a rich tobacco region, and formerly enjoyed a great and lucrative trade in that staple, collecting it there in her warehouses from a large area of country and shipping it by boat; but Uncle Mumford says she built a railway to facilitate this commerce a little more, and he thinks it facilitated it the wrong way—­took the bulk of the trade out of her hands by ’collaring it along the line without gathering it at her doors.’

Chapter 26 Under Fire

Talk began to run upon the war now, for we were getting down into the upper edge of the former battle-stretch by this time.  Columbus was just behind us, so there was a good deal said about the famous battle of Belmont.  Several of the boat’s officers had seen active service in the Mississippi war-fleet.  I gathered that they found themselves sadly out of their element in that kind of business at first, but afterward got accustomed to it, reconciled to it, and more or less at home in it.  One of our pilots had his first war experience in the Belmont fight, as a pilot on a boat in the Confederate service.  I had often had a curiosity to know how a green hand might feel, in his maiden battle, perched all solitary and alone on high in a pilot house, a target for Tom, Dick and Harry, and nobody at his elbow to shame him from showing the white feather when matters grew hot and perilous around him; so, to me his story was valuable—­it filled a gap for me which all histories had left till that time empty.