For, three months later, August 8, while I was
writing one of these foregoing chapters, the New York
papers brought this telegram—
A terrible disaster.
Seventeen persons killed by an
explosion on the steamer ‘gold
dust.’
’Nashville, Aug. 7.—A despatch
from Hickman, Ky., says—
’The steamer “Gold Dust” exploded
her boilers at three o’clock to-day, just after
leaving Hickman. Forty-seven persons were scalded
and seventeen are missing. The boat was landed
in the eddy just above the town, and through the exertions
of the citizens the cabin passengers, officers, and
part of the crew and deck passengers were taken ashore
and removed to the hotels and residences. Twenty-four
of the injured were lying in Holcomb’s dry-goods
store at one time, where they received every attention
before being removed to more comfortable places.’
A list of the names followed, whereby it appeared
that of the seventeen dead, one was the barkeeper;
and among the forty-seven wounded, were the captain,
chief mate, second mate, and second and third clerks;
also Mr. Lem S. Gray, pilot, and several members of
the crew.
In answer to a private telegram, we learned that none
of these was severely hurt, except Mr. Gray.
Letters received afterward confirmed this news, and
said that Mr. Gray was improving and would get well.
Later letters spoke less hopefully of his case; and
finally came one announcing his death. A good
man, a most companionable and manly man, and worthy
of a kindlier fate.
We took passage in a Cincinnati boat for New
Orleans; or on a Cincinnati boat—either
is correct; the former is the eastern form of putting
it, the latter the western.
Mr. Dickens declined to agree that the Mississippi
steamboats were ‘magnificent,’ or that
they were ’floating palaces,’—terms
which had always been applied to them; terms which
did not over-express the admiration with which the
people viewed them.
Mr. Dickens’s position was unassailable, possibly;
the people’s position was certainly unassailable.
If Mr. Dickens was comparing these boats with the
crown jewels; or with the Taj, or with the Matterhorn;
or with some other priceless or wonderful thing which
he had seen, they were not magnificent—he
was right. The people compared them with what
they had seen; and, thus measured, thus judged, the
boats were magnificent—the term was the
correct one, it was not at all too strong. The
people were as right as was Mr. Dickens. The
steamboats were finer than anything on shore.
Compared with superior dwelling-houses and first-class
hotels in the Valley, they were indubitably magnificent,
they were ‘palaces.’ To a few people
living in New Orleans and St. Louis, they were not
magnificent, perhaps; not palaces; but to the great
majority of those populations, and to the entire populations
spread over both banks between Baton Rouge and St.
Louis, they were palaces; they tallied with the citizen’s
dream of what magnificence was, and satisfied it.
