The thought of entering warm and sunny regions was, indeed, welcome to a man who had forced his way through rafts of ice, under cloudy skies, through a smoky atmosphere, and had partaken of food of the same chilling temperature for so many days.  This prospect of a genial clime, with the more comfortable camping and rowing it was sure to bring, gave new vigor to my arms, daily growing stronger with their task, and each long, steady pull told as it swept me down the river.

The faithful sneak-box had carried me more than a thousand miles since I entered her at Pittsburgh.  This, of course, includes the various detours made in searching for camping-grounds, frequent crossings of the wide river to avoid drift stuff; &c.  The descent of the Ohio had occupied about twenty-nine days, but many hours had been lost by storms keeping me in camp, and other unavoidable delays.  As an offset to these stoppages, it must be remembered that the current, increased by freshets, was with me, and to it, as much as to the industrious arms of the rower, must be given the credit for the long route gone over in so short a time, by so small a boat.

[Stern-wheel Western tow-boat pushing flatboats.]

CHAPTER VI.

DESCENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

Leave Cairo, Illinois.—­ The longest river in the world.—­ Book
geography and boat geography.—­ Chickasaw bluff.—­ Meeting with the
parakeets.—­ Fort Donaldson.—­ Earthquakes and lakes.—­ Weird beauty
of Reelfoot lake.—­ Joe Eckel’s bar.—­ Shanty-boat cooking.—­ Fort
pillow.—­ Memphis.—­ A negro justice.—­ “De common law ob
Mississippi.”

My floating home was now upon the broad Mississippi, which text-book geographers still insist upon calling “the Father of Waters—­the largest river in North America.”  Its current was about one-third faster than that of its tributary, the Ohio.  Its banks were covered with heavy forests, and for miles along its course the great wilderness was broken only by the half-tilled lands of the cotton-planter.

From Cairo southward the river is very tortuous, turning back upon itself as if imitating the convolutions of a crawling serpent, and following a channel of more than eleven hundred and fifty miles before its waters unite with those of the Gulf of Mexico.  This country between the mouth of the Ohio and the Gulf of Mexico is truly the delta of the Mississippi, for the river north of Cairo cuts through table-lands, and is confined to its old bed; but below the mouth of the Ohio the great river persistently seeks for new channels, and, as we approach New Orleans, we discover branches which carry off a considerable portion of its water to the Gulf coast in southwestern Louisiana.