When I returned to the pilot-house St. Louis
was gone and I was lost. Here was a piece of
river which was all down in my book, but I could make
neither head nor tail of it: you understand,
it was turned around. I had seen it when coming
up-stream, but I had never faced about to see how
it looked when it was behind me. My heart broke
again, for it was plain that I had got to learn this
troublesome river both ways.
The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to
‘look at the river.’ What is called
the ‘upper river’ (the two hundred miles
between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes
in) was low; and the Mississippi changes its channel
so constantly that the pilots used to always find it
necessary to run down to Cairo to take a fresh look,
when their boats were to lie in port a week; that
is, when the water was at a low stage. A deal
of this ‘looking at the river’ was done
by poor fellows who seldom had a berth, and whose
only hope of getting one lay in their being always
freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the
shoes of some reputable pilot, for a single trip,
on account of such pilot’s sudden illness, or
some other necessity. And a good many of them
constantly ran up and down inspecting the river, not
because they ever really hoped to get a berth, but
because (they being guests of the boat) it was cheaper
to ‘look at the river’ than stay ashore
and pay board. In time these fellows grew dainty
in their tastes, and only infested boats that had
an established reputation for setting good tables.
All visiting pilots were useful, for they were always
ready and willing, winter or summer, night or day,
to go out in the yawl and help buoy the channel or
assist the boat’s pilots in any way they could.
They were likewise welcome because all pilots are
tireless talkers, when gathered together, and as they
talk only about the river they are always understood
and are always interesting. Your true pilot
cares nothing about anything on earth but the river,
and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride
of kings.
We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along,
this trip. There were eight or ten; and there
was abundance of room for them in our great pilot-house.
Two or three of them wore polished silk hats, elaborate
shirt-fronts, diamond breast-pins, kid gloves, and
patent-leather boots. They were choice in their
English, and bore themselves with a dignity proper
to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as
pilots. The others were more or less loosely
clad, and wore upon their heads tall felt cones that
were suggestive of the days of the Commonwealth.
I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued,
not to say torpid. I was not even of sufficient
consequence to assist at the wheel when it was necessary
to put the tiller hard down in a hurry; the guest
that stood nearest did that when occasion required—and
this was pretty much all the time, because of the
crookedness of the channel and the scant water.
I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took
the hope all out of me. One visitor said to another—
