unhanged, at that day—Bridal Chamber whose
pretentious flummery was necessarily overawing to
the now tottering intellect of that hosannahing citizen.
Every state-room had its couple of cozy clean bunks,
and perhaps a looking-glass and a snug closet; and
sometimes there was even a washbowl and pitcher, and
part of a towel which could be told from mosquito
netting by an expert—though generally these
things were absent, and the shirt-sleeved passengers
cleansed themselves at a long row of stationary bowls
in the barber shop, where were also public towels,
public combs, and public soap.
Take the steamboat which I have just described, and
you have her in her highest and finest, and most pleasing,
and comfortable, and satisfactory estate. Now
cake her over with a layer of ancient and obdurate
dirt, and you have the Cincinnati steamer awhile ago
referred to. Not all over—only inside;
for she was ably officered in all departments except
the steward’s.
But wash that boat and repaint her, and she would
be about the counterpart of the most complimented
boat of the old flush times: for the steamboat
architecture of the West has undergone no change; neither
has steamboat furniture and ornamentation undergone
any.
Where the river, in the Vicksburg region, used
to be corkscrewed, it is now comparatively straight—made
so by cut-off; a former distance of seventy miles
is reduced to thirty-five. It is a change which
threw Vicksburg’s neighbor, Delta, Louisiana,
out into the country and ended its career as a river
town. Its whole river-frontage is now occupied
by a vast sand-bar, thickly covered with young trees—a
growth which will magnify itself into a dense forest
by-and-bye, and completely hide the exiled town.
In due time we passed Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war
fame, and reached Natchez, the last of the beautiful
hill-cities—for Baton Rouge, yet to come,
is not on a hill, but only on high ground. Famous
Natchez-under-the-hill has not changed notably in
twenty years; in outward aspect— judging
by the descriptions of the ancient procession of foreign
tourists—it has not changed in sixty; for
it is still small, straggling, and shabby. It
had a desperate reputation, morally, in the old keel-boating
and early steamboating times—plenty of drinking,
carousing, fisticuffing, and killing there, among the
riff-raff of the river, in those days. But Natchez-on-top-of-the-hill
is attractive; has always been attractive. Even
Mrs. Trollope (1827) had to confess its charms:
’At one or two points the wearisome level line
is relieved by bluffs, as they call the short intervals
of high ground. The town of Natchez is beautifully
situated on one of those high spots. The contrast
that its bright green hill forms with the dismal line
of black forest that stretches on every side, the
abundant growth of the pawpaw, palmetto and orange,
the copious variety of sweet-scented flowers that flourish
there, all make it appear like an oasis in the desert.
Natchez is the furthest point to the north at which
oranges ripen in the open air, or endure the winter
without shelter. With the exception of this sweet
spot, I thought all the little towns and villages we
passed wretched-looking in the extreme.’
