Chapters 16-30 Summary and Analysis

In Chapter XVI, "Racing Days," Twain describes the excitement of boarding a steamboat when there was a race. He tells anecdotes about these times and notes that no passengers would go on the boats, since they needed to be as light as possible. However, he questions the claim that boats have gotten faster, proving that they have not with various calculations and charts.

Chapter XVII, "Cut-offs and Stephen," contains notes on various changes in the river, particularly difficulties caused by shortening it through cut-offs. Here, the river would change as men dug ditches and made it straighter, shortening the way. Because of this, there were stories, for example, of ghost boats that got stuck in the closed-off elbows forever. He ends the chapter with the story of Stephen, a man who borrowed money from everyone including a novice called...