“Well, as she was close to the bank, I got in.  The owner was General John Meyer, from Vincennes, and his three sons, the colonel, the captain, and the judge.  They lent me a sort of thing, which many years before had probably been a horse-blanket.  With it I covered myself, while one of the ’boys spread my clothes to dry, and, as I had nothing left in the world, except thirty dollars in my pocket-book, I kept that constantly in my hand till the evening, when, my clothes being dried, I recovered the use of my pocket.  The general was free with his ’Wabash water’ (western appellation for whisky), and, finding me to his taste, as he said, he offered me a passage gratis to New Orleans, if I could but submit myself to his homely fare; that is to say, salt pork, with plenty of gravy, four times a day, and a decoction of burnt bran and grains of maize, going under the name of coffee all over the States—­the whisky was to be _ad libitum_.

“As I considered the terms moderate, I agreed, and the hospitable general soon entrusted me with his plans.  He had gone many times to Texas; he loved Texas—­it was a free country, according to his heart; and now he had collected all his own (he might have said, ’and other people’s too’), to go to New Orleans, where his pigs and corn, exchanged against goods, would enable him to settle with his family in Texas in a gallant style.  Upon my inquiring what could be the cause of a certain abominable smell which pervaded the cabin, he apprized me that, in a small closet adjoining, he had secured a dozen of runaway negroes, for the apprehension of whom he would be well rewarded.

“Well, the next morning we went on pretty snugly, and I had nothing to complain of, except the fleas and the ‘gals,’ who bothered me not a little.  Three days afterwards we entered the Ohio, and the current being very strong, I began to think myself fortunate, as I should reach New Orleans in less than forty days, passage free.  We went on till night, when we stopped, three or four miles from the junction with the Mississippi.  The cabin being very warm, and the deck in possession of the pigs, I thought I would sleep ashore, under a tree.  The general said it was a capital plan, and, after having drained half a dozen cups of ‘stiff, true, downright Yankee No. 1,’ we all of us took our blankets (I mean the white-skinned party), and having lighted a great fire, the general, the colonel, the major, and the judge lay down,—­an example which I followed as soon as I had neatly folded up my coat and fixed it upon a bush, with my hat and boots, for I was now getting particular, and wished to cut a figure in New Orleans; my thoughts running upon plump and rich widows, which you know are the only provision for us preachers.