There was no mystery in their disappearance. It was now mid-June. The weather had become intensely hot, and every day the mercury mounted higher upon the scale. It was already dancing in the neighbourhood of 100 degrees of Fahrenheit. In a week or two might be expected that annual but unwelcome visitor known by the soubriquet of Yellow Jack, whose presence is alike dreaded by young and old; and it was the terror inspired by him that was driving the fashionable world of New Orleans, like birds of passage, to a northern clime.
I am not more courageous than the rest of mankind.
I had no inclination to make the acquaintance of this dreaded demon of the swamps; and it occurred to me, that I, too, had better get out of his way. To do this, it was only necessary to step on board a steamboat, and be carried to one of the up-river towns, beyond the reach of that tropical malaria in which the vomito delights to dwell.
Saint Louis was at this time the place of most attractive name; and I resolved to go thither; though how I was to live there I could not tell since my funds would just avail to land me on the spot.
Upon reflection, it could scarce be out of the frying-pan into the fire, and my resolution to go to Saint Louis became fixed. So, packing up my impedimenta , I stepped on board the steamboat Belle of the West, bound for the far City of the Mounds.
Chapter Three The Belle of the West.
The time was not thrown away. I spent it to some profit in examining the peculiar craft in which I had embarked. I say, peculiar ; for the steamers employed upon the Mississippi and its tributary waters are unlike those of any other country even unlike those in use in the Atlantic or Eastern States.
They are strictly river-boats, and could not live in anything like a rough sea; though the reckless owners of some of them have occasionally risked them along the coast from Mobile to Galveston, Texas!
The hull is built like that of a sea boat, but differs materially from the latter in depth of hold. So shallow is it, that there is but little stowage-room allowed; and the surface of the main deck is but a few inches above the water-line. Indeed, when the boat is heavily laden, the waves lip over the gunwales. Upon the deck is placed the machinery; and there rest the huge cast-iron boilers, and the grates or furnaces, necessarily large, because the propelling power is produced from logs of wood. There, also, most of the freight is stowed, on account of the light capacity
of the hold; and on every part, not occupied by the machinery and boilers, may be seen piles of cotton-bales, hogsheads of tobacco, or bags of corn, rising to the height of many feet. This is the freight of a down-river-boat. On the return trip, of course, the commodities are of a different character, and consist of boxes of Yankee furniture, farming implements, and notions, brought round by ship from Boston; coffee in bags from the West Indies, rice, sugar, oranges, and other products of the tropical South.
On the after-part of this deck is a space allotted to the humbler class of travellers known as deck passengers. These are never Americans. Some are labouring Irish some poor German emigrants on their way to the far North-West; the rest are negroes free, or more generally slaves.
I dismiss the hull by observing that there is a good reason why it is built with so little depth of hold. It is to allow the boats to pass the shoal water in many parts of the river, and particularly during the season of drought. For such purpose the lighter the draught, the greater the advantage; and a Mississippi captain, boasting of the capacity of his boat in this respect, declared, that all he wanted was a heavy dew upon, the grass, to enable him to propel her across the prairies !
If there is but little of a Mississippi steamboat under the water, the reverse is true of what may be seen above its surface. Fancy a two-story house some two hundred feet in length, built of plank, and painted to the whiteness of snow; fancy along the upper story a row of green-latticed windows, or rather doors, thickly set, and opening out upon a narrow balcony; fancy a flattish or slightly rounded roof covered with tarred canvas, and in the centre a range of sky-lights like glass forcing-pits; fancy, towering above all, two enormous black cylinders of sheet-iron, each ten feet in diameter, and nearly ten times as high, the funnels of the boat; a smaller cylinder to one side, the scape-pipe; a tall flag-staff standing up from the extreme end of the bow, with the star-spangled banner flying from its peak; fancy all these, and you may form some idea of the characteristic features of a steamboat on the Mississippi.
Enter the cabin, and for the first time you will be struck with the novelty of the scene. You will there observe a splendid saloon, perhaps a hundred feet in length, richly carpeted and adorned throughout. You will note the elegance of the furniture, costly chairs, sofas, tables, and lounges; you will note the walls, richly gilded and adorned with appropriate designs; the crystal chandeliers suspended from the ceiling; the hundred doors that lead to the state-rooms on each side, and the immense folding-door of stained or ornamental glass, which shuts in the sacred precinct of the ladies saloon. In short, you will note all around you a style and luxuriance to which you, as a European traveller, have not been accustomed. You have only read of such a scene in some Oriental tale in Mary Montagu, or the Arabian Nights.