<p><br/><br/><br/><br/> <br/><br/> <SPAN name="linkc16" id="linkc16"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Chapter 16 </h2>
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<h3> Racing Days </h3>
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<p>IT was always the custom for the boats to leave New Orleans between four
and five o'clock in the afternoon. From three o'clock onward they would be
burning rosin and pitch pine (the sign of preparation), and so one had the
picturesque spectacle of a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall,
ascending columns of coal-black smoke; a colonnade which supported a sable
roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over the
city. Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at the jack-staff, and
sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern. Two or three miles of
mates were commanding and swearing with more than usual emphasis;
countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were spinning athwart
the levee and flying aboard the stage-planks, belated passengers were
dodging and skipping among these frantic things, hoping to reach the
forecastle companion way alive, but having their doubts about it; women
with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep up with husbands
freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies, and making a failure of it
by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general distraction; drays
and baggage-vans were clattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every
now and then getting blocked and jammed together, and then during ten
seconds one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguely and
dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch, from one end of that
long array of steamboats to the other, was keeping up a deafening whiz and
whir, lowering freight into the hold, and the half-naked crews of
perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring such songs as 'De Las'
Sack! De Las' Sack!'—inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the
chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad.</p>
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<p>By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers would be
packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells' would begin to clang,
all down the line, and then the powwow seemed to double; in a moment or
two the final warning came,—a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs,
with the cry, 'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'!'—and
behold, the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore, overturning
excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard. One more moment later
a long array of stage-planks was being hauled in, each with its customary
latest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth, nails, and
everything else, and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild
spring shoreward over his head.</p>
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<p>Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide
gaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats
that are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer
straightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes
swinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black
smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually
swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in
the lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving his
hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting cannons
boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and huzza! Steamer
after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession goes winging its
flight up the river.</p>
<p>In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a
big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,
especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with the
red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public always
had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was the case—that
is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat to just so many
pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever sleepy or
careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on the alert,
trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place was on slow,
plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and allowed chips to
get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply from the boilers.</p>
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<p>In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously fleet
steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for it several
weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole Mississippi Valley
was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and the weather were
dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As the time
approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Every encumbrance
that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind or water, was
removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The 'spars,' and
sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore, and no means
left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When the 'Eclipse'
and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years ago, it was said
that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the fanciful device which
hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that for that one trip the
captain left off his kid gloves and had his head shaved. But I always
doubted these things.</p>
<p>If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a half
feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that exact
figure—she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her
manifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not
only add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to the
side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and
experienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part
his hair in the middle with a spirit level.</p>
<p>No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would
stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and go.'
Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these were
kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's warning.
Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly done.</p>
<p>The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great
steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and
apparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient
creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through safety-valves,
the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and darkening all
the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-tops, the
steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you know that the borders
of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed with humanity thence
northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these racers.</p>
<p>Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both
steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted on
capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the forecastles,
two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting seconds, two mighty
choruses burst forth—and here they come! Brass bands bray Hail
Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores, and the stately
creatures go whistling by like the wind.</p>
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<p>Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,
except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord
wood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of
those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time you
have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what has
become of that wood.</p>
<p>Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after
day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are
not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the
boats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,
you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained
ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest pilot can
delay a boat if he has not a fine genius for steering. Steering is a very
high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across a boat's stem if he
wants to get up the river fast.</p>
<p>There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was on
a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port
in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to lose
valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting for us
to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the documents for
these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been mislaid. This
boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally sunk in Madrid
Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it. That was always a
confusing fact to me, but it is according to the record, any way. She was
dismally slow; still, we often had pretty exciting times racing with
islands, and rafts, and such things. One trip, however, we did rather
well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen days. But even at this rattling gait
I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adams reach, which is five
miles long. A 'reach' is a piece of straight river, and of course the
current drives through such a place in a pretty lively way.</p>
<p>That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three
hundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one. We
were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the
'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over a
generation ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans to
Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the
'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty
minutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16
minutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and <i>one</i>
hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will try to show
that it was not. For this reason: the distance between New Orleans and
Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six
miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per
hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had become
reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her average speed
was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per hour. In the 'R. E.
Lee's' time the distance had diminished to about one thousand and thirty
miles; consequently her average was about fourteen and one-eighth miles
per hour. Therefore the 'Eclipse's' was conspicuously the fastest time
that has ever been made.</p>
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