40

DINNERS ON BOARD THE 'LEONORA.'

both at breakfast and supper: it is a favourite dish with the Americans, most of whom, when sending their plates for some of the dainty dish, particularly request to have it 'rare,' which, in English phraseology, signifies underdone. At dinner, we have roast turkeys and beef; mutton we enjoy very seldom, and, moreover, it is always bad; but of pigs we have a choice in various forms: sweet potatoes are the usual vegetable, and an indescribable pudding, served in saucers and eaten with molasses, winds up the repast. The tea is not good, neither is the milk and butter; but these are luxuries so rarely to be met with in steamboats of any description, that their absence causes us no disappointment. The passage money from Louisville to New Orleans is, I think, astonishingly little, fifteen dollars a person being certainly a very small sum to pay for the enjoyment of the above luxuries, and for steam-travelling for more than fifteen hundred miles. I believe that not a few of the passengers hailed with delight the announcement of any fresh delay, preferring greatly to be kept at the cost of the steamboat captain. As I have an opportunity of sending off this letter, I shall write no more at present.

FOR

New Orleans-December.

OR some hours previously to our arriving at the north of the Ohio, the scenery had rather improved in beauty. The shores became even somewhat rocky, and the difficulties of the navigation appeared to increase. We had been looking forward with raised expectations, to what we had weakly imagined would be a beautiful meeting of the waters' at Cairo, where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers unite, but alas! our hopes were not realized. Cairo itself (a city it is called) consists of a few wretched looking wooden-houses, built on the spit of land between the two rivers: it is frequently under water for days together, and the only wonder is, that the good city of Cairo contrives to keep its station at all, and has escaped so long the fate of being washed away from the face of the earth by the force of the angry flood.

42

THE MISSISSIPPI.

The scene altogether was one of desolation, nor did we require the recollection of some wrecked steam-boats, which we had passed a short time before, to come to the conclusion, that the waterlogged town of Cairo was the head-quarters of gloom, fever, and depression.

And now we were fairly on the bosom of the 'mighty' Mississippi, that largest, and ugliest, and most tremendous of rivers; tremendous through the force of its resistless currents, and the feverswamps that spread their noxious vapours over its surface. On we sped, crashing with great noise, shocks, and effort through the large masses of ice, with which the muddy surface of the river was crowded, but proceeding at a comparatively slow rate, from the hindrance that they threw in the way of our progress. After passing Cairo, we began to increase our cargo, and continued doing so all the way, by taking in large quantities of corn. Of course, by dint of these stoppages, our vessel was soon sunk much deeper in the water than was either beneficial or agreeable.

In this manner, and stopping at each, we passed Madrid, Troy, and other places, with grandiloquent and ancient names, but with a modern nothingness, which threw somewhat more than a shade of ridicule over these imposing appellations. In the neighbourhood of these newly-erected cities, we often found the humble abode of their original

DECK PASSENGERS.

43

founder and godfather; the name of his domicile being Jacksonville, Williamsburgh, Thomsonville, or the like: the love of handing down a name to posterity is, certainly, one of the most widelyspread weaknesses of our nature.

The cold, after leaving Cairo, was, for the first two or three days, intense; the quantity of ice on the rivers, and the constant snow-storms giving a wintry feel and look, that made us long greatly for a more southern clime, and lament more than ever the hours which we continued to spend aground.

It was impossible not to entertain a deep feeling of commiseration for the unfortunate deck hands, who were working their passages-poor creatures! down to New Orleans. For five days and nights had these miserable people been exposed to the inclemency of the weather, being hardly worked during the whole time; especially when the steamer happened to get a-ground. Their labour was so extremely severe, what with taking in wood, getting cargo on board, &c., and they seemed most of them so thoroughly worn out, that some of the 'first-class' passengers, at length, took pity on their hard fate. After communicating one with another, and inviting others to express their sentiments,' (for the importance attached to public opinion is well known in America,) a deputation was formed to wait upon the captain, and make known to him the disapprobation which the pas

44

PUBLIC OPINION.

sengers felt bound to express, at the cruel and tyrannical manner in which the Irish and Germans on board were treated. The captain, after listening very patiently to the end of the harangue, made the following humane reply: Well, by! if they don't like it, they may just go ashore and be nobody wants 'em to stop here.' After this, there was nothing more to be said, but I could not help noticing the remark of one of the deputation, who, as he turned away, exclaimed-" Well, by —! cap'em, if them wause niggers, you dar'n't treat 'em as you do them poor devils.' Does not this tend to prove how greatly the negro race are protected by the mighty shield of public opinion?

The banks, for the first two hundred and fifty miles down the Mississippi, were somewhat less level and monotonous than we had been led to expect they would be. The Chickasan Bluffs are really quite respectable heights, here, where there is so much that is flat at least, if neither stale' nor' unprofitable.' They consist of three or four ranges situated on the left bank of the river, and on the last of them stands the city' of Memphis. Anything more different than the Memphis before us, to the Egyptian city of columns and sphinxes, pyramids and porphyry domes, it would be difficult to conceive. The Memphis of the West differs in nothing from the other newly-raised