can get at them when the
exigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the
blessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there is
work to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart with
sweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more. 'GIT
up there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you SAY you was petrified
in your hind legs, before you shipped!'

He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so they
like him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of the
old generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him in
uniform--a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with all
the officers of the line--and then he will be a totally different style
of scenery from what he is now.

Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put
together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise--that it was
not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might
have been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, out
there, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has been
mistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber--and
being roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.
And the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantage
achieved by the dress-reform period.

Steered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it
'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;
about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to
take a boat through, in low water.

Thebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the foot of it,
were towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone conspicuous
alteration. Nor the Chain, either--in the nature of things; for it is a
chain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats
on bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of
sight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her
bottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me--Uncle
Mumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me,
this sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to
Mumford, who added--

'But there are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter,
and call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are
people who have n