l the cots, fore and
aft, were either occupied or engaged. I immediately returned, and that I
might have a _dernier ressort_, left my shawl in that I had first
obtained.

In the forward part of the cabin there was a bar, a stove, a table, and
a placard of rules, forbidding smoking, gambling, or swearing in the
cabin, and a close company of drinkers, smokers, card-players, and
constant swearers. I went out, and stepped down to the boiler-deck. The
boat had been provided with very poor wood, and the firemen were
crowding it into the furnaces whenever they could find room for it,
driving smaller sticks between the larger ones at the top by a
battering-ram method.

Most of the firemen were Irish born; one with whom I conversed was
English. He said they were divided into three watches, each working four
hours at a time, and all hands liable to be called, when wooding, or
landing, or taking on freight, to assist the deck-hands. They were paid
now but thirty dollars a month--ordinarily forty, and sometimes
sixty--and board. He was a sailor bred. This boat-life was harder than
seafaring, but the pay was better, and the trips were short. The regular
thing was to make two trips, and then lay up for a spree. It would be
too hard on a man, he thought, to pursue it regularly; two trips
"on end" was as much as a man could stand. He must then take a
"refreshment." Working this way for three weeks, and then refreshing
for about one, he did not think it was unhealthy, no more than ordinary
seafaring. He concluded by informing me that the most striking
peculiarity of the business was that it kept a man, notwithstanding
wholesale periodical refreshment, very dry. He was of opinion that
after the information I had obtained, if I gave him at least the price
of a single drink and some tobacco, it would be characteristic of a
gentleman.

Going round behind the furnace, I found a large quantity of freight:
hogsheads, barrels, cases, bales, boxes, nail-rods, rolls of leather,
ploughs, cotton, bale-rope, and firewood, all thrown together in the
most confused manner, with hot steam-pipes and parts of the engine
crossing through it. As I explored farther aft, I found negroes lying
asleep in all postures upon the freight. A single group only, of five or
six, appeared to be awake, and as I drew near they commenced to sing a
Methodist hymn, not loudly, as negroes generally do, but, as it seemed
to me, with a good deal of tenderness and feeling; a