ath the river's surface. The first deck, when the vessel is but
lightly loaded, stands perhaps two feet out of water. Above this,
carried on rows of posts twenty feet high, comes the first cabin. All
between is open to the air on either side; so that, as one of the huge
river-monsters passes at night, the watcher on the bank can see the
stalwart, black, half-naked bodies of the negro stokers, bending
before the glowing furnace doors, and throwing in the soft coal, that
issues in clouds of smoke from the towering chimneys seventy feet
above. The lights in three rows of cabin windows glow; and the
unceasing beat of the paddle-wheels mingles with the monotonous puff
of the steam from the escape-pipes, and the occasional bursts of music
from the open cabin doors. One who for the first time looks on one of
these leviathans of the Mississippi, pursuing its stately course at
night, does not wonder at the frightened negro, who, seeing for the
first time a night-steamboat, rushed madly from the river's bank,
crying that the angel Gabriel had come to blow the last trump.

When these boats have taken on their full load of cotton, they present
a very different appearance. Then all the open space beneath the
cabins is filled by a mass of cotton-bales. The hull is so sunken in
the water that the lowest tier of cotton-bales is lapped by the little
waves that ruffle the surface of the river. The stokers and furnaces
are hid from view, and the cabins appear to be floating on one huge
cotton bale. Generally a great wooden stern-wheel propels this strange
craft, adding to the grotesqueness of the sight.

It may readily be understood, that vessels of this class, in which
strength was subordinated to lightness, and economy to gingerbread
decoration, seemed to be but poor materials for vessels-of-war. The
tremendous recoil of a rifled cannon fired from one of those airy
decks, meant to stand no ruder shock than the vibration caused by
dancing pleasure-parties, would shake the whole frail structure to
pieces. Yet the ingenuity born of necessity, and the energy awakened
by the immediate prospect of war, led the Confederate engineers to
convert some of these pleasure-palaces into the most terrible engines
of destruction chronicled in the annals of war. The first step was to
sweep off all the towering superstructure of decks, cabins, and
saloons; tear away all the fanciful mouldings, the decorated
staterooms, and carved and gilded stairways. Th