The Mississippi River
"I have been most agreeably disappointed with the Mississippi, which has, in general, the reputation of being monotonous and wearisome from its usually flat banks, and long lines of almost…
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
“The Mississippi,” from Travels in the United States by Lady Emmeline Stuart Wortley, 1851.
Chapter XX
I am now at New Orleans. We have had a most successful and enchanting tour, and our late voyage I found extremely interesting.
I have been most agreeably disappointed with the Mississippi, which has, in general, the reputation of being monotonous and wearisome from its usually flat banks, and long lines of almost interminable, dense, unvarying forests. I am, on the contrary, quite delighted with it, and watched and gazed on it, day after day, and hour after hour, with ever-newly kindling interest and admiration. These very forests themselves were to me sources of ever-fresh wonder, and the mighty current of that marvellous river, sweeping on like the flow of unpausing Time, carrying all before it, I thought sublimity itself!
That the banks are flat for hundreds and hundreds of miles, I own; but those forests are so grand, so boundless the breadth of that astounding river is so imposing its bends and curves so glorious and beautiful that I could not find it at all monotonous. And then its islands, creeks, bays, branches, and reaches, are so numerous and interesting, and its many magnificent tributaries are so diversified and so splendid, that it did not seem to me in the least degree wearisome or dull.
Besides these, there is the busy hum of life at various places on the shores. The landing-places, wharves, the plantations (towards the south), the rising and risen villages and towns, the scattered huts of the wood-cutters, the long rows of slaves’ habitations (called "quarters"), and all the openings the clearings in the old mighty woods, where the settlers cottages are cheerfully sending up their blue smoke to the sky, the germs, probably, of future mighty cities and then those innumerable flat-boats and rafts with small hamlets of houses on them, some wearing the look of a little nautical village; and all kinds of strange craft, from the roughest and rudest, that almost look as if the "snags" and "sawyers" had determined to join company, and had linked themselves by some natural process together, to the magnificent steamer "Autocrat" one of those "floating steam-palaces” which look really like some of the wondrous fleeting creations one sees every now and then in the clouds.
This "Autocrat,” they say, is the largest steamer on the Mississippi, and is about four hundred feet long, and gorgeous as an enchanted castle inside. The one we came in to this place was nearly that length, and decorated with costly magnificence. And then there are the poor trees, twisting and twirling, and tossing about in the rapid stream (sometimes roots uppermost), which form the dreaded "snags" and "sawyers" of Mississippi voyagers; and the countless flights of birds that frequently make the air alive with their myriads of hurrying wings, sometimes looking like the moving folds of gigantic serpents.
How, then, can these stirring and wondrous scenes be insipid? They are certainly not; and I think any one who can find it monotonous and tiresome (unless they had pictured to themselves a totally different scene, and expected a sort of exaggerated Rhine, or magnified blue Guadalquiver), must be some what devoid of heart, mind, and imagination, and especially the first time that one steams down it.
I can imagine it might become a little tedious, a little wearisome or so, the one-and-twentieth voyage or thereabouts; but the first time! I cannot comprehend it. No! the first time it is all change, wonder, novelty, matter for speculation and food for reflection, an object of ceaseless interest, and of ever-recurring astonishment and admiration. We saw it under a vast variety of aspects and change of climate, and even seasons; and often did its whole appearance seem altered. The captain of one of the steamboats observed to me, the other day, that after long years spent in navigating that wondrous river, he could truly say he "had never seen it in any two voyages alike." There are so many different "stages" of water the banks are so perpetually changing, the sand bars are so incessantly shifting their position, besides other alterations, that I could indeed readily believe him.
I have seen it up in the north-west, amid snow, hail, ice, rain, and clouds, and storm, and in the burning sunshine of the south, and under its clear and unshadowed skies, by night and by day, in the gale and in the calm, flowing through its almost interminable mighty wildernesses of forest in solitary grandeur, or watering a thousand teeming plantations with its turbid swelling waves, receiving its splendid tributaries (the Ohio, Arkansas river, &c.) as if they were so many dew-drops, and sweeping on as if with a magnificent unconcern and disdainful indifference, apparently wholly unaltered and unaffected by these immense and majestic accessories to its might and greatness.
The breadth of this ever-broad river is scarcely visibly changed, though the depth is of course very often greatly increased, as stream after stream rolls into its great waters. In the very absence of change here, is there not something sublime? In every way it is unlike every other river I ever saw, and appears to be a sort of molten flowing world in itself.
By night the scene is one of startling interest and of magical splendour. Hundreds of lights are glancing in different directions, from the villages, towns, farms, and plantations on shore, and from the magnificent "floating palaces" of steamers, that frequently look like moving mountains of light and flame, so brilliantly are these enormous river-leviathans illuminated, outside and inside. Indeed, the spectacle presented is like a dream of enchantment. Imagine steamer after steamer coming sweeping, sounding, thundering on, blazing with these thousands of lights, casting long brilliant reflections on the fast-rolling waters beneath; (there is often a number of them, one after the other like so many comets in Indian file)!
Some of these are so marvellously and dazzlingly lighted, they really look like Aladdin’s palace on fire (which it in all likelihood would be in America), sent skurrying and dashing down the stream, while, perhaps, just then all else is darkness around it.
I delighted, too, in seeing, as you very frequently do, the twinkling lights in the numerous cottages and homesteads, dotted here and there; and you may often observe large wood-fires lit on the banks, looking like merry-making bonfires. These, I believe, are usually signals for the different steamers to stop to take up passengers, goods, and animals. I recollect, on one occasion, our captain was hard-hearted: the steamer was overflowing with passengers already, and continued on her course, notwithstanding there was a perfect conflagration for a signal on shore, to induce him to pause.
There must have been some person or persons extraordinarily anxious to be taken up, for the hubbub made on shore was surprising: there were furious shouts, waving of hats, a hurricane of cries and gesticulations, and people running with great perseverance along the banks yelling and squalling like maniacs. In vain on we went, and our imaginations might fill up this mysterious outline of circumstances as they pleased. For me, I felt sure cotton was at the bottom of it, somehow.
I heard, however, afterwards, that there had been lately bands of disorderly emigrants, who had got taken on board the steamers there abouts, and who had made themselves very disagreeable company while on board, and yet who thought the benefit of their society was sufficient payment for their passage. Some of these gentry were probably the bawlers and bonfire-makers we had left behind us, stamping and handkerchief-hoisting.
It is quite curious to see the hosts of floating trees, agitated and restless, and ever-tossing about in the rapid current, and occasionally rolling and writhing in a little whirlpool. They look sometimes like a hundred sea-serpents at a blow! Who could believe that birds had ever built and sung in their branches? or that they ever were apparelled in the sweet livery of spring? they have become such black, mummified monsters, and look so hideous and forlorn, drifting helplessly along, in the giant stream.
We were badly "snagged" twice. Once was really a very severe snagging, though we survived it; but I assure you the shock might give one a faint idea of being blown up. The first time a large tree was stuck in such a manner through the left paddle-box that the wheel couldn’t move, and a great deal of delay was occasioned by our having to stop for the hands to extricate the wheel from its disabling situation.
The most serious of all our snaggings (for we were favoured with a great variety of samples) was once in the night. We were asleep in our cabins, when we were suddenly woke up by an immense stunning shock, and the steamer stopped immediately, quivering, so to say, in every nerve of her huge body. There were a great number of horses and mules on board, and they became dreadfully frightened, and commenced rearing, kicking, plunging and snorting furiously, and the noise and uproar really, altogether, sounded most frightful for a time for of course there was no lack of shouting, yelling, and rushing backward and forwards. After a little while, on went the powerful steamer again, plunging through the thick darkness with the great blunt arrow that had struck her so sorely, fast in her poor wounded side; but, this time, it had just missed the wheel.
Another snag subsequently hit her in the opposite side; but the wheel fortunately escaped that also, so away she went, something like a savage belle, of whom I have lately read, with wooden skewers in her two ears. When morning came, eager was the rush of all to see the extent of the damage inflicted. There stuck the grim snag right through the paddle-box, as fixed as fate, and there we left it when we left the steamer. I believe, however, it was then in process of extraction.
Besides these very severe hurts, the unfortunate steamer suffered a long succession of bumps and thumps (as well as her passengers) from a whole series of snags, almost through the whole night. They would not let one repose for a quarter of an hour together in peace. The vessel went, jarring and jumping along in as disagreeable a manner as it is well possible to imagine; very much as if she was playing at leap-frog, or hopping on one paddle for a wager. The poor mules and horses uttered a most vigorous kicking protest against such rough treatment, and that additional hubbub did not improve the quiet or comfort of the bipeds.
I was very glad when we arrived at Natchez (built, I suppose, on the scene of Chateaubriand’s lovely work "Les Natchez"). From thence we availed ourselves of the President’s kind invitation, to go and see his cotton plantation, and it was a truly interesting sight to us.
Stuart-Wortley, Emmeline. Travels in the United States. Harper & Brothers, 1851.
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