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Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote 'points;'
instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts
up the cry, 'S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!' . . . Drays, carts, men, boys, all go
hurrying from many quarters to a common center, the wharf. Assembled there,
the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are
seeing for the first time. And the boat IS rather a handsome sight, too. She
is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys,
with a gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house,
a glass and 'gingerbread', perched on top of the 'texas' deck behind them; the
paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's
name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and
ornamented with clean white railings; thereis a flag gallantly flying from the
jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper
decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing,
the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling
out of the chimneys. . . the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage
is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deckhand stands picturesquely
on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming
through the gauge-cocks, the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels
stop; then they turn back, churning the water to foam, and the steamer is at
rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and
to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one and the same time; and
such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes
later the steamer is under way again. . .
- Life on the Mississippi
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