One might almost say that lamps have been squandered there. You are never entirely in the dark, now there is always a beacon in sight, either before you, or behind you, or abreast. In the head of every crossing, and in the foot of every crossing, the government has set up a clear-burning lamp. For now the national government has turned the Mississippi into a sort of two-thousand-mile torchlight procession. It was a very large island, and used to be out toward mid-stream but it is joined fast to the main shore now, and has retired from business as an island.Īs we approached famous and formidable Plum Point, darkness fell, but that was nothing to shudder about-in these modern times. Noted a big change in the river, at Island 21. As this was the first time I had ever encountered this species of honor, it seems excusable to mention it, and at the same time call the attention of the authorities to the tardiness of my recognition of it. The spy-glass revealed the fact that she was named for me-or he was named for me, whichever you prefer. She was lying at rest in the shade, within the wooded mouth of the Obion River. Far along in the day, we saw one steamboat just one, and no more. Formerly, at such a stage of the water, we should have passed acres of lumber rafts, and dozens of big coal barges also occasional little trading-scows, peddling along from farm to farm, with the peddler’s family on board possibly, a random scow, bearing a humble Hamlet and Co. Theories.-“Had them Bad.”-Jews and Prices.ĪLL day we swung along down the river, and had the stream almost wholly to ourselves. River.-What the Government does.-The Commission.-Men and Changes and Jetties.-Uncle Mumford Testifies.-Pegging the Lights and Snag Boats.-Infinite Changes.-A Lawless River. Swinging down the River.-Named for Me.-Plum Point again.

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