Always Dress A Fact In Tights, Never In An Ulster;' Or, 'Pardon, Once More:

If you are going to load anything more on to that statement, you want to get a couple of

Lighters and tow the rest, because it's drawing all the water there is in the river already; stick to facts - just stick to the cold facts; what these gentlemen want for a book is the frozen truth - ain't that so, gentlemen?' He explained privately that it was necessary to watch this man all the time, and keep him within bounds; it would not do to neglect this precaution, as he, Mr. H., 'knew to his sorrow.' Said he, 'I will not deceive you; he told me such a monstrous lie once, that it swelled my left ear up, and spread it so that I was actually not able to see out around it; it remained so for months, and people came miles to see me fan myself with it.'

Chapter 35 Vicksburg During the Trouble

WE used to plow past the lofty hill-city, Vicksburg, down-stream; but we cannot do that now. A cut-off has made a country town of it, like Osceola, St. Genevieve, and several others. There is currentless water - also a big island - in front of Vicksburg now. You come down the river the other side of the island, then turn and come up to the town; that is, in high water: in low water you can't come up, but must land some distance below it.

Signs and scars still remain, as reminders of Vicksburg's tremendous war experiences; earthworks, trees crippled by the cannon balls, cave- refuges in the clay precipices, etc. The caves did good service during the six weeks' bombardment of the city - May 8 to July 4, 1863. They were used by the non-combatants - mainly by the women and children; not to live in constantly, but to fly to for safety on occasion. They were mere holes, tunnels, driven into the perpendicular clay bank, then branched Y shape, within the hill. Life in Vicksburg, during the six weeks was perhaps - but wait; here are some materials out of which to reproduce it: -

Population, twenty-seven thousand soldiers and three thousand non- combatants; the city utterly cut off from the world - walled solidly in, the frontage by gunboats, the rear by soldiers and batteries; hence, no buying and selling with the outside; no passing to and fro; no God- speeding a parting guest, no welcoming a coming one; no printed acres of world-wide news to be read at breakfast, mornings - a tedious dull absence of such matter, instead; hence, also, no running to see steamboats smoking into view in the distance up or down, and plowing toward the town - for none came, the river lay vacant and undisturbed; no rush and turmoil around the railway station, no struggling over bewildered swarms of passengers by noisy mobs of hackmen - all quiet there; flour two hundred dollars a barrel, sugar thirty, corn ten dollars a bushel, bacon five dollars a pound, rum a hundred dollars a gallon; other things in proportion:

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