Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream, leaving wide
gaps in the serried rank of steamers. Citizens crowd the decks of boats
that are not to go, in order to see the sight. Steamer after steamer
straightens herself up, gathers all her strength, and presently comes
swinging by, under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying, black
smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands (usually
swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle, the best 'voice' in
the lot towering from the midst (being mounted on the capstan), waving
his hat or a flag, and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting
cannons boom and the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and
huzza! Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession
goes winging its flight up the river.
In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race, with a
big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hear the crews sing,
especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastle lit up with
the red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun. The public
always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the opposite was
the case - that is, after the laws were passed which restricted each boat
to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch. No engineer was ever
sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race. He was constantly on
the alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things. The dangerous place
was on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsed around and
allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the water supply
from the boilers.
In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriously
fleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was set for it
several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the whole
Mississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics and
the weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race. As
the time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready. Every
encumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surface to wind or
water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it. The
'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,
and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground. When
the 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race many years
ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the
fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that
for that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head
shaved. But I always doubted these things.
If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a
half feet forward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that
exact figure - she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her
manifest after that. Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not
only add weight but they never will 'trim boat.' They always run to the
side when there is anything to see, whereas a conscientious and
experienced steamboatman would stick to the center of the boat and part
his hair in the middle with a spirit level.
No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers would
stop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and
go.' Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these
were kept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's
warning. Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly
done.
The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness, the two great
steamers back into the stream, and lie there jockeying a moment, and
apparently watching each other's slightest movement, like sentient
creatures; flags drooping, the pent steam shrieking through safety-
valves, the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and
darkening all the air. People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-
tops, the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you know that
the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed with
humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles, to welcome these racers.
Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipes of both
steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroes mounted on
capstans wave their small flags above the massed crews on the
forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting
seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth - and here they come! Brass
bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders from the shores,
and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.
Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,
except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cord wood-
boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a couple of
those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each; by the time
you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will be wondering what
has become of that wood.
Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after
day. They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are
not all alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the
boats has a 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior,
you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has
gained ground or lost some during each four-hour stretch.
