[CHAPTER XXXIII]
DOWN “THE COAST”
The moon was gibbous in its approach to the full when the boat left Vicksburg. So all the way to their journey’s end the boys had moonlight of evenings except when fog obscured it briefly, and that was not often.
As they floated down the river, with subtropical scenery on either hand, with palms and live-oaks and other perennial trees giving greenery of the greenest possible kind at a season of the year when at their home not a leaf remained alive and all the trees were gaunt skeletons, the boys lived in something like a dream. And at night the moonlight, immeasurably more brilliant than any they had ever seen, additionally stimulated their imaginations and captivated their fancy.
“That is Baton Rouge,” said Ed, as they came within sight of a city on the left side of the river. “It means ‘red stick.’”
“Why in the world did anybody ever name a town ‘red stick’?” asked Irv.
“Why, because when Tecumseh came down this way to persuade all the Indians to join in a war upon the whites, as I told you up in New Madrid Bend, he offered red sticks to the warriors. All that accepted them were thereby pledged to join in the war. It was here that the first red sticks were distributed, and so this spot was called ‘Baton Rouge.’”
“But why didn’t they call it ‘Red Sticks’ and have done with it?” asked Will. “Why did they translate it into French?”
“The Indians didn’t know English,” answered Ed. “The French first explored the Mississippi, and they not only gave French names to everything, but they taught a rude sort of French to the Indians. There is a town on the upper Mississippi called ‘Prairie du Chien.’ That means ‘the prairie of the dog.’ Then there is ‘Marquette’ in Wisconsin, named after a great French missionary and explorer. And there is Dubuque, and there are half a dozen other places with old French names. In Arkansas there is a river called the ‘St. François.’ And the name Arkansas itself was originally a French effort to spell the Indian word ‘Arkansaw.’ By the way, the Legislature of that state has passed a law declaring that the proper pronunciation of the state’s name is ‘Arkansaw.’ It is said that when James K. Polk, afterward President, was speaker of the House of Representatives, there were two congressmen there from Arkansas. One of them always pronounced his state’s name ‘Arkansas,’ as if it were English, and with the accent on the second syllable, while the other always called it ‘Arkansaw.’ Polk was so excessively polite that when either of the two arose to speak, he recognized him as ‘the gentleman from Arkansas’ or as ‘the gentleman from Arkansaw,’ accordingly as the gentleman recognized was in the habit of pronouncing the word.”