“Well, you know the river is crooked, and the steamboats must follow all its windings, while the railroads can run nearly straight.”
“Yes, I know,” said Irv, “but the crookedness of the river isn’t enough to make any very great difference.”
“Isn’t it? Well, down in Chicot County, Arkansas, there is one bend in the river so big that from the upper landing on a plantation to the lower landing on the same plantation, the distance by river is seventeen miles, while you can walk across the neck from one landing to the other in less than a mile and a half!”
“Whew!” said Phil. “And are there many such trips round Robin Hood’s barn for us to make on the way down?”
“That’s best answered by telling you that from Cairo to New Orleans the distance by river is about one thousand and fifty miles, while by rail it is a little over four hundred miles. But come. It’s getting dark, and I’ve got to bake some corn pones for supper, so I must quit lecturing.”
[CHAPTER XIII]
THE TERROR OF THE RIVER
For the next few days the voyage was uneventful. There was very little to be done at the sweeps—only now and then a ten minutes’ pull to keep the boat off the banks and in the river. For the water was now so high that there was no such thing as a channel to be followed.