Her engine is of uncommon power, placed nearer the centre of the hull than in boats of the usual construction; her cabin is small, elevated, and placed near the engine in the centre of the boat. With the exception of the engine and cabin, she is "flush" from stem to stern; one quarter of her length abaft the cabin, and the same portion forward of the boilers being a broad platform, which extends quite around the boat, forming a very spacious guard on either side.
The after part of this guard is latticed for the purpose of carrying off the water with facility when thrown back from the wheels. They seldom or never take passengers up to the city. The usual price for towing is, I think, about one dollar per ton. Hence the expense is very great for vessels of large burthen; and rather than incur it, many ships, after being towed over the bar, which, at this season, cannot be crossed otherwise, work their own way up to town, which, with a fair wind, may be effected in twenty-four hours, the distance being but one hundred and five miles; but it not unfrequently takes them ten or fifteen days. Our captain informs me that he once lay thirty-six days in the river before he could reach New-Orleans—but fortunately, owing to the state of the market, on his arrival, he realized two hundred per cent. more on his cargo than he would have done had he arrived a month earlier.
The jolly-boat from the steamer was now along side, and the officer in the stern sheets tossed a small package on our quarter-deck; and then, with the velocity of an uncaged bird, his little green cockle-shell darted away from us like a dolphin. The next moment he stood upon the low deck of the steamer.
"Go ahead!" loudly was borne over the water, and with a plunge and a struggle, away she dashed from us with her loud, regular boom, boom, boom! throwing the spray around her head, like the huge gambolling monster from which she derives her name. With her went our hopes of speedy deliverance from our present durance. With faces whose complicated, whimsically-woful expression Lavater himself could not have analyzed, and as though moved by one spirit, we turned simultaneously toward the captain, who leaned against the capstan, reading one of the letters from the package just received. There was a cloud upon his brow which portended no good to our hopes, and which, by a sympathetic feeling, was attracted to, and heavily settled upon our own. We turned simultaneously to the tow-boat: she was rapidly receding in the distance. We turned again to watch our probable fate in the captain's face. It spoke as plainly as face could speak, "gentlemen, no tow-boat." We gazed upon each other like school-boys hatching a conspiracy. Mutual glances of chagrin and dissatisfaction were bandied about the decks. After so long a passage, with our port almost in sight, and our voyage nearly ended, to be compelled to remain longer in our close prison, and creep like a
"Wounded snake, dragging its slow length along,"
winding, day after day, through the sinuosities of this sluggish Mississippi, was enough to make us ship-wearied wretches verily,
"To weep our spirits from our eyes."
It was a consummation we had never wished. There was evidently a rebellion in embryo. The storm was rapidly gathering, and the thunders had already begun "to utter their voices." The whole scene was infinitely amusing. There could not have been more feeling exhibited, had an order come down for the ship to ride a Gibraltar quarantine.
The captain, having quietly finished the perusal of his letters, now changed at once the complexion of affairs.
"I have just received advices, gentlemen, from my consignees in the city, that the market will be more favourable for my cargo fifteen days hence, than now; therefore, as I have so much leisure before me, I shall decline taking the tow-boat, and sail up to New-Orleans. I will, however, send my boat aboard the brig off our starboard quarter, which will take steam, and try to engage passage for those who wish to leave the ship."