We were nearly all night at Natchez loading cotton. The next day, I noticed that the men worked languidly, and that the mate was plying them with whiskey. I took an opportunity to talk with him about them. He said,—
“We have a hundred and eighty hands aboard, all told. Thar’s sixty deck-hands. That a’n’t enough. We ought to have reliefs, when we’re shipping freight day and night as we are now.”
I remarked: “A gentleman who came up to Vicksburg in the ‘Fashion,’ stated, as an excuse for the long trip she made, that the niggers wouldn’t work,—that the mates couldn’t make them work.”
He replied: “I reckon the hands on board the ‘Fashion’ are about in the condition these are. These men are used up. They ha’n’t had no sleep for four days and nights. I’ve seen a man go to sleep many a time, standing up, with a box on his shoulder. We pay sixty dollars a month,—more’n almost any other boat, the work is so hard. But we get rid of paying a heap of ’em. When a man gets so used up he can’t stand no more, he quits. He don’t dare to ask for wages, for he knows he’ll get none, without he sticks by to the end of the trip.”
While we were talking, a young fellow, not more than twenty years old, came up, looking very much exhausted, and told the mate he was sick.
“Ye a’n’t sick neither!” roared the mate at him, fiercely. “You’re lazy! If you won’t work, go ashore.”
The fellow limped away again, and went ashore at the next landing.
“Is he sick or lazy?” I asked.
“Neither. He’s used up. He was as smart a hand as I had when he came aboard. But they can’t stand it.”
“Was it always so?”