The skiffs for the most part kept fairly close to the shore, skirting the strong current of the channel, avoiding, too, the large steamboats, whose passage ever jeopardized the small craft which crossed in their wake.
Indeed, the passage of one of these great "packets" generally cleared the midstream, although a few venturesome oarsmen would often dare fate in riding the billows in her wake. These great steamboats were known among the humble river folk more for their wave-making power than for the proud features which distinguished them in their personal relations.
There were those, for instance, who would watch for a certain great boat called the Capitol, just for the bravado of essaying the bubbling storm which followed her keel, while some who, enjoying their fun with less snap of danger, preferred to have their skiffs dance behind the Laurel Hill. Or perhaps it was the other way: it may have been the Laurel Hill, of the sphere-topped smoke-stacks, which made the more sensational passage.
It all happened a long time ago, although only about thirteen years had passed since the events last related, and both boats are dead. At least they are out of the world of action, and let us hope they have gone to their rest. An old hulk stranded ashore and awaiting final dissolution is ever a pathetic sight, suggesting a patient paralytic in his chair, grimly biding fate—the waters of eternity at his feet.
At intervals, this evening, fishermen alongshore—old negroes mostly—pottered among the rafts, setting their lines, and if the oarsmen listened keenly, they might almost surely have caught from these gentle toilers short snatches of low-pitched song, hymns mostly, of content or rejoicing.
There was no sense of the fitness of the words when an ancient fisher sang "Sweet fields beyan' de swelling flood," or of humor in "How firm a foundation," chanted by one standing boot-deep in suspicious sands. The favorite hymn of several of the colored fishermen, however, seemed to be "Cometh our fount of every blessin'," frankly so pronounced with reverent piety.
At a distant end of his raft, hidden from its owner by a jutting point from which they leaped, naked boys waded and swam, jeering the deaf singer as they jeered each passing boat, while occasionally an adventurous fellow would dive quite under a skiff, seizing his opportunity while the oars were lifted.
None of the little rowboats carried sail as a rule, although sometimes a sloop would float by with an air of commanding a squadron of the sparse fleet which extended along the length of the river.
The sun was fallen nearly to the levee-line this evening when one of the finest of the "river palaces" hove in sight.
The sky-hour for "dousing the great glim" was so near—and the actual setting of the sun is always sudden—that, while daylight still prevailed, all the steamer's lights were lit, and although the keen sun which struck her as a search-light robbed her thousand lamps of their value, the whole scene was greater for the full illumination.