FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2372   2373   2374   2375   2376   2377   2378   2379   2380   2381   2382   2383   2384   2385   2386   2387   2388   2389   2390   2391   2392   2393   2394   2395   2396  
2397   2398   2399   2400   2401   2402   2403   2404   2405   2406   2407   2408   2409   2410   2411   2412   2413   2414   2415   2416   2417   2418   2419   2420   2421   >>   >|  
or wood-yard opening at intervals, and so you can't 'get out of the river' much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane; but from Baton Rouge to New Orleans it is a different matter. The river is more than a mile wide, and very deep--as much as two hundred feet, in places. Both banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental China-trees. The timber is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane, they form the refuse of the stalks (which they call BAGASSE) into great piles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of damp bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen. An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as a general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and see how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are transformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea. All through your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank and destruction, when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure, also, that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple your chimneys overboard, you will have the small comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one night, at s
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   2372   2373   2374   2375   2376   2377   2378   2379   2380   2381   2382   2383   2384   2385   2386   2387   2388   2389   2390   2391   2392   2393   2394   2395   2396  
2397   2398   2399   2400   2401   2402   2403   2404   2405   2406   2407   2408   2409   2410   2411   2412   2413   2414   2415   2416   2417   2418   2419   2420   2421   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

embankment

 

hundred

 
bagasse
 

plantations

 

timber

 

knowing

 

expecting

 

distances

 

shoreless

 
steamboat

burning

 

region

 
impenetrable
 

Vicksburg

 

discern

 
packets
 

midnight

 

plantation

 

darted

 

imagining


suddenly

 
keeping
 

destruction

 

chance

 

uncertainty

 
misery
 

straggling

 
overboard
 

comfort

 
transformed

tortured
 

exquisite

 

topple

 
chimneys
 

ornamental

 

sapling

 
scattering
 

bordered

 

continuous

 
snatch

finished

 

planters

 
threatens
 

easier

 

fenced

 

opening

 
intervals
 
places
 

matter

 
Orleans