he has not a fine genius for steering.
Steering is a very high art. One must not keep a rudder dragging across
a boat's stem if he wants to get up the river fast.

There is a great difference in boats, of course. For a long time I was
on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left
port in. But of course this was at rare intervals. Ferryboats used to
lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died, waiting
for us to get by. This was at still rarer intervals. I had the
documents for these occurrences, but through carelessness they have been
mislaid. This boat, the 'John J. Roe,' was so slow that when she finally
sunk in Madrid Bend, it was five years before the owners heard of it.
That was always a confusing fact to me, but it is according to the
record, any way. She was dismally slow; still, we often had pretty
exciting times racing with islands, and rafts, and such things. One
trip, however, we did rather well. We went to St. Louis in sixteen
days. But even at this rattling gait I think we changed watches three
times in Fort Adams reach, which is five miles long. A 'reach' is a
piece of straight river, and of course the current drives through such a
place in a pretty lively way.

That trip we went to Grand Gulf, from New Orleans, in four days (three
hundred and forty miles); the 'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' did it in one.
We were nine days out, in the chute of 63 (seven hundred miles); the
'Eclipse' and 'Shotwell' went there in two days. Something over a
generation ago, a boat called the 'J. M. White' went from New Orleans to
Cairo in three days, six hours, and forty-four minutes. In 1853 the
'Eclipse' made the same trip in three days, three hours, and twenty
minutes.{footnote [Time disputed. Some authorities add 1 hour and 16
minutes to this.]} In 1870 the 'R. E. Lee' did it in three days and ONE
hour. This last is called the fastest trip on record. I will try to show
that it was not. For this reason: the distance between New Orleans and
Cairo, when the 'J. M. White' ran it, was about eleven hundred and six
miles; consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles
per hour. In the 'Eclipse's' day the distance between the two ports had
become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles; consequently her
average speed was a shade under fourteen and three-eighths miles per
hour. In the 'R. E. Lee's' time the distance had diminished to about one
thousand and thirty mi