t of my miry
hole, where I was as fast as a swine in its Arkansas sty; and then I
looked about for my wallet, which I had dropped. I could see which way
it had gone, for, close to the yawning circle from which I had just
extricated myself; there was another smaller one two yards off; into
which my wallet had sunk deep, though it was comfortably light, which
goes to illustrate the Indiana saying, that there is no conscience so
light but will sink in the bottom of the Wabash. Well, I did not care
much, as in my wallet I had only an old coloured shirt and a dozen of my
own sermons, which I knew by heart, having repeated them a hundred times
over.

"Being now in a regular fix, I cut a stick, and began whittling and
whistling, to lighten my sorrows, till at last I perceived at the bank
of the river, and five hundred yards ahead, one of those large rafts,
constructed pretty much like Noah's ark, in which a Wabash farmer
embarks his cargo of women and fleas, pigs and chickens, corn, whisky,
rats, sheep, and stolen niggers; indeed, in most cases, the whole of the
cargo is stolen, except the wife and children, the only portion whom the
owner would very much like to be rid of; but these will stick to him as
naturally as a prairie fly to a horse, as long as he has spirits to
drink, pigs to attend to, and breeches to mend.

"Well, as she was close to the bank, I got in. The owner was General
John Meyer, from Vincennes, and his three sons, the colonel, the
captain, and the judge. They lent me a sort of thing which, many years
before, had probably been a horse-blanket. With it I covered myself;
while one of the `boys' spread my clothes to dry, and, as I had nothing
left in the world, except thirty dollars in my pocket-book, I kept that
constantly in my hand till the evening, when, my clothes being dried, I
recovered the use of my pocket. The general was free with his `Wabash
water' (western appellation for whisky), and, finding me to his taste,
as he said, he offered me a passage gratis to New Orleans, if I could
but submit myself to his homely fare; that is to say, salt pork, with
plenty of gravy, four times a day, and a decoction of burnt bran and
grains of maize, going under the name of coffee all over the States--the
whisky was to be _ad libitum_.

"As I considered the terms moderate, I agreed, and the hospitable
general soon entrusted me with his plans. He had gone many times to
Texas; he loved Texas--it was a free cou