"
Darkness had covered the city of blood when we arrived, and therefore
we could not see it. One of the passengers, in stepping on a plank to
go ashore, fell into the water. It was a frightful sight to see the
dark figure of a fellow-man splattering and holloing in so perilous a
position. Seldom can a person be saved who falls into the Mississippi,
so rapid is the current; and, moreover, the banks are so steep that,
though he be a good swimmer, he cannot get up. The knowledge of these
facts generally destroys in the person who falls in all hope and
self-command. Fortunately, however, in the present instance a rope was
instantly thrown out, and the individual was saved. He assured us,
afterwards, that some one had designedly pushed him from the plank into
the water.
On the 13th of February we breasted a small settlement on our left,
called Providence, in Louisiana. We observed on the river's bank what a
man at my elbow (a professor of religion, who had discovered a great
propensity to talk about his religious experience before gamblers)
coolly designated "a drove of horses, mules, and niggers." Observe the
order of his enumeration! Of the "niggers" there were about 100, small
and great, young and old, and of both sexes.
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