WE had some talk about Captain Isaiah Sellers, now many years dead.

He was a fine man, a high-minded man, and greatly respected both ashore and onthe river. He was very tall, well built, and handsome; and in his old age--as I remember him--his hair was as black as an Indian's, and his eyeand hand were as strong and steady and his nerve and judgment as firmand clear as anybody's, young or old, among the fraternity of pilots.

He was the patriarch of the craft; he had been a keelboat pilot before the dayof steamboats; and a steamboat pilot before any other steamboat pilot,still surviving at the time I speak of, had ever turned a wheel.

Consequently his brethren held him in the sort of awe in which illustrioussurvivors of a bygone age are always held by their associates.

He knew how he was regarded, and perhaps this fact added some trifleof stiffening to his natural dignity, which had been sufficiently stiffin its original state.

He left a diary behind him; but apparently it did not date backto his first steamboat trip, which was said to be 1811, the yearthe first steamboat disturbed the waters of the Mississippi.

At the time of his death a correspondent of the 'St. Louis Republican'

culled the following items from the diary--'In February, 1825, he shipped on board the steamer "Rambler," at Florence,Ala., and made during that year three trips to New Orleans and back--this on the "Gen. Carrol," between Nashville and New Orleans. It was duringhis stay on this boat that Captain Sellers introduced the tap of the bellas a signal to heave the lead, previous to which time it was the customfor the pilot to speak to the men below when soundings were wanted.

The proximity of the forecastle to the pilot-house, no doubt, rendered thisan easy matter; but how different on one of our palaces of the present day.

'In 1827 we find him on board the "President," a boat of twohundred and eighty-five tons burden, and plying between Smithlandand New Orleans. Thence he joined the "Jubilee" in 1828,and on this boat he did his first piloting in the St. Louis trade;his first watch extending from Herculaneum to St. Genevieve.

On May 26, 1836, he completed and left Pittsburgh in chargeof the steamer "Prairie," a boat of four hundred tons, and thefirst steamer with a STATE-ROOM CABIN ever seen at St. Louis.

In 1857 he introduced the signal for meeting boats, and which has,with some slight change, been the universal custom of this day;in fact, is rendered obligatory by act of Congress.

'As general items of river history, we quote the following marginalnotes from his general log--'In March, 1825, Gen. Lafayette left New Orleans for St. Louison the low-pressure steamer "Natchez."'In January, 1828, twenty-one steamers left the New Orleans wharfto celebrate the occasion of Gen. Jackson's visit to that city.

'In 1830 the "North American" made the run from New Orleansto Memphis in six days--best time on record to that date.

It has since been made in two days and ten hours.

'In 1831 the Red River cut-off formed.

'In 1832 steamer "Hudson" made the run from White Riverto Helena, a distance of seventy-five miles, in twelve hours.

This was the source of much talk and speculation amongparties directly interested.

'In 1839 Great Horseshoe cut-off formed.

'Up to the present time, a term of thirty-five years, we ascertain,by reference to the diary, he has made four hundred and sixty roundtrips to New Orleans, which gives a distance of one million one hundredand four thousand miles, or an average of eighty-six miles a day.'

Whenever Captain Sellers approached a body of gossiping pilots,a chill fell there, and talking ceased. For this reason:

whenever six pilots were gathered together, there would alwaysbe one or two newly fledged ones in the lot, and the elderones would be always 'showing off' before these poor fellows;making them sorrowfully feel how callow they were, how recenttheir nobility, and how humble their degree, by talkinglargely and vaporously of old-time experiences on the river;always making it a point to date everything back as far as they could,so as to make the new men feel their newness to the sharpestdegree possible, and envy the old stagers in the like degree.

And how these complacent baldheads WOULD swell, and brag, and lie,and date back--ten, fifteen, twenty years,--and how they did enjoythe effect produced upon the marveling and envying youngsters!

And perhaps just at this happy stage of the proceedings,the stately figure of Captain Isaiah Sellers, that real and onlygenuine Son of Antiquity, would drift solemnly into the midst.

Imagine the size of the silence that would result on the instant.

And imagine the feelings of those bald-heads, and the exultationof their recent audience when the ancient captain would beginto drop casual and indifferent remarks of a reminiscent nature--about islands............