IT was always the custom for the boats to leave NewOrleans between four and five o'clock in the afternoon.

From three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and pitch pine(the sign of preparation), and so one had the picturesque spectacleof a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columnsof coal-black smoke; a colonnade which supported a sable roof ofthe same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over the city.

Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at the jack-staff,and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern.

Two or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with morethan usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrelsand boxes were spinning athwart the levee and flying aboardthe stage-planks, belated passengers were dodging and skippingamong these frantic things, hoping to reach the forecastlecompanion way alive, but having their doubts about it;women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep upwith husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies,and making a failure of it by losing their heads in the whirland roar and general distraction; drays and baggage-vans wereclattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every now andthen getting blocked and jammed together, and then during tenseconds one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguelyand dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other,was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freightinto the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroesthat worked them were roaring such songs as 'De Las' Sack!

De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaosof turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad.

By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamerswould be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells'

would begin to clang, all down the line, and then the powwowseemed to double; in a moment or two the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs, with the cry,'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'! '--and behold,the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore,overturning excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard.

One more moment later a long array of stage-planks was beinghauled in, each with its customary latest passenger clingingto the end of it with teeth, nails, and everything else,and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild springshoreward over his head.

Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream,leaving wide gaps in the serried rank of steamers.

Citizens crowd the decks of boats that are not to go, in orderto see the sight. Steamer after steamer straightens herself up,gathers all her strength, and presently comes swinging by,under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying,black smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands(usually swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle,the best 'voice' in the lot towering from the midst(being mounted on the capstan), waving his hat or a flag,and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting cannons boomand the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and huzza!

Steamer after steamer falls into line, and the stately procession goeswinging its flight up the river.

In the old times, whenever two fast boats started out on a race,with a big crowd of people looking on, it was inspiring to hearthe crews sing, especially if the time were night-fall, and the forecastlelit up with the red glare of the torch-baskets. Racing was royal fun.

The public always had an idea that racing was dangerous; whereas the oppositewas the case--that is, after the laws were passed which restrictedeach boat to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch.

No engineer was ever sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race.

He was constantly on the alert, trying gauge-cocks and watching things.

The dangerous place was on slow, plodding boats, where the engineers drowsedaround and allowed chips to get into the 'doctor' and shut off the watersupply from the boilers.

In the 'flush times' of steamboating, a race between two notoriouslyfleet steamers was an event of vast importance. The date was setfor it several weeks in advance, and from that time forward, the wholeMississippi Valley was in a state of consuming excitement. Politics andthe weather were dropped, and people talked only of the coming race.

As the time approached, the two steamers 'stripped' and got ready.

Every encumbrance that added weight, or exposed a resisting surfaceto wind or water, was removed, if the boat could possibly do without it.

The 'spars,' and sometimes even their supporting derricks, were sent ashore,and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground.

When the 'Eclipse' and the 'A. L. Shotwell' ran their great race manyyears ago, it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding offthe fanciful device which hung between the 'Eclipse's' chimneys, and that forthat one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head shaved.

But I always doubted these things.

If the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a half feetforward and five feet aft, she was carefully loaded to that exact figure--she wouldn't enter a dose of homoeopathic pills on her manifest after that.

Hardly any passengers were taken, because they not only add weight but theynever will 'trim boat.' They always run to the side when there is anythingto see, whereas a conscientious and experienced steamboatman would stick tothe center of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit level.

No way-freights and no way-passengers were allowed, for the racers wouldstop only at the largest towns, and then it would be only 'touch and go.'

Coal flats and wood flats were contracted for beforehand, and these werekept ready to hitch on to the flying steamers at a moment's warning.

Double crews were carried, so that all work could be quickly done.

The chosen date being come, and all things in readiness,the two great steamers back into the stream, and lie therejockeying a moment, and apparently watching each other'sslightest movement, like sentient creatures; flags drooping,the pent steam shrieking through safety-valves, the black smokerolling and tumbling from the chimneys and darkening all the air.

People, people everywhere; the shores, the house-tops,the steamboats, the ships, are packed with them, and you knowthat the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to befringed with humanity thence northward twelve hundred miles,to welcome these racers.

Presently tall columns of steam burst from the 'scape-pipesof both steamers, two guns boom a good-bye, two red-shirted heroesmounted on capstans wave their small flags above the massed crewson the forecastles, two plaintive solos linger on the air a fewwaiting seconds, two mighty choruses burst forth--and here they come!

Brass bands bray Hail Columbia, huzza after huzza thunders fromthe shores, and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind.

Those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis,except for a second or two at large towns, or to hitch thirty-cordwood-boats alongside. You should be on board when they take a coupleof those wood-boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each;by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on, you will bewondering what has become of that wood.

Two nicely matched steamers will stay in sight of each other day after day.

They might even stay side by side, but for the fact that pilots are notall alike, and the smartest pilots will win the race. If one of the boats hasa 'lightning' pilot, whose 'partner' is a trifle his inferior, you can tellwhich one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained ground or lostsome during each four-hour stretch. The shrewdest pilot can delay a boatif he has not a fine genius for steering. Steering is a very high art.

One must not keep a rudder dra............