“While we stood on deck a small boat passed, and a sailor very gleefully called out the soundings as he threw the lead, ‘Eight and a half-nine.’

“But we are still high and dry now at two o’clock P.M.  They are shaking the steamer, and making efforts to move her.  They say if she gets over this, there is no worse place for her to meet.

“I asked the captain of what the bottom is composed, and he says, ’Of mud, rocks, snags, and everything.’

“He is now moving very cautiously, and the boat has an unpleasant tremulous motion.

“March 20.  Latitude about thirty-eight degrees.  We are just where we stopped at noon yesterday—­there is no change, and of course no event.  One of our crew killed a ’possum yesterday, and another boat stopped near us this morning, and seems likely to lie as long as we do on the sand-bar.

“We read Shakspere this morning after breakfast, and then betook ourselves to the wheel-house to look at the scenery again.  While there a little colored boy came to us bearing a waiter of oranges, and telling us that the captain sent them with his compliments.  We ate them greedily, because we had nothing else to do.

“21st.  Still the sand-bar.  No hope of getting off.  We heard the pilot hail a steamboat which was going up to St. Louis, and tell them to send on a lighter, and I suppose we must wait for that....  It is my private opinion that this great boat will not get off at all, but will lie here until she petrifies....

“March 24.  We left the ‘Magnolia’ after four days and four hours upon the sand-bar near Turkey island, upon seeing the ‘Woodruff’ approach.  We left in a little rowboat, and it seemed at first as if we could not overtake the steamer; but the captain saw us and slackened his speed.

“Miss S. and I clutched hands in a little terror as our small boat seemed likely to run under the great steamer, but our oarsmen knew their duty and we were safely put on board of the ‘Woodruff.’

“March 25.  We stopped at Cairo at eight o’clock this morning.  Mr. S. went on shore and brought newspapers on board.  The Cairo paper I do not think of high order.  I saw no mention in it of the detention of the ‘Magnolia’!

“March 26.  Yesterday we count as a day of events.  It began to look sunny on the banks, especially on the Kentucky side, and Miss S. and I saw cherry-blossoms.  We remembered the eclipse, and Mr. S. having brought with him a piece of broken glass from one of the windows of the ‘Magnolia,’ I smoked it over a piece of candle which I had brought from Room No. 22 of the Planter’s House at St. Louis, and we prepared to see the eclipse.

“I expected to see the moon on at five o’clock and twenty minutes, but as I had no time I could not tell when to look for it.

“It was not on at that time by my watch, but in ten minutes after was so far on that I think my time cannot be much wrong.

“It was a little cloudy, so that we saw the sun only ’all flecked with bars,’ and caught sight of the phenomenon at intervals.