The Mississippi River steamboat of the golden age on the river—­the type, indeed, which still persists—­was a triumph of adaptability to the service for which she was designed.  More than this—­she was an egregious architectural sham.  She was a success in her light draught, six to eight feet, at most, and in her prodigious carrying capacity.  It was said of one of these boats, when skilfully loaded by a gang of practical roustabouts, under the direction of an experienced mate, that the freight she carried, if unloaded on the bank, would make a pile bigger than the boat herself.  The hull of the vessel was invariably of wood, broad of beam, light of draught, built “to run on a heavy dew,” and with only the rudiments of a keel.  Some freight was stowed in the hold, but the engines were not placed there, but on the main deck, built almost flush with the water, and extending unbroken from stem to stern.  Often the engines were in pairs, so that the great paddle-wheels could be worked independently of each other.  The finest and fastest boats were side-wheelers, but a large wheel at the stern, or two stern wheels, side by side, capable of independent action, were common modes of propulsion.  The escape-pipes of the engine were carried high aloft, above the topmost of the tiers of decks, and from each one alternately, when the boat was under way, would burst a gush of steam, with a sound like a dull puff, followed by a prolonged sigh, which could be heard far away beyond the dense forests that bordered the river.  A row of posts, always in appearance, too slender for the load they bore, supported the saloon deck some fifteen feet above the main deck.  When business was good on the river, the space within was packed tight with freight, leaving barely room enough for passenger gangways, and for the men feeding the roaring furnaces with pine slabs.  A great steamer coming down to New Orleans from the cotton country about the Red River, loaded to the water’s edge with cotton bales, so that, from the shore, she looked herself like a monster cotton bale, surmounted by tiers of snowy cabins and pouring forth steam and smoke from towering pipes, was a sight long to be remembered.  It is a sight, too, that is still common on the lower river, where the business of gathering up the planter’s crop and getting it to market has not yet passed wholly into the hands of the railroads.

[Illustration:  A DECK LOAD OF COTTON]

Above the cargo and the roaring furnaces rose the cabins, two or three tiers, one atop the other, the topmost one extending only about one-third of the length of the boat, and called the “Texas.”  The main saloon extending the whole length of the boat, save for a bit of open deck at bow and stern, was in comparison with the average house of the time, palatial.  On either side it was lined by rows of doors, each opening into a two-berthed stateroom.  The decoration was usually ivory white, and on the main panel of each door was an oil painting of some