At midnight this apparent inflammability was even more striking.  Lights shone from the windows of the long row of cabins, and wherever there was a chink, or a bit of glass, or a latticed blind, the radiance streamed forth as though within were a great mass of fire, struggling, in every way, to escape.  Below, the boiler deck was dully illumined by smoky lanterns; but when one of the great doors of the roaring furnace was thrown open, that the half-naked black firemen might throw in more pitch-pine slabs, there shone forth such a fiery glare, that the boat and the machinery—­working in the open, and plain to view—­seemed wrapped in a Vesuvius of flame, and the sturdy stokers and lounging roustabouts looked like the fiends in a fiery inferno.  The danger was not merely apparent, but very real.  During the early days of steamboating, fires and boiler explosions were of frequent occurrence.  A river boat, once ablaze, could never be saved, and the one hope for the passengers was that it might be beached before the flames drove them overboard.  The endeavor to do this brought out some examples of magnificent heroism among captains, pilots, and engineers, who, time and again, stood manfully at their posts, though scorched by flames, and cut off from any hope of escape, until the boat’s prow was thrust well into the bank, and the passengers were all saved.  The pilots, in the presence of such disaster, were in the sorest straits, and were, moreover, the ones of the boat’s company upon whom most depended the fate of those on board.  Perched at the very top of a large tinder-box, all avenues of escape except a direct plunge overboard were quickly closed to them.  If they left the wheel the current would inevitably swing the boat’s head downstream, and she would drift, aimlessly, a flaming funeral pyre for all on board.  Many a pilot stood, with clenched teeth, and eyes firm set upon the distant shore, while the fire roared below and behind him, and the terrified passengers edged further and further forward as the flames pressed their way toward the bow, until at last came the grinding sound under the hull, and the sudden shock that told of shoal water and safety.  Then, those on the lower deck might drop over the side, or swarm along the windward gangplank to safety, but the pilot too often was hemmed in by the flames, and perished with his vessel.

[Illustration:  FEEDING THE FURNACE]

In the year 1840 alone there were 109 steamboat disasters chronicled, with a loss of fifty-nine vessels and 205 lives.  The high-pressure boilers used on the river, cheaply built, and for many years not subjected to any official inspection, contributed more than their share to the list of accidents.  Boiler explosions were so common as to be reckoned upon every time a voyage was begun.  Passengers were advised to secure staterooms aft when possible, as the forward part of the boat was the more apt to be shattered if the boiler “went up.”  Every river