back into the world again.  That is, they are going to take this whole Mississippi, and twist it around and make it run several miles up stream.  Well you’ve got to admire men that deal in ideas of that size and can tote them around without crutches; but you haven’t got to believe they can do such miracles, have you!  And yet you ain’t absolutely obliged to believe they can’t.  I reckon the safe way, where a man can afford it, is to copper the operation, and at the same time buy enough property in Vicksburg to square you up in case they win.  Government is doing a deal for the Mississippi, now—­spending loads of money on her.  When there used to be four thousand steamboats and ten thousand acres of coal-barges, and rafts and trading scows, there wasn’t a lantern from St. Paul to New Orleans, and the snags were thicker than bristles on a hog’s back; and now when there’s three dozen steamboats and nary barge or raft, Government has snatched out all the snags, and lit up the shores like Broadway, and a boat’s as safe on the river as she’d be in heaven.  And I reckon that by the time there ain’t any boats left at all, the Commission will have the old thing all reorganized, and dredged out, and fenced in, and tidied up, to a degree that will make navigation just simply perfect, and absolutely safe and profitable; and all the days will be Sundays, and all the mates will be Sunday-school su-what-in-the-nation-you
-fooling-around-there-for, you sons of unrighteousness, heirs of perdition!  Going to be A year getting that hogshead ashore?’

During our trip to New Orleans and back, we had many conversations with river men, planters, journalists, and officers of the River Commission—­ with conflicting and confusing results.  To wit:—­

1.  Some believed in the Commission’s scheme to arbitrarily and permanently confine (and thus deepen) the channel, preserve threatened shores, etc.

2.  Some believed that the Commission’s money ought to be spent only on building and repairing the great system of levees.

3.  Some believed that the higher you build your levee, the higher the river’s bottom will rise; and that consequently the levee system is a mistake.

4.  Some believed in the scheme to relieve the river, in flood-time, by turning its surplus waters off into Lake Borgne, etc.

5.  Some believed in the scheme of northern lake-reservoirs to replenish the Mississippi in low-water seasons.