“When I got into the Mississippi I found all my hands were bad scared.  In fact, I believe I was scared a little the worst of any; for I had never been down the river, and I soon discovered that my pilot was as ignorant of the business as myself.  I hadn’t gone far before I determined to lash the two boats together.  We did so; but it made them so heavy and obstinate that it was next akin to impossible to do any thing at all with them, or to guide them right in the river.

“That evening we fell in company with some Ohio boats, and about night we tried to land, but we could not.  The Ohio men hollered to us to go on and run all night.  We took their advice, though we had a good deal rather not.  But we couldn’t do any other way.  In a short distance we got into what is called the Devil’s Elbow.  And if any place in the wide creation has its own proper name I thought it was this.  Here we had about the hardest work that I was ever engaged in in my life, to keep out of danger.  And even then we were in it all the while.  We twice attempted to land at Wood Yards, which we could see, but couldn’t reach.

“The people would run out with lights, and try to instruct us how to get to shore; but all in vain.  Our boats were so heavy that we could not take them much any way except the way they wanted to go, and just the way the current would carry them.  At last we quit trying to land, and concluded just to go ahead as well as we could, for we found we couldn’t do any better.

“Some time in the night I was down in the cabin of one of the boats, sitting by the fire, thinking on what a hobble we had got into; and how much better bear-hunting was on hard land, than floating along on the water, when a fellow had to go ahead whether he was exactly willing or not.  The hatch-way of the cabin came slap down, right through the top of the boat; and it was the only way out, except a small hole in the side which we had used for putting our arms through to dip up water before we lashed the boats together.

“We were now floating sideways, and the boat I was in was the hindmost as we went.  All at once I heard the hands begin to run over the top of the boat in great confusion, and pull with all their might.  And the first thing I know’d after this we went broadside full tilt against the head of an island, where a large raft of drift timber had lodged.  The nature of such a place would be, as everybody knows, to suck the boats down and turn them right under this raft; and the uppermost boat would, of course, be suck’d down and go under first.  As soon as we struck, I bulged for my hatchway, as the boat was turning under sure enough.  But when I got to it, the water was pouring through in a current as large as the hole would let it, and as strong as the weight of the river would force it.  I found I couldn’t get out here, for the boat was now turned down in such a way that it was steeper than a house-top.  I now thought of the hole in the side, and made my way in a hurry for that.