DANGEROUS NAVIGATION. 141 



dies of the " Skylark" worked independently of each 

 other, and there were bells in the pilot-box within reach 

 of the captain's hand as he stood at the wheel, which 

 ruled the pace, suggested more or less steam, backed 

 her, or put but one wheel in motion at a time. 



As we were steaming up the river, the snags, imbedded 

 in a shifting and sandy bottom, all lay chevaux de frise 

 fashion, with their sharp arms invariably tending down 

 stream, the bolls of the huge and dangerous impediments 

 out of sight, but the " snags," or points of destruction, 

 peeping above the water in several places wide of each 

 other many other limbs, of course, ready to catch a 

 luckless boat, which, from being beneath the surface, 

 were not visible to the eye. Not only, then, were there 

 these visible snags, but of course there were hundreds of 

 others, all equally fatal to the side or bottom of a vessel, 

 that lay concealed ; and what was worse, the captain 

 assured me that they kept shifting their positions, and he 

 never knew for two voyages together where to place them. 

 Sticks, scum, floating wood, and the debris of ruin and 

 death often caught on these pointed snags, and sometimes 

 their pallid hands arrested ghastly things as to the fate of 

 which there was neither policeman nor coroner to inquire. 

 Thick and muddy, or, more properly speaking, sandy, as 

 the waters of the Missouri are, they are, nevertheless, 

 deemed to possess the most healthful qualities. The 

 Americans say " they are better than a doctor" no great 

 meed of praise, if I am to judge of the young men who 

 minister to disease, or rather unto death, in the frontier 

 towns. For myself, while on board the " Skylark," I 

 never felt in better health. It was not long before I saw 

 (on Saturday, the 19th of September) a pretty fair sample of 

 the fate (but for the greatest skill and caution) that might 



