142 STEAM-BOAT ACCIDENTS. [CHAP. XXIX. 



rest. Therefore never pay in advance, for should 

 you fall overboard during a race, and the watch cries 

 out to the captain, A passenger overboard, he will 

 ask, Has he paid his passage ? and if he receives 

 an answer in the affirmative, he will call out, Go 

 ahead! &quot; 



I shall explain in the sequel why the danger of 

 accidents, in the present state of the navigation, is 

 by no means so great as statistical tables make it 

 appear at a distance ; but certainly my first day s 

 experience was not of a character to dispose me to 

 regard the warnings I had received as idle or un 

 called for. After we had been seated for half an 

 hour on the deck of the &quot; Wave&quot; steamer, Dr. Carpen 

 ter was recommended by a friend to go by preference 

 in a rival boat, just ready to start for the Balize, 

 which he said was safer. We accordingly went into 

 her, and she sailed first. Eight hours afterwards, 

 while we were waiting, as I thought, an unconscion 

 able time, at a landing, while a Creole proprietor, who 

 was by no means inclined to be in a hurry, was embark 

 ing himself and some black servants, we saw the rival 

 steamer come up very slowly. No sooner had she 

 joined us, than all her passengers poured into our 

 steamer, and told us they had been in the greatest 

 alarm, their steam-pipe having burst ; but, most pro 

 videntially, they had all escaped without serious 

 injury. If I had not already sailed about 1500 

 miles in Southern steam-boats, since leaving South 

 Carolina, without a mischance, I might have looked 

 on this adventure as very ominous. 



The greater part of New Orleans would be annually 



