CHAP. XXXII. ] BONFIRE ON FLOATING RAFT. 157 



Natchez, prepared for a start in the first steamer which would 

 take us to Grand Gulf, fifty miles higher up. We amused our 

 selves by watching a party of young negro boys, who collected 

 the drift wood which bordered the river, and, having tied it 

 together into a raft, heaped some dead branches of trees upon it, 

 placing a layer of shavings under the pile. Having set it on 

 fire, they pushed it off from the shore, and exulted as they saw 

 the floating bonfire, in the dusk of the evening, throwing a glar 

 ing light on the bluffs, town, and shipping. The raft was car 

 ried round and round in the great eddies near the bank, and the 

 urchins shouted when their love of mischief was gratified by 

 seeing the alarm of the boatmen, each of whom was observing 

 the wandering fire with some anxiety, lest it should come too 

 near his own craft. In the cabin of the wharf-boat we found no 

 furniture, but were supplied with two chairs, which, like the 

 walls and ceiling, were of unpainted wood. As it grew dark, 

 they brought in a table and a single candle. We were not sorry 

 when the Peytona was announced, and we were ushered into a 

 splendid saloon, 150 feet long, lighted by two large chandeliers sus 

 pended from the ceiling, and supplied with brilliant gas, manufac 

 tured on board. The mattresses of our beds were clastic, made 

 of India rubber, no unmeaning luxury, for we were awakened 

 before morning by the bumping of the boat against one floating 

 log after another, and, in spite of the frequent stoppage of the 

 engine, no small damage was done to the paddle-wheels, which 

 got entangled with the drift timber. We reached Grand Gulf 

 when morning had scarcely dawned, and found the floor of the 

 saloon covered with the sleeping colored servants, over whom we 

 had to step. The river had risen twenty-five feet in two days, 

 and was more turbid than we had yet seen it. 



The blulf at Grand Gulf is about 180 feet high, the upper 

 most 60 feet, composed, as at Natchez, of yellow loam or loess, 

 beneath which was white quartzose sand, partially concreted into 

 solid sandstone, which is quarried here for building. From the 

 summit, the river-plain to the westward seemed as level, blue, 

 and boundless as the ocean. As we had now traveled two 

 degrees of latitude northward, the spring was not more advanced 



