34 
LETTEES FROM ALABAMA. 
where we were at first. Indeed, at the place where 
I am now residing, which is about six miles in a 
direct line from the river, I have been assured that 
the booming of a steamer’s engine will sometimes 
be heard in the morning, and continue to be audible 
at intervals for a great part of the day ; the vessel 
having been^, perhaps, at no time more than twenty 
miles distant, in a course of many hours. 
It is pleasant to meet another boat in the river, es- 
pecially in a part'll the low country where the course 
is very tortuous : to catch the faint black line of 
smoke upon the sky, across the fields and marshes ; 
after an interval to see it again, and faintly hear 
the roaring of the steam ; then again to lose both 
sight and sound, and again and again to perceive 
both, gradually becoming more and more plainly 
perceptible ; till at length she bursts into open view 
round some wooded point, rushes by in her majesty 
with her freight of human life, and, scarcely giving 
time to read her name broadly painted on her 
wheel-boxes, is instantly hidden beneath the black 
cloud of her own smoke. 
Owing to the great number of turns which the 
river makes, it was not until the second morning 
that we arrived at King’s Landing, having been 
two nights and one day performing a distance 
which, in a direct line, is not more than a hun- 
dred and twenty miles. Every extensive planter 
whose estate borders on the river, has what is 
called a landing ; that is, a large building to con- 
tain bales of cotton ; and if the bank be precipi- 
tous, as it is in this instance, flights of wide 
steps leading to the summit, and a slide formed of 
planks reaching from the warehouse above to the 
water beneath. When cotton is to be shipped, the 
