_Steamboat Blue Wing._--Which said boat is very much the shape of a Michigan country-made sausage, and is built with a hinge in the middle to go around the sharp bends in the river, and is manned by two captains, four mates, sixteen darkies, two stewards, a small boy, a big dog, an opossum, two pair of grey squirrels, one clock, and a cream-colored chamber-maid. [Illustration: The River Darkies.] Fog so thick you couldn't run a locomotive through it without a snow-plough; night so dark the clerk has two men on each side of him with pitch-pine torches, to enable him to see his spectacles (he wears spectacles); pilot so drunk the boys have painted his face with charcoal and coke berries, till he looks like a rag carpet in the last stages of dilapidation; and he is fast asleep, with his legs (pardon me, but--legs), tied to the capstan, his whiskers full of coal-dust and cinders, and the black end of the poker in his mouth. Boat fast aground, with her symmetrical nose six feet deep in Kentucky mud; there she complacently lies, waiting for the mail boat to come along and pull her out. Passengers elegantly disposed in various stages of don't-care-a-cent-itiveness, and the subscriber, taking advantage of the temporary sobriety of the clerk, and his consequent attendance in the after-cabin to play poker with the mates, embraces the opportunity to write. The silence is of brief duration, for I am interrupted by a grand oratorio by the nigger firemen, much to my delight and edification. It runs somewhat as follows:-- (Grand opening chorus) "A-hoo--a-hoo--hoo-oooo--a-hooo--a-hoo--a-hooo-- a-hoooo-oo!" The dashes in the following represent the passages where the superfluity of the harmony prevented the proper appreciation of the poetry. "Gwin down de ribber--a-hoo-a-O! Good-bye--nebber come back----debbil----beans----Grey-haired injun----Ya-a--a--aaaa--Ya-a-a-a-a-a-a-a---- Ga--!" (leader of orchestra) "dirty shirt massa, got de whisky bottle in his hat, dis poor ole boy nebber git none---- A-hoo--a-hooo--a-hooooo!" (ending in an indescribable howl). (Pensive darkey on the coal heap)--"Miss Serefiny good-bye--farewell; nebber git no more red pantaloonses from Miss Serefiny--Oho--Ahooo--Ahooo-O!" (Extemporaneous voluntary by an original nigger with two turkey feathers in his hat, and his hair tied up with yellow strings)-- "Corn cake--'lasses on it--vaphuns--" (meaning waffles) "big ones honey on 'em--Ya-a-a-a-a-a." (Stern rebuke by leader)--"Shut up your mouf, you 'leven hundred dollar nigger."