The "boys" about the town subscribed a fund, and invested it in five gallons of whiskey, which Cloud took aboard his skiff when he departed. He plainly stated that the conditions of the bet prevented his sleeping under a roof while on his way; so he curled himself up in his blankets and slept on the veranda floors. The man must have had great powers of endurance, or he could not have rowed so long in the hot sun at that malarious season of the year. His chief sustenance was whiskey; and at one town, near Cairo, I was assured by the best authority, ten gallons of that fiery liquor were stowed away in his skiff. Such disregard of nature's laws soon told upon the plucky fellow, and his voyage came to an end when almost in sight of his goal. The malaria he was breathing and the whiskey he was drinking set fire to his blood, and the fatal congestive chills were the inevitable result. The papers of New Orleans had announced the approach of the great oarsman, and the planters were ready to give him a cordial welcome, when one day a man who was walking near the shore of the Mississippi, in the parish of Iberville, and looking out upon the river, saw a boat of a peculiar model whirling around in the eddies. He at once launched his boat and pushed out to the object which had excited his curiosity. Stretched upon the bottom of the strange craft was a man dressed in the garb of a northern boatman. At first he appeared to be dead; but a careful examination showed that life was not yet extinct. The unknown man was carried to the nearest plantation, and there, among strangers whose hearts beat kindly for the unfortunate boatman, John C. Cloud expired without uttering one word. The coroner, [Dying in his boat.] Mr. Adonis Le Blanc, found upon the person of the dead man a memorandum-book which told of the distances made each day upon the river, while the entries of the closing days showed how the keeper of the log had suffered from the "heavy shakes" occasioned by the malaria and his own imprudence. The story of the cruise was recorded on the boat. Men and women had written their names inside the frail shell, with the dates of her arrival at different localities along the route. I afterwards examined the boat at Biloxi, on the Gulf of Mexico, where it was kept as a curiosity in the boat-house of a citizen of New Orleans. They buried the unfortunate man upon the plantation, and Mr. Clay Gourrier took charge of his effects. The most remarkable thing about this rowing match was the credulity of the people along the route. They accepted Cloud's statement without stopping to consider that if there were any truth in it, the other side, with their five thousand dollars at stake, would surely take some interest in the matter, and have men posted along the route to see that the bet was fairly won. The fact that no bet had been made never seemed to dawn upon them; but, like too many, they sympathized without reasoning.