“It was sung to a long, plaintive tune, carrying with it the agony of parting forever. As it rolled out into the darkness, now and then illumined by the red glare from an opened furnace, the black man seemed to have come into his kingdom; a kingdom peopled with weird shapes and enveloped in the mysticism of a dark continent. He was no longer a humdrum hewer of wood and a drawer of water, but a part of the sublimity of the great river. The steady move of the engines, the cascades from the steam pipes, and the pleasant quiver of the boat seemed the natural accompaniment of the negro’s lullaby, and the whole scene was so enchanting that few passengers retired to their staterooms until late in the night. “The boat swept on past the great Vulcan ironworks, where the blasts showed red against the houses, and gave them the appearance of a town on fire; on past ‘Bloody Island,’ where statesmen met to shoot holes into each other for honor’s sake, and then down the broad water avenue by the mountains of iron the steamer sped, throwing behind great billows that sparkled back the lights from the rear cabin. “Far down the stream is a light close to the shore. The pilot knows what that means. It is a wild-cat landing, where a freighter awaits with a lot of goods, or some passengers who want to take the boat. In either event somebody has probably been waiting by the riverside some six or eight hours. The pilot pulls a ring in the top of his little house, and the triple whistles above it give the peculiar signal of the line. “The steamer runs far past the landing, turns laboriously around under the chiding of the small bells and baby whistles, and forges up to the landing, where the boat is made fast to a tree, and the gangplank runs out, assisted by the rapid-fire comments of the mate. If there was much freight to go on, the place was lighted by burning pine knots in an iron basket placed near the gangplank. “Promptly, as if glad of the call to duty, the deck hand was up and ready for the work of loading. In those days he was a trusty machine, and was proud of his great strength, of his boat, and even of the rich vocabulary of his mate. He loved, when ashore, to talk of the big towns he made, and of the way-up people he knew in them. He had a sweetheart in every place where his boat put up over twelve hours, and his standin was good until she was courted by a man from a bigger and faster boat. “A large and fast boat never had had much trouble in securing plenty of deck hands. But there was no prestige in accepting employment on a small stern-wheeler, devoted mostly to freight traffic, although the wages might be better. The aristocratic travelers patronized the fine side-wheeled boats, with their white-and-gold cabins, and the roustabouts liked best to work where they could be seen by patrician eyes.