“Now, on the lakes, and on such salt-water craft as I have traveled on, the Captain of the boat is very much in evidence. He has all to say about everything, and seems to be a sort of court of appeals for the trial and final disposition of all cases, trivial or important. He seems to have a personal supervision over every detail of his business, and to have very little real leisure. It may be, of course, that the Captain of a Mississippi boat has similar duties and responsibilities, but it doesn’t seem so to the average passenger.
“In the first place, he seems to have nothing to say about the navigation of his boat. The pilot attends to that, apparently, all the time. Then the Captain has little to say to the crew. The mate bosses the deckhands and the roustabouts, and the engineer has control of his own department. I suppose the Captain gives them both orders, though I never saw or heard him do it. I have heard him order the waiters about in the dining-room, but it seems ridiculous to class that among his duties. Altogether, to one who doesn’t understand the matter, the Captain’s office seems suited to comic opera rather than to navigation, and, as I intimated, I enjoy comic opera too much to want to understand this.
“There is one thing about the position, however, which is no joke. The Captain has arbitrary police power over everybody on board his boat, unless, indeed, the pilot is exempt. I don’t know about that. So well is this fact understood that I never saw this authority disputed but once, and on that occasion it was not well for the man who did the disputing.
“Captain Foss of the river packet Lone Star, plying between St. Louis and New Orleans some twenty years ago, was one of the finest men I ever chanced to know on the river. That he was a Southerner no one could doubt who saw him and heard him talk, but I never knew what State he came from. He was a man of middle stature and remarkable physical development, strong as a horse and active as a cat. I think he had been in the army, for he had a military bearing, but his title of Captain came, of course, from his position. He was somewhat of a dandy, and dressed in what was old style even then, but the exquisite neatness and fine material of his clothing made him conspicuous even among the wealthy and well-dressed passengers who patronized his boat from choice whenever they traveled the river.