When I left New Orleans the surgeons advised me that I should go by water as far as I could on my journey north, and avoid the shaking of the railroad cars. I took passage on the steamer Chancellor for Louisville, and when we backed out from the levee and headed up the river we saw a steamer--the Belle of the West, I think it was--close behind us, and then the race began. For fifteen hundred miles it was a bitter struggle; first one ahead and then the other, according to the landings made. Now the Belle would be ahead and then our pilot would quit the main channel and by taking the "chutes" come out ahead. Then we would be overtaken and run side by side. Often the two boats ran with their guards touching, allowing the passengers of the two steamers to converse with each other and have a jolly time. On the Belle was a lady with her three daughters, of whom you will hear more hereafter. At Paducah, finding a number of barrels of resin, our captain bought them to use with the wood to increase the steam. So on and on we went, with boilers hissing and volumes of black smoke rolling from the smokestacks or chimneys, forming great clouds that were wafted away by the winds. After five or six days and nights of clanking of the fire doors, ringing of the bells above and below, and the blowing of whistles, we arrived at Louisville just fifteen minutes behind the Belle.
When I look back on the danger incurred from the explosion of a boiler, I cannot recall to mind one word of protest from any passenger against carrying such a high pressure of steam, or of asking the officers to desist. On the contrary, every one would shout for joy and wave their handkerchiefs on the passing boat.
However reprehensible, those races were common in the palmy days of steamboats on the "Father of Waters."
From Louisville I went to Cincinnati, thence on a small steamer to Pittsburg. Here I took passage on a canal boat for the east. As time was no object to me, I was not impatient of delay, and enjoyed the wild mountain scenery of the Alleghanies, and the pretty views along the blue Juniata; and as chance would have it, among the passengers were the lady (Mrs. J. L. Roberts) and her daughters that were on the Belle of the West, to whom I was presented by the gentleman who came to Pittsburg to meet them. They went by canal because one of them had been injured by having been thrown from their carriage. From this time on they were kind friends of mine, and I recall with delight the many happy days that I subsequently passed at their home on their plantation back of Natchez, Miss.