IT was always the custom for the boats to leave NewOrleans between four and five o'clock in the afternoon.

From three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and pitch pine(the sign of preparation), and so one had the picturesque spectacleof a rank, some two or three miles long, of tall, ascending columnsof coal-black smoke; a colonnade which supported a sable roof ofthe same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over the city.

Every outward-bound boat had its flag flying at the jack-staff,and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern.

Two or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with morethan usual emphasis; countless processions of freight barrelsand boxes were spinning athwart the levee and flying aboardthe stage-planks, belated passengers were dodging and skippingamong these frantic things, hoping to reach the forecastlecompanion way alive, but having their doubts about it;women with reticules and bandboxes were trying to keep upwith husbands freighted with carpet-sacks and crying babies,and making a failure of it by losing their heads in the whirland roar and general distraction; drays and baggage-vans wereclattering hither and thither in a wild hurry, every now andthen getting blocked and jammed together, and then during tenseconds one could not see them for the profanity, except vaguelyand dimly; every windlass connected with every forehatch,from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other,was keeping up a deafening whiz and whir, lowering freightinto the hold, and the half-naked crews of perspiring negroesthat worked them were roaring such songs as 'De Las' Sack!

De Las' Sack!'--inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaosof turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad.

By this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamerswould be packed and black with passengers. The 'last bells'

would begin to clang, all down the line, and then the powwowseemed to double; in a moment or two the final warning came,--a simultaneous din of Chinese gongs, with the cry,'All dat ain't goin', please to git asho'! '--and behold,the powwow quadrupled! People came swarming ashore,overturning excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard.

One more moment later a long array of stage-planks was beinghauled in, each with its customary latest passenger clingingto the end of it with teeth, nails, and everything else,and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild springshoreward over his head.

Now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream,leaving wide gaps in the serried rank of steamers.

Citizens crowd the decks of boats that are not to go, in orderto see the sight. Steamer after steamer straightens herself up,gathers all her strength, and presently comes swinging by,under a tremendous head of steam, with flag flying,black smoke rolling, and her entire crew of firemen and deck-hands(usually swarthy negroes) massed together on the forecastle,the best 'voice' in the lot towering from the midst(being mounted on the capstan), waving his hat or a flag,and all roaring a mighty chorus, while the parting cannons boomand the multitudinous spectators swing their hats and huzza!

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