WE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeedin finding another pilot; so he proposed that I should standa daylight watch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer.

But I was afraid; I had never stood a watch of any sort by myself,and I believed I should be sure to get into trouble in the head ofsome chute, or ground the boat in a near cut through some bar or other.

Brown remained in his place; but he would not travel with me.

So the captain gave me an order on the captain of the 'A. T. Lacey,'

for a passage to St. Louis, and said he would find a newpilot there and my steersman's berth could then be resumed.

The 'Lacey' was to leave a couple of days after the 'Pennsylvania.'

The night before the 'Pennsylvania' left, Henry and I satchatting on a freight pile on the levee till midnight.

The subject of the chat, mainly, was one which I think wehad not exploited before--steamboat disasters. One was thenon its way to us, little as we suspected it; the water whichwas to make the steam which should cause it, was washing pastsome point fifteen hundred miles up the river while we talked;--but it would arrive at the right time and the right place.

We doubted if persons not clothed with authority were of muchuse in cases of disaster and attendant panic; still, they mightbe of SOME use; so we decided that if a disaster ever fellwithin our experience we would at least stick to the boat,and give such minor service as chance might throw in the way.

Henry remembered this, afterward, when the disaster came,and acted accordingly.

The 'Lacey' started up the river two days behind the 'Pennsylvania.'

We touched at Greenville, Mississippi, a couple of days out,and somebody shouted--'The "Pennsylvania" is blown up at Ship Island, and a hundredand fifty lives lost!'

At Napoleon, Arkansas, the same evening, we got an extra,issued by a Memphis paper, which gave some particulars.

It mentioned my brother, and said he was not hurt.

Further up the river we got a later extra. My brother wasagain mentioned; but this time as being hurt beyond help.

We did not get full details of the catastrophe until we reached Memphis.

This is the sorrowful story--It was six o'clock on a hot summer morning. The 'Pennsylvania'

was creeping along, north of Ship Island, about sixty miles belowMemphis on a half-head of steam, towing a wood-flat which was fastbeing emptied. George Ealer was in the pilot-house-alone, I think;the second engineer and a striker had the watch in the engine room;the second mate had the watch on deck; George Black, Mr. Wood,and my brother, clerks, were asleep, as were also Brown andthe head engineer, the carpenter, the chief mate, and one striker;Captain Klinefelter was in the barber's chair, and the barber waspreparing to shave him. There were a good many cabin passengers aboard,and three or four hundred deck passengers--so it was said at the time--and not very many of them were astir. The wood being nearly all outof the flat now, Ealer rang to 'come ahead' full steam, and the nextmoment four of the eight boilers exploded with a thunderous crash,and the whole forward third of the boat was hoisted toward the sky!

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