Everything else
is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it hasn't got the same shape
in the night that it has in the daytime."
"How on earth am I going to learn it, then?"
"How do you follow a hall at home in the dark? Because you know the
shape of it. You can't see it."
"Do you mean to say that I've got to know all the million trifling
variations of shape in the banks of this interminable river as well
as I know the shape of the front hall at home?"
"On my honor, you've got to know them better than any man ever did
know the shapes of the halls in his own house."
"I wish I was dead!"
But the reader must turn to Chapter VIII of "Life on the Mississippi" and
read, or reread, the pages which follow this extract--nothing can better
convey the difficulties of piloting. That Samuel Clemens had the courage
to continue is the best proof, not only of his great love of the river,
but of that splendid gift of resolution that one rarely fails to find in
men of the foremost rank.
[3] Depth of water. One-quarter less than three fathoms.
XIV.
RIVER DAYS
Piloting was only a part of Sam Clemens's education on the Mississippi.
He learned as much of the reefs and shallows of human nature as of the
river-bed.
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