A Somnambulistic Pilot.

Auckland Star, Volume VI, Issue 1659, 12 June 1875, Page 6 (Supplement)

A Somnambulistic Pilot.

I thought I had finished this number, but I wish to add a curious thing, while it is in my mind. It is onlyrelevant in that it is connected with piloiting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the river, a Mr. X., who was a somnambulist. It was said that if his mind was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up and walk in his sleep and do strange things. - He was once fellowpilot for a trip or two with George E ,on a great New Orleans passenger packet. During a considerable part of the first trip George was uneasy, but got over it by and by, as X. seemed content to stay in his bed when asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena, Arkansas; the water was low, and the crossing above the town in a very blind and tangled condition. X. had seen the crossing since E had, and as the night was particularly drizzly, sullen, and dark, E was considering whether he had not better have X. called to assit in running the place, when the door opened and X. walked in. Now on very dark nights, light is a deadly enemy to piloting; you are aware that if you stand in a lighted room on such a night, you cannot see things in the street to any purpose; but if you put ©ut the lights and stand in the gloom yon can make out objects in the street pretty well. So, on very dark nights pilots do not smoke; they allow no fire in the pilot-house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape ; they order the furnace to be curtained with huge tarpaulins and the skylights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. Ihe undefinable shape that entered the pilot-house had Mr. X.'s, yoice." This said :—

•Let me take her, Mr. E ; I've seen this place since you have, and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I could tell how to do it.' .'

' It is kind of you, and I swear I am willing. I haven't got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning around and around the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark 1 can't tell which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig.' So E —g- took his seat on the bench, panting and breathless. The black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything, steadied the waltzing steamer with a turn or two, and then stood at ease, coaxing her a little to this side and then to that, as gently and as sweetly as if the time had been noonday. "When B observed this marvel of steering, he wished he had not confessed! He stared, and wondered, and finally said:

'Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat, but that was another mistake of mine.'

X. said nothing, but went serenely on with his work. He rang for leads ; he rang to slow down the steam; he worked the boat carefully and neatly into invisible marks, then stood at the centre of the wheel and peered out blandly into the blackness fore and aft

to verifiy his position: as the leads'; shoaled more and more, he stopped the i engines entirely, and the dead silence and suspense of 'drifting' followed; when the shoalesi^water was struck he cracked on the steam, carried her handsomely over, and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks; the same patient, heedful use of leads and engines-fol-lowed, the boat slipped through without touching bottom, and entered upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing; imperceptiply she moved through the gloom, crept by inches into her marks, drifted tediously until the shoalest water was cried, and then, under a tremendoua head of steam, went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and safety ! jj let his long-pent breath pour out in a Jong, lelieviDg sigh, and said: 'That's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the Missisippi river! I wouldn't have, believed it could be done, if I hadn't seen it.' There was no reply, and he added : 1 Just hold her five minutes longer, partner, and lat me run down and get a cup of coffee.' A minute later E was biting into a pie down in the ' texas,' and comforting himself with coffee. Just then the watchman happened in, and was about to happen out again, when he noticed B , and exclaimed: ' "Who is at the wheel, sir ?' < X.- ---' 'Dart for the pilot-house, quicker than lightning!' ' The next moment both men were flying up the pilothouse companion way, three steps at a jump! Nobody there! The great steamer was whistling down the river at her own sweet will! The watchman shot out of the place again : E seized the wheel, set an engine back with power, and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a ' towhead' which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico ! By and by the watchman came back and said : " 'Didn't that lunatic tell you he was asleep when he first came up here ?' 'No,' ' Well, he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings, just as unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement; and I put him to bed ; now just this minute there he was again, away astern, going through that sort of tight-rope devilry the same as before.' 'Well, I think I'll stay by next time he has one of those fits. But I hepe he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this boat through Helena crossing. I nevei saw anything so gaudy before. And if he can do such gold-leaf, kid glove, diamond-breast-pin piloting when he is sound asleep, what couldn't he do if he was dead!'— Marie Twain in Atlantic Monthly.