If you might believe the pilots, he was always conscientiously particular about little details; never spoke of 'the State of Mississippi,' for instance -- no, he would say, 'When the State of Mississippi was where Arkansas now is,' and would never speak of Louisiana or Missouri in a general way, and leave an incorrect impression on your mind--no, he would say, 'When Louisiana was up the river farther,' or 'When Missouri was on the Illinois side.' The old gentleman was not of literary turn or capacity, but he used to jot down brief paragraphs of plain practical information about the river, and sign them 'MARK TWAIN,' and give them to the 'New Orleans Picayune.' They related to the stage and condition of the river, and were accurate and valuable; and thus far, they contained no poison.

But in speaking of the stage of the river to-day, at a given point, the captain was pretty apt to drop in a little remark about this being the first time he had seen the water so high or so low at that particular point for forty-nine years; and now and then he would mention Island So- and-so, and follow it, in parentheses, with some such observation as 'disappeared in 1807, if I remember rightly.' In these antique interjections lay poison and bitterness for the other old pilots, and they used to chaff the 'Mark Twain' paragraphs with unsparing mockery.
It so chanced that one of these paragraphs--{footnote [The original MS.
of it, in the captain's own hand, has been sent to me from New Orleans.
It reads as follows-- VICKSBURG May 4, 1859.
'My opinion for the benefit of the citizens of New Orleans: The water is higher this far up than it has been since 8.

My opinion is that the water will be feet deep in Canal street before the first of next June.
Mrs.Turner's plantation at the head of Big Black Island is all under water, and it has not been since 1815.
'I.

Sellers.']} became the text for my first newspaper article.

I burlesqued it broadly, very broadly, stringing my fantastics out to the extent of eight hundred or a thousand words.