You ask me to send you some word from time to time, and to keep you informed in regard to the occurrences of such a journey, and go into minute details upon the sort of life that one leads upon a long-distance steamboat in the " Far West."
I shall endeavor to satisfy you. First as to the boat, on board of which I am. The steamer Ontario has a single wheel at the stern. It was built in 1863, carries 450 tons or goo,ooo pounds, avoirdupois, draws thirty inches of water light, and has three boilers, which consume eighteen to twenty cords of wood daily. A cord of wood is eight feet in length by four in height and four in depth, and sells on the Missouri for $4 to $8 per cord.
The Ontario has two engines of 132 horse-power, and is already considered as past its prime. The constant service in which boats are kept on our great rivers of the West, where commerce and transportation are very considerable and much varied, uses them up in a very few years. They have to contend with impetuous currents, to ascend rapids, to cross banks or bars of sand or mud, where the full power of the capstan has to be exerted to get them over. Snags, or forest trees which drop into the current by thousands from the crumbling banks, and whose roots become imbedded in the bottom of the stream, often form dangerous and formidable barriers or obstacles, upon which a great number of steamers are wrecked or seriously damaged every year.
Going against the current, the Ontario makes five to six miles an hour; with the current, fifteen to eighteen miles. Her crew consists of a captain, two clerks, two pilots and an assistant, two engineers, two mates, a steward, two watchmen, one head cook and two assistants, one hotellier [barkeeper?], seven cabin boys, a porter or baggage man, eight deckhands (white), four firemen, nineteen negroes for all the work of the boat, and one chambermaid.'
5 This is one of the most complete descriptions of the Missouri river steamboat extant.