"
Captain Parisot was born in 1828, and in 1847 began "learning the
river." In 1854 he became part owner of a boat, and three years later
purchased one of his own.
"I bought her in Cincinnati," he said. Then, reflectively, he added:
"There was a good deal of drinking in those days. When I brought her
down on her first trip I had 183 tons of freight, and 500 barrels of
whisky, from Cincinnati, for one little country store--Barksdale &
McFarland's, at Yazoo City."
"There was a good deal of gambling, too, wasn't there?" one of us
suggested.
"There was indeed," smiled the old captain. "Every steamboat was a
gambling house, and there used to be big games before the war."
"How big?"
"Well," he returned, "as Captain Leathers once put it, it used to be
'nigger ante and plantation limit.' And that's no joke about playing for
niggers either. Those old planters would play for anything. I've known
people to get on a boat at Yazoo City to come to Vicksburg, and get in a
game, and never get off at Vicksburg at all--just go back to Yazoo; yes,
and come down again, to keep the game going.
"There was a saloon called the Exchange near our house in Yazoo, and I
remember once my father got into a game, there, with a gambler named
Spence Thrift. That was before the war. Thrift was a terrible stiff
bluffer.
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