Natchez, MS (October 19)

We arrived at 2200 last night. A rock band was blasting away on the hillside. A Ferris wheel and other attractions indicated some sort of festival.  It was a calm night so the sounds really carried over the water. I was glad that when we docked it was starboard-side-to, dramatically reducing the volume hitting our stateroom on the port side. As for passengers on the starboard side who had already called it a night, some may have had a rude awakening, although tucked into the riverbank a bit downstream of the event, the worst of the noise passed over the boat.

I awoke this morning with a head cold that I had felt coming on for a couple of days but was unable to prevent from getting traction. There were a lot of people on the boat who have it. And for me, catching a cold on a trip verges on being a tradition.

At 9:00, we boarded a bus and crossed the river into Louisiana headed for a plantation tour to see a traditional and modern cotton gin ("gin" being an abbreviation of "engine").

Our destination was Frogmore Plantation. Prior to arriving there, we had been admonished not to ask about the 204-year-old plantation house that had recently burned to the ground. (As we reboarded the bus to head back to AMERICA, it was heartening that apparently no one had allowed their curiosity to override their civility.)

Our guide Lynette Tanner, who with her husband own Frogmore Plantation, took us through the modern gin.  It did not require us (i.e. we were not allowed) to get off the bus. The gin processed cotton from surrounding farms.  

click on this text of the picture to see a Youtube video of the ginning process

cotton waiting to be ginned

We proceeded down the road a short distance to the historic museum on the plantation.

We were ushered into a small building where we sat on wooden benches while Lynette told us about the history of the plantation. It was accompanied by several moving songs performed by a woman with an incredible voice.

We went to the edge of a cotton field. We were told that cotton plants have a taproot that goes down 6-9 feet, enabling the plant to access water and survive during the dry, hot summer season. 

In the modern cotton belt, local politicians put a lot of pressure on the US Army Corps of Engineers to send more water down from up north, often at the expense of farmers and ranchers there who have less political juice.  This year is an exception, with too much water for everyone north and south.

Part of the tour was an exhibit showing the transition from slave quarters to share cropper housing, the slaves often reasonably well cared for by their owner because of their value while the share croppers were self-dependent and often living at the subsistence level.  The former did not have the freedom to leave while the latter were trapped there by their situation.

The gin was located on the second floor so that the finished product could be sent down a shoot into wagons.

an old-style cotton gin

We returned to AMERICA.  Last night we had tied up on a section of the Natchez shoreline called Under the Hill which had a colorful history.  When Pam & I were here a few years ago it was seedy, complete with a broken-down riverboat casino. It had undergone considerable urban renewal in the intervening years.

Shoving off at 12:30 for a relaxed afternoon cruising down the Mississippi under warm sun and blue skies. Everyone relaxed and enjoyed the passage to Francisville.

We passed ROCKETSHIP, the first "ship" we have seen on the Mississippi.  She is a purpose-built ship designed to deliver rocket boosters to Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg. 

We continued on to St. Francisville just a little upriver from Baton Rouge, docking there about 9:00 PM. We tied up at a small boat ramp. Once again, as we did in Memphis, we (unpleasantly) surprised  fishermen, this time while they were sitting around a fire.

Speaking of being surprised, why had we left Natchez so early?  On a cruise plagued by cancelled port calls, there seemed to have been a lost opportunity to let us enjoy a full day there at the expense of AMERICA having to make her downriver passage later into the night.  Of course, doing this way, the Captain (who we have still never heard a word from) got a better night's sleep.