More steamboatin'.

From McBRIDE'S MAGAZINE, VOL. 2, Dec. 1868. It is an article called "Songs of the Slave."

For many years the steamboats on Western and Southern rivers were, almost without exception, manned by crews of negro slaves. Even after white labor began to encroach upon the occupation of the "deck-hand" and "roustabout," the vocation of " fireman " was peculiarly the negro's. He basked in an atmosphere insupportable to whites, and delighted in the alternation of very hard labor and absolute idleness. It was not uncommon for large steamers to carry a crew of forty or fifty negro hands, and it was inevitable that these should soon have their songs and peculiar customs. Nine-tenths of the " river songs" (to give them a name) have the same refrain, and nearly all were constructed of single lines, separated by a barbarous and unmeaning chorus. The leader would mount the capstan as the steamer left or entered port, and affect to sing the solo part from a scrap of newspaper, " the full strength of the company" joining in the chorus. The effect was ludicrous, for no imagination was expended on the composition. Such songs were sung only for the howl that was their chief feature. A glance at the following will abundantly satisfy the reader with this department of negro music:

STEAMBOAT SONG [with music]

What boat is that my darling honey?
    Oh, oh ho, ho ay yah yah-ah!
She is the "River Ruler"; yes my honey!
    Ah a... yah a...ah!

Occasionally some stirring incident of steamboat achievement, as the great race between the " Shotwell" and the " Eclipse," would wake the Ethiopian muse and inspire special paeans. But as a general rule the steamboat songs were tiresomely similar to the one just given.