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James Cox - My Native Land
common use for this class of writing. Is it not most reasonable that a race so far advanced in other ways
would have perfected a method of transmitting by marks of some kind their records to those who might
come after them? Again, where so much system is shown in the use of symbols, it may be presumed that
the same mark, wherever used in the same position, carries with it a fixed meaning, alike at all times.
Having such a settled system of marks, there must be a key to the thoughts concealed in writing, and
quite likely the key for deciphering these hieroglyphics will sometime be found on one of the yet
undiscovered hieroglyphic rocks in the high mountains or in the mounds not yet examined. On the other
hand, there can be no key to the inferior class of pictographs made by the people who came after the
mound, canal and city builders had disappeared, for the crudely marked forms of reptiles, animals or
similar things had a meaning, if any, varying with each individual maker.
Who were these people who formed a great nation here in the obscurity of the remote past? Were they
the ancient Phoenicians, who were not only a maritime but a colonizing nation, and who, in their
well-manned ships, might have found their way to the southern coast of America ages since, and from
thence journeyed north? Or were they some of the followers of Votan or Zamna, who had wandered
north and founded a colony of the Aztecs? Whoever these people were, and whichever way they came
from, the evidences of the great works they left behind them give ample proof that they were superior
and different from other races around them, and these particular people may have been the "bearded
white men," whom the Indians had traditions of when Coronado's followers first came through the Gila
and Salt River valleys in 1526.
CHAPTER XIX. OUR GREAT WATERWAYS
Importance of Rivers to Commerce a Generation Ago - The Ideal River Man - The Great Mississippi
River and Its Importance to Our Native Land - The Treacherous Missouri - A First Mate Who Found a
Cook's Disguise Very Convenient - How a Second Mate Got Over the Inconvenience of Temporary
Financial Embarrassment.
During the last quarter of the century in which we write the figures "1" and "8" in every date line, the
steam railroad has, to a very large extent, put out of joint the nose of the steamboat, just as, at the present
time, we are threatened with so complete a revolution in travel and motive power as to warrant a
prediction that, long before another quarter of a century has passed, electricity will take the place of
steam almost entirely. But even if this is so, old acquaintance should not be forgot, and every citizen of
the United States should feel that the prosperity of the country is due, in very large measure, to the
country's magnificent waterways, and to the enterprise of the men who equipped river fleets and operated
them, with varying degrees of profit.
The true river man is not so conspicuous as he was in the days when St. Louis, Cincinnati, Memphis and
other important railroad centers of to-day were exclusively river towns. The river man was a king in
those days. The captain walked the streets with as much dignity as he walked his own deck, and he was
pointed to by landsmen as a person of dignity and repute. The mate was a great man in the estimation of
all who knew him, and of a good many who did not know him. Ruling his crew with a rod of iron, and
accustomed to be obeyed with considerable and commendable promptness, he adopted a tone of voice in
general conversation considerably louder than the average, and every one acquired a habit of making way
for him.
The levee in a river town, before the railroads came snorting and puffing across country and interfering
with the monopoly so long enjoyed by the steamboat, was a scene of continuous turmoil and activity.
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