"Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi and Huckleberry Finn have stamped on the world's imagination for all time the picture of Mississippi River travel. Forever the big river will be locked in the ninteenth century, flanked by live oaks festooned with Spanish moss and peopled by steamboat pilots spinning gigantic steering wheels to battle treacherous currents, scalawag boys running away on jerry-built rafts, and handsome card sharps skinning their...