“ A white snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone. ”
Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi (1883). copy citation
Author | Mark Twain |
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Source | Life on the Mississippi |
Topic | |
Date | 1883 |
Language | English |
Reference | |
Note | |
Weblink | http://www.gutenberg.org/files/245/245-h/245-h.htm |
Context
“we would have to do a little craw-fishing, then, to get away from the obstruction. We often hit white logs, in the dark, for we could not see them till we were right on them; but a black log is a pretty distinct object at night. A white snag is an ugly customer when the daylight is gone.
Of course, on the great rise, down came a swarm of prodigious timber-rafts from the head waters of the Mississippi, coal barges from Pittsburgh, little trading scows from everywhere, and broad-horns from 'Posey County,' Indiana, freighted with 'fruit and furniture'—the usual term for describing it, though in plain English the freight thus aggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins.”
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