In Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain presents a fascinating portrait of the steamboat era along America's most famous river. Steamboats brought excitement and prosperity to towns along the Mississippi, including Twain's own home town of Hannibal. Twain remembers as a boy seeing “the annual processions of mighty rafts” that glided by Hannibal. This was quite the spectacle for local people, and it made young boys like Twain long for the steamboat life. In fact, Twain and his friends would swim out to the rafts and get a ride on one.

Twain also recalls how, when a steamboat arrived at Hannibal, the whole town seemed to come alive. Everyone would already have been anticipating the arrival with a glorious “expectancy,” and then at the call of “S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!” the whole town woke right up. Even the town drunkard got excited. Clerks would bustle out of stores, families out of houses, and “all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving.”

The people gathered by the river to watch the steamboat approach. It was almost as if they were seeing the wonder for the very first time, even though by now they had seen many such boats. Twain pauses for a few lines to describe the beauty of the steamboat with her “fancy-topped chimneys,” “fanciful pilot-house,” multiple decks with ornamental railings, “flag gallantly flying,” and “the blackest smoke” just “rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys.” At the captain's signal, the men would unload and load whatever freight was in play, and the steamboat would head out again as the spectators watched the whole process with great delight. Then they went back to their daily lives feeling rather dull after all the excitement.