158 A FLOOD.
Raven is heard, as the foul bird rises, disturbed by your approach, from
the carcass on which it was allaying its craving appetite. Bears, Cougars,
Lynxes, and all other quadrupeds that can ascend the trees, are observed
crouched among their top branches. Hungry in the midst of
abundance, although they see floating around them the animals on which
they usually prey, they dare not venture to swim to them. Fatigued
by the exertions which they have made in reaching the dry land, they
will there stand the hunter's fire, as if to die by a ball were better than
to perish amid the waste of waters. On occasions like this, all these animals
are shot by hundreds.
Opposite the City of Natchez, which stands on a bluff bank of considerable
elevation, the extent of inundated land is immense, the greater
portion of the tract lying between the Mississippi and the Red River,
which is more than thirty miles in breadth, being under water. The
mail-bag has often been carried through the immersed forests, in a canoe,
for even a greater distance, in order to be forwarded to Natchitochez.
But now, kind reader, observe this great flood gradually subsiding,
and again see the mighty changes which it has effected. The waters
have now been carried into the distant ocean. The earth is everywhere
covered by a deep deposit of muddy loam, which in drying splits into
deep and narrow chasms, presenting a reticulated appearance, and from
which, as the weather becomes warmer, disagreeable, and at times noxious,
exhalations arise, and fill the lower stratum of the atmosphere as with a
dense fog. The banks of the river have almost everywhere been broken
down in a greater or less degree. Large streams are now found to exist,
where none were formerly to be seen, having forced their way in direct
lines from the upper parts of the bends. These are by the navigator
called short-cuts. Some of them have proved large enough to produce a
change in the navigation of the Mississippi. If I mistake not, one of
these, known by the name of the Grand Cut-off] and only a few miles in
length, has diverted the river from its natural course, and has shortened
it by fifty miles. The upper parts of the islands present a bulwark consisting
of an enormous mass of floated trees of all kinds, which have
lodged there. Large sand-banks have been completely removed by the
impetuous whirls of the waters, and have been deposited in other places.
Some appear quite new to the eye of the navigator, who has to mark
their situation and bearings in his log-book. The trees on the margins of
the banks have in many parts given way. They are seen bending over
A FLOOD. 159
the stream, like the grounded arms of an overwhelmed army of giants.
Everywhere are heard the lamentations of the farmer and planter, whilst
their servants and themselves are busily employed in repairing the
damages occasioned by the floods. At one crevasse an old ship or two,
dismantled for the purpose, are sunk, to obstruct the passage opened by
the still rushing waters, while new earth is brought to fill up the chasms.
The squatter is seen shouldering his rifle, and making his way through
the morass, in search of his lost stock, to drive the survivors home, and
save the skins of the drowned. New fences have everywhere to be formed
; even new houses must be erected, to save which from a like disaster,
the settler places them on an elevated platform supported by pillars
made of the trunks of trees. The lands must be ploughed anew, and if
the season is not too far advanced, a crop of corn and potatoes may yet
be raised. But the rich prospects of the planter are blasted. The traveller
is impeded in his journey, the creeks and smaller streams having
broken up their banks in a degree proportionate to their size. A bank
of sand, which seems firm and secure, suddenly gives way beneath the
traveller's horse, and the next moment the animal has sunk in the quicksand,
either to the chest in front, or over the crupper behind, leaving its
master in a situation not to be envied.
Unlike the mountain-torrents and small rivers of other parts of the
world, the Mississippi rises but slowly during these floods, continuing for
several weeks to increase at the rate of about an inch in the day. When
at its height, it undergoes little fluctuation for some days, and after this
subsides as slowly as it rose. The usual duration of a flood is from four
to six weeks, although, on some occasions, it is protracted to two months.
Every one knows how largely the idea of floods and cataclysms enters
into the speculations of the geologist. If the streamlets of the European
Continent afford illustrations of the formation of strata, how much more
must the Mississippi, with its ever-shifting sand-banks, its crumbling
shores, its enormous masses of drift timber, the source of future beds of
coal, its extensive and varied alluvial deposits, and its mighty mass of
waters rolling sullenly along, like the flood of eternity !