STRUGGLE TO HOLD THE LEVEE.
ages of alluvial deposits. Most of the towns are built on high ground; there being a few notable exceptions. A general flood in this valley means that millions of acres of land are submerged, and such crops as are in the fields are destroyed. More frequently, the land is flooded just at planting time, and the land remains wet too long to allow certain crops to be planted in season. Thus, the water in the flooded districts may abate in time to allow a fair cotton crop; while the chance for corn is lost. Fences and small outbuildings are floated away, and often large numbers of stock are drowned; but, after, all, the chief damage is usually indirect: the evil of hindrance rather than of destruction. Further, the retiring water leaves numerous pools and marshes that are rank breeders of malaria, adding vastly to the unhealthiness of the country.
In many places there are marshy or timbered tracts adjacent to the river that are not available for cultivation. In these districts the levees are often erected at the border of the cultivable land, so that the river has a large area of waste land over which to spread the surplus water without doing any injury. Such areas really aid to reduce the high-water level. In some cases, a second or third levee is built some hundreds of yards to the rear, to serve as a sort of reserve, in case the river break through the first.
Doubtless the reader has pictured to himself a flooded district as something like a stream in a mountain gorge; an immense torrent of water rushing at race-horse speed, uprooting trees, tearing away huge boulders, sweeping away houses in an instant, without a moment’s warning, and drowning young and old by scores. If such be his idea, he will find it necessary to remodel it; or, rather, to cast it away entirely. Let him follow a guide to the scene of danger. A great levee, the protection of thousands of acres of rich lands, and perhaps millions of dollars worth of property, is announced unsafe. Sometimes it is decided to abandon the river line, weakened for long distances, and erect a new levee some hundreds of yards to the rear.
But if the design be to hold the line already established, then the scene is an animated one. All along the narrow ridge of earth patrolmen are watching the work at every point. Hundreds of men work day and night throwing up and strengthening the levees, upon which the salvation of the district depends. Break after break occurs,