WAITING FOR A STEAMER.
On reaching a place of safety from the waters, scores of the refugees are almost penniless, and the question of food is a pressing one. The liberal contributions of scores of generous souls suffice but for a short time. The government must again come to the front, and issue rations, or a money equivalent, sufficient to maintain the destitute till the falling of the waters allows them to resume labor upon their lands. After that, the crop-lien system in vogue in the South enables the people to get credit of their merchants until the cotton-picking or corn-gathering.
THE SEARCH-LIGHT.
When the waters subside, and the people return, it is often difficult to find old landmarks. In one place huge trenches may be washed out; but away from the immediate vicinity of the crevasse the land is covered with mud, varying from a few inches to four or five feet in thickness—sufficient guarantee of amazing fertility, when the ground becomes dry enough to work. In the numerous little depressions in the surface are stagnant pools that linger for a month or two. The larger ones, if not before filled, are converted into ponds or marshes, which only thorough draining will destroy. The air is tainted by the hundreds of carcasses that are entangled in the heaps of drift. The hot dank soil, steaming under the summer sun, brings disease in the wake of the flood.