Louisiana, from its character, is usually the principal sufferer: the Arkansas borders fare little better. All along the course of the stream the land is dotted with lakes and pools and marshy lands, created by former overflows. Along the lower portion of the river bayous or sloughs open from either bank, and meander lazily toward the gulf. As showing the character of the country may be mentioned the Little and St. Francis Rivers, which flow southward from southeast Missouri, nearly parallel to the Mississippi, and but forty miles from it at their furthest points. In flowing one hundred and twenty miles south they double and twist, expanding into sluggish bayous as broad as the Mississippi itself, or into shallow island-dotted lakes; and the total length of the numerous bends and whimsical curves of the main stream, St. Francis, is over two hundred miles. In like manner, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, is but fifty miles from the mouth of the sluggish sandy Arkansas as the crow flies; but to follow the windings of that stream the distance is nearly three times as great. The backwater of the Mississippi finds its way into these sluggish channels, and renders comparatively useless any levees on the banks of the great river near their mouths: and from the northern border of Arkansas to the gulf the old Father of Waters pursues a course as intricate in its windings as the St. Francis. It is asserted by many that the mouth of the stream was once perhaps not far below Memphis, and that all the land to the southward has been produced partly by slow upheaval of the sea-bottom and partly by the alluvial deposits of the river and the gradual extension of its delta, which now projects many miles into the gulf. This would account for the low and swampy character of the land in the entire region.
The writer has endeavored to give an accurate general view of southern floods. While differing in some features from floods in other lands, they themselves are much alike. The description of a flood of to-day would answer with but little adaptation as a narrative of fifty years ago: and further details of particular flood scenes are unnecessary. Such great overflows are not common, the levees holding the river in check on ordinary occasions. Yet, one flood season deserves more than passing notice.
CHAPTER XV.
THE FLOOD OF 1890.
“And rearing Lindis backward pressed,
Shook all her trembling bankes amaine,
Then madly at the eygre’s breast
Flung up her weltering walles againe,
Then banks came down with ruin and rout,
Then beaten foam flew round about,
And all the mighty floods were out.
So farre, so fast the eygre drave;
The heart had hardly time to beat,
Before a shallow, seething wave,
Sobbed in the grasses at our feet.
The feet had hardly time to flee,
Before it broke against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.”
HE great flood of 1874 is remembered as the most destructive of human life in the history of the Mississippi valley. It came almost without warning. The rolling river rose rapidly, and the levees broke in many places before the masses suspected danger. Hundreds of people were drowned; and as for the losses of property, no attempt was made to estimate the amount. Certainly it amounted to many millions. Perhaps only the Chicago fire could compare with it in this respect. Another great year of high water was 1882: but the damage done was smaller, as the levees had been heightened and strengthened.
But the floods of this year, in area submerged, in long duration, in height of water, and in the pertinacity with which they were contested, eclipsed all records. There is no measuring the extent of the calamity. There is nothing in the recorded history of the Mississippi valley
