Part 37 (2/2)

A strip of birch bark was the tablet on which ”_ver-i-tas-ca-put_” was traced.

”Read it out,” was his next request.

The five syllables were read.

”Now, drop the first and last syllables, and you have a name for this lake.”

In the Indian vernacular, ”Mississippi” is said to signify ”Great Water.” ”Missouri,” according to some authorities, is the Indian for ”Mud River,” a most felicitous appellation. It should properly belong to the entire river from St. Louis to the Gulf, as that stream carries down many thousand tons of mud every year. During the many centuries that the Mississippi has been sweeping on its course, it has formed that long point of land known as the Delta, and shallowed the water in the Gulf of Mexico for more than two hundred miles.

Flowing from north to south, the river pa.s.ses through all the varieties of climate. The furs from the Rocky Mountains and the cereals of Wisconsin and Minnesota are carried on its bosom to the great city which stands in the midst of orange groves and inhales the fragrance of the magnolia. From January to June the floods of its tributaries follow in regular succession, as the opening spring loosens the snows that line their banks.

The events of the war have made the Mississippi historic, and familiarized the public with some of its peculiarities. Its tortuosity is well known. The great bend opposite Vicksburg will be long remembered by thousands who have never seen it. This bend is eclipsed by many others. At ”Terrapin Neck” the river flows twenty-one miles, and gains only three hundred yards. At ”Raccourci Bend” was a peninsula twenty-eight miles around and only half a mile across.

Several years ago a ”cut-off” was made across this peninsula, for the purpose of shortening the course of the river. A small ditch was cut, and opened when the flood was highest.

An old steamboat-man once told me that he pa.s.sed the upper end of this ditch just as the water was let in. Four hours later, as he pa.s.sed the lower end, an immense torrent was rus.h.i.+ng through the channel, and the tall trees were falling like stalks of grain before a sickle.

Within a week the new channel became the regular route for steamboats.

Similar ”cut-offs” have been made at various points along the river, some of them by artificial aid, and others entirely by the action of the water. The channel of the Mississippi is the dividing line of the States between which it flows, and the action of the river often changes the location of real estate. There is sometimes a material difference in the laws of States that lie opposite each other.

The transfer of property on account of a change in the channel occasionally makes serious work with t.i.tles.

I once heard of a case where the heirs to an estate lost their t.i.tle, in consequence of the property being transferred from Mississippi to Louisiana, by reason of the course of the river being changed. In the former State they were heirs beyond dispute. In the latter their claim vanished into thin air.

Once, while pa.s.sing up the Mississippi, above Cairo, a fellow-pa.s.senger called my attention to a fine plantation, situated on a peninsula in Missouri. The river, in its last flood, had broken across the neck of the peninsula. It was certain the next freshet would establish the channel in that locality, thus throwing the plantation into Illinois. Unless the negroes should be removed before this event they would become free.

”You see, sir,” said my informant, ”that this great river is an Abolitionist.”

The alluvial soil through which the Mississippi runs easily yields to the action of the fierce current. The land worn away at one point is often deposited, in the form of a bar or tongue of land, in the concave of the next bend. The area thus added becomes the property of whoever owns the river front. Many a man has seen his plantation steadily falling into the Mississippi, year by year, while a plantation, a dozen miles below, would annually find its area increased. Real estate on the banks of the Mississippi, unless upon the bluffs, has no absolute certainty of permanence. In several places, the river now flows where there were fine plantations ten or twenty years ago.

Some of the towns along the Lower Mississippi are now, or soon will be, towns no more. At Waterproof, Louisiana, nearly the entire town-site, as originally laid out, has been washed away. In the four months I was in its vicinity, more than forty feet of its front disappeared. Eighteen hundred and seventy will probably find Waterproof at the bottom of the Mississippi. Napoleon, Arkansas, is following in the wake of Waterproof. If the distance between them were not so great, their sands might mingle. In view of the character Napoleon has long enjoyed, the friends of morality will hardly regret its loss.

The steamboat captains have a story that a quiet clergyman from New England landed at Napoleon, one morning, and made his way to the hotel. He found the proprietor superintending the efforts of a negro, who was sweeping the bar-room floor. Noticing several objects of a spherical form among the _debris_ of the bar-room, the stranger asked their character.

”Them round things? them's _eyes_. The boys amused themselves a little last night. Reckon there's 'bout a pint-cup full of eyes this mornin'.

Sometimes we gets a quart or so, when business is good.”

Curious people were those natives of Arkansas, ten or twenty years ago. Schools were rare, and children grew up with little or no education. If there was a ”barbarous civilization” anywhere in the United States, it was in Arkansas. In 1860, a man was hung at Napoleon for reading _The Tribune_. It is an open question whether the character of the paper or the man's ability to read was the reason for inflicting the death penalty.

The current of the Mississippi causes islands to be destroyed in some localities and formed in others. A large object settling at the bottom of the stream creates an eddy, in which the floating sand is deposited. Under favorable circ.u.mstances an island will form in such an eddy, sometimes of considerable extent.

About the year 1820, a steamboat, laden with lead, was sunk in mid-channel several miles below St. Louis. An island formed over this steamer, and a growth of cotton-wood trees soon covered it. These trees grew to a goodly size, and were cut for fuel. The island was cleared, and for several successive years produced fine crops of corn.

About 1855, there was a change in the channel of the river, and the island disappeared. After much search the location of the sunken steamer was ascertained. By means of a diving-bell, its cargo of lead, which had been lying thirty-five years under earth and under water, was brought to light. The entire cargo was raised, together with a portion of the engines. The lead was uninjured, but the engines were utterly worthless after their long burial.

The numerous bends of the Mississippi are of service in rendering the river navigable. If the channel were a straight line from Cairo to New Orleans, the current would be so strong that no boat could stem it.

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