The Last of the Flatboats

by George Cary Eggleston

  CHAPTER XXI

  A WRESTLE WITH THE RIVER

  After the boat left Memphis it was necessary to proceed with a good dealof caution. A new flood had come down the river, bringing with it adangerous drift of uprooted trees and the like. Moreover, in many placesthere were strong currents setting out from the natural river-bed intothe overflowed regions on either side, and constant care was necessaryto avoid being drawn into these.

  Memphis is built upon the high Chickasaw bluffs, but a little wayfarther down the river the country becomes low and flat, and in parts itgrows steadily lower as it recedes from the river, so that at somedistance inland the plantations and woodlands lie actually lower thanthe bed of the great river. It has been said, indeed, with a good dealof truth, that the Mississippi River runs along on the top of a ridge.

  "How did it come to do that?" asked Will. "Why didn't it find its levelas water generally does--"

  "And as men ought to do, but usually don't," said Irv.

  "It did at first, of course," said Ed. "But whenever it got on a rampagelike this, it took all the region along its course for its right of way.It spread itself out over the country and went whithersoever it chose.Then came men who wanted its rich bottom lands for farms. So they builtearth levees to keep the river off their lands. As more and more landswere brought under cultivation, more and more of these embankments werebuilt, and the river was more and more restrained. Now there is nothingin the world that resists and resents restraint more than water does. Sothe river breaks through the levees every now and then and floods theplantations, drowning cattle, sweeping away crops and houses, andcreating local famines that must be relieved from the outside."

  Before beginning his explanation Ed had dipped up a glassful of theriver water and set it on the deck. It was thick with mud, so that itlooked more like water from a hog wallow than water from a river. Heturned now and gently took up the glass. There was a deep sediment inthe bottom and the water above was beginning to grow somewhat clearer.

  "Look here," said the boy. "If we let that water sit still long enough,all the mud would sink to the bottom and the water above would becomeclear. That's what we should have to do with our drinking and cookingwater on this boat if we hadn't brought a filter along. Now you see thatthe water of this river is carrying more mud than it can keep dissolved.This mud is sinking to the bottom all the way from St. Louis to NewOrleans. It is building up the bottom, raising it year by year, and soraising the river higher and higher. When the river was left free, thesame thing happened, but whenever a flood came it would leave itsbuilt-up bed, run over its banks, and cut new channels for itself in thelowest country it could find. There are many lakes and ponds well awayfrom the present river that were obviously a part of the channel once.

  "When men began confining the river within its banks at all but thehighest stages of water, and in many places at all stages, it couldn'tleave its old channels for new ones, no matter how much it had built upthe bottom, and so the bed of the river steadily rose from year to year.That made the surface of the flood water higher, and so men had to buildhigher and higher levees to keep the floods from burying theirplantations. As they have nothing better to make their embankments outof than the soft sandy loam of the bottom lands, the levees are not verystrong at best, and the higher they are raised, the greater is the waterpressure against them when the river is up. So they often give way, andwhen they do that the river rushes through the gap, or crevasse, as itis called, rapidly widening and deepening it, and pouring a torrent overall the country within reach. In such a flood as this men are keptwatching the levees day and night to stop every little leak, lest itbecome a crevasse, and it is often necessary to forbid steamboats topass near the shore, because the swells they make would wash over thetops of the levees and start crevasses in that way. Sometimes a strongwind pushes the water up enough to break a levee and destroy hundreds oflives and millions of dollars' worth of property, for when a leveebreaks, the region behind it is flooded too rapidly to permit much morethan escape alive, and often it doesn't permit even that."

  "What a destructive old demon this river is!" said Irv.

  "Yes, at times," replied the elder boy. "But it does a lot of good workas well as bad. It created all the lands that it overflows, and if mantries to rob it of its own, I don't see why it is to be blamed fordefending its possessions."

  "How do you mean that it created all the lands that it overflows?" askedConstant, who always wanted to learn all he could.

  "Why, the geologists say that the Gulf of Mexico used to extend toCairo, covering all the flat region in the Mississippi Valley south,except here and there a high spot like that on which Memphis stands. Thehigh spots were islands in the Gulf."

  "But where did the land come from then?"

  "Why, the Mississippi built it with its mud. It carries enough mud atall times to make half a state, if it were all brought together. Whenthe river's mouth was at Cairo, the river kept pouring mud into theGulf. The mud sank, and in that way the shore-line was extended fartherand farther south, spreading to the right and left as it went. The riveris still doing this down at its mouth below New Orleans, and it has beendoing it for millions of years. It has simply filled in all that part ofthe Gulf that once covered eastern Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, andthe lower parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri."

  "But why don't other rivers do the same thing?" asked Constant.

  "They do, in a degree," said Ed. "You know there is always a bar in thesea just off the mouth of a river."

  "Yes, but--"

  "Well, most rivers carry very little mud in their water, and that littlegoes to make the bar at the mouth. The Mississippi carries so much mudthat its bars become land, and the river cuts a channel through them,carrying its mud still farther into the sea. Then again, the Mississippihas floods every year or twice a year, and in some years three times,such as most rivers never have. This is because it carries in a singlechannel the water from twenty-eight states and a territory, as we saw onthe map one day up the river. Now as soon as the river mud forms a barthat shows above water, vegetation begins to grow on it. When the nextflood comes, it covers the new-made land and builds it higher bydepositing a great deal more mud on top of it and among the vegetation,which, by checking the current at the bottom, helps the mud to lodgethere. In that way, all the lowlands for hundreds of miles along thisriver were created. It took hundreds of thousands of years--perhapsmillions of years--to do it, but it was done."

  Ed did not give this long explanation all in one speech. He wasinterrupted many times by Phil's call of all hands to the sweeps, whenrowing was necessary, and by other matters of duty, which it has notbeen necessary to detail here.

  Whenever it was possible to land the boat for the night, the boys didso, and when no banks were in sight where a mooring could be made, theysought for some bend or pocket reasonably free from the more dangerouskinds of drift, and came to anchor for safety during the hours ofdarkness. Navigation was difficult and perilous now even in daytime whenthey could make out the course of the river by sight and keep away fromtreacherous shore currents, for the drift was very heavy. By night itwas doubly dangerous.

  Even in the daytime Phil kept the entire crew on deck at all timesexcept when one of them went below to prepare food. Their meals wereeaten on deck with a broad plank for table, even when it rained heavily,as it very often did. They slept on deck, too, under a rude shelter madeof the tarpaulin. All this Phil regarded as necessary under thecircumstances. Even when tied up to the trees or anchored in thesnuggest cove to be found, it was sometimes necessary to jump intoskiffs and "fend off" great threatening masses of drift. To this dutythe calls were very frequent indeed.

  Poor Phil got scarcely any sleep at all during these trying days andnights. The sense of responsibility was so strong upon him that hescarcely dared relax his personal watchfulness for a moment. But underthe urgent pleadings of his comrades he would now and then leave anotheron duty in his place and throw himself do
wn for a nap. He did this onlywhen the conditions seemed most favorable, and usually even then he wasup again within the half hour.

  The escapes of the boat from damage or destruction were many and narrow,even under this ceaseless watching, and the strain at last began to showits effects upon the tough nerves of Captain Phil. He almost lived uponstrong coffee. The coffee was an excellent thing for him under thecircumstances, but his neglect to take other food was a dangerousmistake. He was still strong of body, but he was growing nervous andeven a trifle irritable.

  His comrades remonstrated with him for not sleeping, and begged him toeat.

  "I don't want to eat, I tell you," he said, with much irritation in hisvoice.

  "But you'll break down, Phil, if you keep this up," said Ed, "and thenwhere shall _we_ be? Without your judgment and quickness to see theright thing at a critical moment this boat would have gone to the bottomdays ago. We _need_ you, old fellow."

  The boys all joined in the pleading, and Phil at last sat down with themand tried to eat, but could not.

  "No, no, don't drink any coffee yet," said Will, almost pulling the cupout of his hands. "It'll kill the little appetite you've got. Eatfirst, and drink your coffee afterward."

  "Wait a minute," said Irv, stretching out his long legs, and with aspring rising to his feet. "Wait a minute, and I'll play Ganymede, thecup-bearer."

  He went below, where he broke an egg in a large soda-water glass andwhipped it up with an egg-beater. Then he filled the glass with milk, ofwhich they still had a gallon or so left, and again using theegg-beater, whipped the whole into a lively froth, adding a little saltto give it flavor and make it more digestible.

  "Here, Phil," he said, as he reappeared on deck, "drink this. You'llfind it good, and it is food of the very best sort, as well as drink."

  Phil took the glass, tasted its contents, and then drained it at adraught.

  "Make me another, won't you, Irv?" said Phil about five minutes later;"somehow that one has got lonely and wants a companion."

  Irv was glad enough to do so, and by the time Phil had slowly swallowedhis second glass, he not only felt himself fed, but he was so. Hisnerves grew steady again, there was no further irritation in his voice,and by the time that the next meal was ready the boy had regained hisappetite.

  The boat came to anchor for the night a little after supper, and as theanchorage was particularly well protected behind a heavily timberedpoint of submerged land, Phil consented to take a longer sleep than hehad done for several days past.

  Irv and Constant remained on duty for several hours, after which Ed andWill took their places. Only twice during the night did Phil awake. Eachtime he arose, went all around the deck, inspecting the situation, andthen lay down again upon the boards.

  By morning he was quite himself again.