American Adventures Part 43

While the ca.n.a.l was in course of construction, General Goethals appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce. When asked what he knew of levee building and work on the Mississippi, he replied:

"I don't know a single, solitary thing about the work on the Mississippi except that it is being carried on under the annual appropriation system. If we had that system to hamper us, the Panama Ca.n.a.l would not be completed on time and within the estimate, as it will be. That system leaves engineers in uncertainty as to how much they may plan to do in the year ahead of them. Big works cannot be completed economically, either as to time or money, unless the man who is making the plan can proceed upon the theory that the money will be forthcoming as fast as he can economically spend it."

In view of the foregoing, I cannot myself claim to be free from river theory. It seems to me clear that the Mississippi should be under exclusive Federal control from source to mouth; that the various commissions should be abolished, and that the whole matter should be in the hands of the chief of United States Engineers, who would have ample funds with which to carry on work of a permanent character.

As one among countless items pointing to the need of Federal control, consider the case of the Tensas Levee Board, one of the eight local boards in Louisiana. This board does not build any levees whatsoever in the State of Louisiana, but does all its work with Louisiana money, in the State of Arkansas, where it has constructed, and maintains, eighty-two miles of levees, protecting the northeastern corner of Louisiana from floods which would originate in Arkansas. These same levees, however, also protect large tracts of land in Arkansas, for which protection the inhabitants of Arkansas do not pay one cent, knowing that their Louisiana neighbors are forced, for their own safety, to do the work.

Cairo, Illinois, is the barometer of the river's rise and fall, the gage at that point being used as the basis for estimates for the entire river below Cairo. These estimates are made by computations which are so accurate that Vicksburg, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans know, days or even weeks in advance, when to expect high water, and within a few inches of the precise height the floods will reach.

Some years since, the United States engineer in charge of a river district embracing a part of Louisiana, notified the local levee boards that unusually high water might be expected on a certain date and that several hundred miles of levees would have to be "capped" in order to prevent overflow. The local boards in turn notified the planters, in sections where capping was necessary.

One of the planters so notified was an old Cajun--Cajun being a corruption of the word "Acadian," denoting those persons of French descent driven from Acadia, in Canada, by the British many years ago.

This old man did not believe that the river would rise as high as predicted and was not disposed to cap his levee.

"But," said the member of the local levee board, who interviewed him, "the United States engineer says you will have to put two twelve-inch planks, one above the other, on top of your levee, and back them with earth, or else the water will come over."

At last the old fellow consented.

Presently the floods came. The water mounted, mounted, mounted. Soon it was halfway up the lower plank; then it rose to the upper one. When it reached the middle of that plank the Cajun became alarmed and called upon the local levee board for help to raise the capping higher still.

"No," said the local board member who had given him the original warning, "that will not be necessary. I have just talked to the United States engineer. He says the water will drop to-morrow."

The old man was skeptical, however, and was not satisfied until the board member agreed that in case the flood failed to abate next day, as predicted, the board should do the extra capping. This settled, a nail was driven into the upper plank to mark the water's height.

Sure enough, on the following morning the river had dropped away from the nail, and thereafter it continued to fall.

After watching the decline for several days, the Cajun, very much puzzled, called on his friend, the local levee board member, to talk the matter over.

"Say," he demanded, "what kinda man dis United States engineer is, anyhow? Firs' he tell when de water comes. Den he tell jus' how high she comes. Den he tell jus' when she's agoin' to fall. What kinda man is dat, anyhow? Is he been one Voodoo?"

The spirit of the people of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, who live, in flood time, in the precarious safety afforded by the levees, is characterized by the same optimistic fatalism that is to be found among the inhabitants of the slopes of Vesuvius in time of eruption.

One night, a good many years ago, I ascended Vesuvius at such a time, and I remember well a talk I had with a man who gave me wine and sausage in his house, far up on the mountain side, at about two o'clock that morning.

Seventeen streams of lava were already flowing down, and signs of imminent disaster were at hand.

"Aren't you afraid to stay here with your family?" I asked the man.

"No," he replied. "Three times I have seen it worse than this. I have lived here always, and"--with a good Italian smile--"it is evident, signore, that I am still alive."

Less than a week later I read in a newspaper that this man's house, which was known as Casa Bianca, together with his vineyards and his precious wine cellars, tunneled into the mountain side, had been obliterated by a stream of lava.

Precisely as he went about his affairs when destruction threatened, so do the planters along the Mississippi. But there is this difference: against Vesuvius no precaution can avail; whereas, in the case of a Mississippi flood, foresight may save life and property. For instance, many planters build mounds large enough to accommodate their barns, and all their live stock. Likewise, when floods are coming, they construct false floors in their houses, elevating their furniture above high-water mark, so that, if the whole house is not carried away, they may return to something less than utter ruin. It is the custom, also, to place ladders against trees, in the branches of which provisions are kept in time of danger, and to have skiffs, containing food and water, ready on the galleries of the houses.

CHAPTER XLVIII

OLD RIVER DAYS

Among the honored citizens of Vicksburg, at the time of our visit, were a number of old steamboat men who knew the river in its golden days; among them, Captain "Mose" Smith, Captain Tom Young, Captain W.S.

("Billy") Jones, and Captain S.H. Parisot--the latter probably the oldest surviving Mississippi River captain.

We were sent to see Captain Parisot at his house, where he received us kindly, entertained us for an hour or more with reminiscences, and showed us a most interesting collection of souvenirs of the river, including photographs of famous boats, famous deck loads of cotton, and famous characters: among the latter the celebrated rivals, Captain John W. Cannon of the _Robert E. Lee_ and Captain Thomas P. Leathers of the _Natchez_. Captain Parisot knew both these men well, and was himself aboard the _Lee_ at the time of her famous race with the _Natchez_ from New Orleans to St. Louis.

"We left New Orleans 3 minutes ahead of the _Natchez_," said Captain Parisot, "made the run to Vicksburg in 24 hours and 28 minutes, beat her to Cairo by 1 hour and 12 minutes, and to St. Louis by more than 3 hours."

Captain Parisot's father was a soldier under Napoleon I, and moved to Warren County, Mississippi, after having been wounded at Moscow. He built, at the foot of Main Street, Vicksburg, the first brick house that city had.

"There was a law in France," said the captain, "that any citizen absent from the country for thirty-five years lost all claim to property. My father's people were pretty well off, so in '42 he started back, but he was taken ill and died in New Orleans."

Captain Parisot was born in 1828, and in 1847 began "learning the river." In 1854 he became part owner of a boat, and three years later purchased one of his own.

"I bought her in Cincinnati," he said. Then, reflectively, he added: "There was a good deal of drinking in those days. When I brought her down on her first trip I had 183 tons of freight, and 500 barrels of whisky, from Cincinnati, for one little country store--Barksdale & McFarland's, at Yazoo City."

"There was a good deal of gambling, too, wasn't there?" one of us suggested.

"There was indeed," smiled the old captain. "Every steamboat was a gambling house, and there used to be big games before the war."

"How big?"

"Well," he returned, "as Captain Leathers once put it, it used to be 'n.i.g.g.e.r ante and plantation limit.' And that's no joke about playing for n.i.g.g.e.rs either. Those old planters would play for anything. I've known people to get on a boat at Yazoo City to come to Vicksburg, and get in a game, and never get off at Vicksburg at all--just go back to Yazoo; yes, and come down again, to keep the game going.

"There was a saloon called the Exchange near our house in Yazoo, and I remember once my father got into a game, there, with a gambler named Spence Thrift. That was before the war. Thrift was a terrible stiff bluffer. When he got ready to clean up, he'd shove up his whole pile.

Well, he did that to my father. Thrift's pile was twenty-two hundred dollars, and all my father had in front of him was eight hundred. But he owned a young negro named Calvin, so he called Calvin, and told him: 'Here, boy! Jump up on the table.' That equalled the gambler's pile; and it finished him--he threw down his hand, beaten.

"Business in those times was done largely on friendship. It used to be said that I 'owned' the Yazoo River when I was running my line. I knew everybody up there. They were my friends, and they gave me their business for that reason, and also because I brought the cotton down here to Vicksburg, and reshipped it from here on, down the river. It was considered an advantage to reship cotton because moving it from one boat to another knocked the mud off the bales.

"There used to be some enormous cargoes of cotton carried. The largest boat on the river was the _Henry Frank_, owned by Frank Hicks of Memphis. She ran between Memphis and New Orleans, and on one trip carried 9226 bales. Those were the old-style bales, of course. They weighed 425 to 450 pounds each, as against 550 to 600 pounds, which is the weight of a bale to-day, now that powerful machinery is used to make them. The heavy bale came into use partly to beat transportation charges, as rates were not made by weight, but at so much per bale.

"The land up the Yazoo belonged to the State, and the State sold it for $1.25 per acre. The fellows that got up there first weren't any too anxious to see new folks coming in and entering land. Used to try all kinds of schemes to get them out.

"There were two brothers up there named Parker. One of them was a surveyor--we called him 'Baldy'--and the other was lumbering, getting timber out of the cypress breaks and rafting it down. Almost all the timber used from Vicksburg to New Orleans came out of there.

"One time a man came up the Yazoo to take up land and went to stop with Baldy Parker. When they sat down to dinner Baldy took some flour and sprinkled it all over his meat.

"'What's that?' asked the stranger.

"'Quinine,' says Baldy. 'Haven't you got any?'

"'No,' says the fellow; 'what would I want it for?'

"'You'll find out if you go out there in the swamps,' Baldy tells him.

'It's full of malaria. We eat quinine on everything.'