The levees were continued up
the river. A long period of comparatively low water encouraged
settlements upon the alluvial bottoms. The levees were continued up the
west bank, and in a few years the forests had melted away from the
margin of the river. Large fields were in their stead, and were
continually increasing in extent. Improvements of a superior character
were commencing, and an occasional break in the levee, and partial
inundation, did not deter, but rather stimulated the planters to
increased exertion, to discipline and control the great floods poured
down from the rain-sheds extending from the headwaters of the Ohio to
those of the Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red Rivers, embracing
in extent an area greater than the continent of Europe. It really
seemed an attempt to defy the decrees of fate. In 1828, the waters from
Cairo to Baton Rouge, a distance of nine hundred miles, averaged fifty
miles in width. For months the great river was covered with forests of
timber, torn up with the roots by the flood, floating and tumbling
wildly along the terrible torrent, making the navigation extremely
dangerous for the few steamers then upon the river.
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