EPISODES 443 



gives way beneath the traveller's horse, and the next 

 moment the animal has sunk in the quicksand, either to 

 the chest in front, or over the crupper behind, leaving its 

 master in a situation not to be envied. 



Unlike the mountain torrents and small rivers of other 

 parts of the world, the Mississippi rises but slowly dur- 

 ing these floods, continuing for several weeks to increase 

 at the rate of about an inch a day. When at its height, 

 it undergoes little fluctuation for some days, and after 

 this, subsides as slowly as it rose. The usual duration of 

 a flood is from four to six weeks, although, on some occa- 

 sions, it is protracted to two months. 



Every one knows how largely the idea of floods and 

 cataclysms enters into the speculations of the geologist. 

 If the streamlets of the European continent afford illus- 

 trations of the formation of strata, how much more must 

 the Mississippi, with its ever-shifting sand-banks, its 

 crumbling shores, its enormous masses of drift timber, 

 the source of future beds of coal, its extensive and varied 

 alluvial deposits, and its mighty mass of waters rolling 

 sullenly along, like the fiood of eternity. 



THE SQUATTERS OF THE MISSISSIPPI 



Although every European traveller who has glided down 

 the Mississippi, at the rate of ten miles an hour, has told 

 his tale of the squatters, yet none has given any other 

 account of them, than that they are "a sallow, sickly 

 looking sort of miserable beings," living in swamps, and 

 subsisting on pig-nuts, Indian-corn, and Bear's-flesh. It 

 is obvious, however, that none but a person acquainted 

 with their history, manners, and condition, can give any 

 real information respecting them. 



The individuals who become squatters, choose that sort 



