192 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



no great efforts were making to raise the levee, but only 

 to strengthen it in weak spots. 



They must now be in trouble there. I came up the west 

 coast two weeks ago, and many were getting alarmed 

 and began to talk of building higher, but were satisfied 

 that the river could not rise any higher at this time of 

 the year and so they kept quiet. But it has risen from 

 one to two feet since. 



On Bayou Lafouche, there are some very bad crevasses, 

 and a week ago the prevailing idea was that the river 

 ynust stop rising, for they could not stand any more 

 water. 



Every steamboat throwed the water over the levee, 

 which in places is twelve feet high, and hundreds of 

 hands were at work preparing for "possibly an inch or 

 two more." It has risen six inches since and is rising 

 about two inches in 24 hours now. 



What is to be the end, no man knoweth. It is utterly 

 impossible to stand another foot, and yet the prospect is 

 strong that it is coming. It is already as high as '44 and 

 within a few inches of the great flood of '28. And then 

 the water had a chance to spread over many miles of the 

 coast above, which is now guarded by one continuous 

 levee. 



There can be no doubt that a most disastrous ovorflow 

 of hundreds of sugar plantations, in all human reason, 

 must occur within a few days. A rise of a few inches 

 more, or a storm of wind, will be almost certain to open 

 many a weak spot and overflow miles of levee that is too 

 low. 



The incessant rain and mud of yesterday and to-day 

 prevents working upon places where there is the greatest 

 need of it. The water is within a few inches of the top 

 at this place, the waves of steamboats throw over the 

 water into the street, and if the whole town is not from 

 three to five feet under water within a week, I shall won- 

 der. The alarm along the coast now is great, but not un- 

 reasonably so. Exposure to water too, produces the pre- 



