168 FLAT BOATS. [CHAP. XXX. 



up with such incumbrances, and to set them adrift. 

 After wandering for several hundred miles in the 

 Gulf, they are sometimes cast ashore at Pensacola. 



Soon afterwards, when we were taking in wood at 

 a landing, I entered another of these flat boats, just 

 arrived there, and discovered that it was a shop, con 

 taining all kinds of grocery and other provisions, tea, 

 sugar, lard, cheese, flour, beef, and whiskey. It was 

 furnished with a chimney, and I was surprised to see 

 a large family of inmates in two spacious cabins, for 

 no one would suspect these boats to be so roomy below 

 water, as they are usually sunk deep in the river by 

 a heavy freight. They had a fiddle on board, and 

 were preparing to get up a dance for the negroes. A 

 fellow-traveller told me that these pedlars are com 

 monly called chicken-thieves, and, the day after they 

 move off, the planters not unfrequently miss many of 

 their fowls. 



Pointing to an old levee with a higher embank 

 ment newly made behind it, the captain told me, 

 that a breach had been made there in 1844, through 

 which the Mississippi burst, inundating the low cul 

 tivated lands between the highest part of the bank 

 and the swamp. In this manner, thousands of valu 

 able acres were inj tired. He had seen the water rush 

 through the opening at the rate of ten miles an hour, 

 sucking in several flat boats, and carrying them over 

 a watery waste into a dense swamp forest. Here the 

 voyagers might remain entangled among the trees 

 unheard of and unheeded till they were starved, if 

 canoes were not sent to traverse the swamps in every 

 direction in the hope of rescuing such wanderers 



