82 • LIFE OF AUDUBON. 



Of sucli hospitality Audubon speaks highly, and seems to 

 lament its decadence among residents in the more civilised 

 states of the Union. Some notes upon the effects of the floods 

 which swell American rivers into inland seas are also contained 

 in the journal of his residence at Louisville. Writing of 

 the devastation created by overflows of the Mississippi, he 

 remarks : — 



" The river rises until its banks are flooded and the levees 

 overflown. It then sweeps inland, over swamps, prairie, 

 and forest, until the country is a turbid ocean, checkered by 

 masses and strips of the forest, through which the flood rolls 

 lazily down cypress-shadowed glades under the gloomy pines, 

 and into unexplored recesses, where the trailing vine and um- 

 brageous foliage dim the light of the noonday sun. In islets 

 left amid the waste, deer in thousands are driven ; and the squatter, 

 with his gun and canoe, finds on these refuges the game which he 

 slaughters remorselessly for the skins or feathers that will sell. 

 Floating on a raft made fast by a vine rope to some stout trees, 

 the farmer and his family preserve their lives, while the stream 

 beai-s away their habitation, their cut wood, their stores of grain, 

 their stock, and all their household goods. From creeks of the 

 forest other rafts float, laden with produce for New Orleans, and 

 guided by adventurous boatmen who have but vague knowledge 

 of their devious way, and to whom the navigation of an inland 

 river is not less hazardous than a voyage on a stormy sea 

 would be. 



"I have floated on the Mississippi and Ohio when thus 

 swollen, and have in different places visited the submerged 

 lands of the interior, propelling a light canoe by the aid of 

 a paddle. In this manner I have traversed immense portions 

 of the country overflowed by the waters of these rivers, and 

 particularly whilst floating over the Mississippi bottom lands 

 I have been struck with awe at the sight. Little or no current 

 is met with, unless when the canoe passes over the bed of a 

 bayou. All is silent and melancholy, unless when the mournful 

 bleating of the hemmed-in deer reaches your ear, or the dismal 

 scream of an eagle or a heron is heard, or the foul bird rises, 

 disturbed by your approach, from the carcass on which it was 

 allaying its craving appetite. Bears, cougars, lynxes, and all 



