174

LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

within ten miles of it, and down goes its value to a fourth of its former
worth. Watches are kept on those narrow necks, at needful times
and if a man happens to be caught cutting a ditch across them, the
chances are all against his ever having another opportunity to cut a

ditch.

Pray observe some of the
effects of this ditching business.
Once there was a neck opposite
Port Hudson, Louisiana, which
was only half a mile across, in its
narrowest place. You could walk
across there in fifteen minutes;
but if you made the journey
around the cape on a raft, you
travelled thirty-five miles to ac-
complish the same thing. In
1722 the river darted through
that neck, deserted its old bed,
and thus shortened itself tuirty-
five miles. In the same way it
shortened itself twenty-five miles
at Black Hawk Point in 1699.
Below fled Biver Landing, Bac-
courci cut-off was made (forty or
fifty years ago, I think). This
shortened the river twenty-eight
miles. In our day, if you travel
by river from the southern-

DANGEROUS DITCHING.

most of these three cut-offs to
the northernmost, you go only
seventy miles. To do the same
thing a hundred and seventy-six
years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles ! —a shorten-
ing of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance. At some forgotten
time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at
island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These shortened the
liver, in the aggregate, seventy -seven miles.