During seasons of mean or of low water,
there is little or no trouble; but when floods begin to swell the
current, then it is high time to be on the alert, for no one knows
what a day or even an hour may bring forth. Perhaps a snag, loosened
from the bank above, may come floating down the stream. It strikes a
shallow place somewhere in the river, and thereupon anchors in
mid-channel. Directly it does, a small riffle or bar of silt will form
around it, and this, in turn, sends an eddying current over against
the bank. By and by the latter begins to be chipped away, little by
little. Perhaps the corrosion of the bank might not be noticed except
by a bottom land planter or a riverman. But there is no time to be
lost. If some unfortunate individual happens to possess belongings in
that vicinity, he simply lays aside his coat and works as if he were a
whole legion doing Caesar's bidding; he well knows that in a very few
hours the river will be swallowing up his real estate at the rate of
half an acre to the mouthful. It is certainly hard to see one's
earthly possessions disappear before the angry flood of the river, but
the bottom land planter does not complain, because the experience of
generations has taught him that he must expect it.
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