After a run of some hours, Black River was reached.  Hardly was it entered before signs of suffering became visible.  All the willows along the banks were stripped of their leaves.  One man, whom your correspondent spoke to, said that he had had one hundred and fifty head of cattle and one hundred head of hogs.  At the first appearance of water he had started to drive them to the high lands of Avoyelles, thirty-five miles off, but he lost fifty head of the beef cattle and sixty hogs.  Black River is quite picturesque, even if its shores are under water.  A dense growth of ash, oak, gum, and hickory make the shores almost impenetrable, and where one can get a view down some avenue in the trees, only the dim outlines of distant trunks can be barely distinguished in the gloom.

A few miles up this river, the depth of water on the banks was fully eight feet, and on all sides could be seen, still holding against the strong current, the tops of cabins.  Here and there one overturned was surrounded by drift-wood, forming the nucleus of possibly some future island.

In order to save coal, as it was impossible to get that fuel at any point to be touched during the expedition, a look-out was kept for a wood-pile.  On rounding a point a pirogue, skilfully paddled by a youth, shot out, and in its bow was a girl of fifteen, of fair face, beautiful black eyes, and demure manners.  The boy asked for a paper, which was thrown to him, and the couple pushed their tiny craft out into the swell of the boat.

Presently a little girl, not certainly over twelve years, paddled out in the smallest little canoe and handled it with all the deftness of an old voyageur.  The little one looked more like an Indian than a white child, and laughed when asked if she were afraid.  She had been raised in a pirogue and could go anywhere.  She was bound out to pick willow leaves for the stock, and she pointed to a house near by with water three inches deep on the floors.  At its back door was moored a raft about thirty feet square, with a sort of fence built upon it, and inside of this some sixteen cows and twenty hogs were standing.  The family did not complain, except on account of losing their stock, and promptly brought a supply of wood in a flat.

From this point to the Mississippi River, fifteen miles, there is not a spot of earth above water, and to the westward for thirty-five miles there is nothing but the river’s flood.  Black River had risen during Thursday, the 23rd, 1{three-quarters} inches, and was going up at night still.  As we progress up the river habitations become more frequent, but are yet still miles apart.  Nearly all of them are deserted, and the out-houses floated off.  To add to the gloom, almost every living thing seems to have departed, and not a whistle of a bird nor the bark of the squirrel can be heard in this solitude.  Sometimes a morose gar will throw his tail aloft and disappear in the river, but beyond this everything