A MISSISSIPPI FLOOD 400 YEARS AGO

Evening Star, Issue 19660, 13 September 1927, Page 5

A MISSISSIPPI FLOOD 400 YEARS AGO

SPANISH TRAVELLER'S REPORT, Those who think that anything has happened of Into to increase the violence of floods in onr groat rivers are invited to peruse an account id a flood in the Mississippi Liver in 1513, given bv Gareilaso Do la Vega, in a Instorv of J)e Soto’s expedition on the Aorta. American Continent, entitled hn Florida del Inca’ (says tho ‘ Lnpmeeiiing News-Record,’ Now \or,o. Tin’s record goes a long way, toward proving that tic tores! ation Ims had little or nothing to do with floods in the Mississippi valley. . . The volume containing the description of the flood was found by Glenn W. Caulkins, superintendent of schools iii Cashmere, "Washington, while in Peru. The account begins by describin'' limy Fernando dc Soto sailed from Havana, Cuba, in 1539, landed at what is now Tampa, Florida, and traversed Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Alabama. He crossed the Mississippi, which lie called the 11m Grande, near .Memphis, and travelled through and Louisiana, returning to the Mississippi, where tho remnants of the expedition, while prepariim boats to go down the Mississippi to reach Mexico, were attacked by Indians. At that juncture a flood occurred in the Mississippi which was described as follows;“Then God, pur Lord, hindered tho work with a mighty flood of the gioat river, which, at that time—about tno eighth or tenth of March (of 1543) began to come down with an enormous increase of water ; which in the beginning overflowed the wide level ground between the river and the cliffs; then little by little it rose to the top of tho cliffs. , . , ~ , “On March IS, ol 1513, winch that year was Palm Sunday, when tho Spaniards were marching in procession, the river entered with ferocity through the gates of the town of Aminova, and two days later they were unable to go through the si reels except in canoes. “ The flood was forty days in reacliiii" - its greatest height, which was the 20th of'"April, ami it was a beautiful thing to look upon the sea whore there had been fields, (nr on each side, of tiio river the wafer extended over twenty leagues of land, and all of this aica, was navigated hv canoes, and nothing was seen but the tops of the tallest

trees. . . “ On account of these inundations of the river the people build their houses on the high hind, and where there is none they raise mounds by hand, especially for tho houses of the chiefs ; the houses are constructed three or four stages above the "round, on thick posts tliat serve as uprights, and between uprights they lay beams for the floors, and above 'these floors, which are of wood, they make roof, aith galleries around tho four sides of tho house where they their food and other supplies, and here they take refuge from the great floods. The. floods do not occur every year, hut when in tho regions where the rivers have their source there have been heavy snows the preceding winter with rains in tlie following spring; and thus the flood of 1543 was very great on account of tho heavy snow tho preceding winter. These floods occur every fourteen years, according to what an old Indian woman told us, which can ho verified if the country is conquered, as 1 hope it will be. ” Toward the end of April the flood began to subside, as slowly ns it had increased, so that even by April 20 the Spaniards were, unable to. walk in tho streets except by wading in the water. By the end of May the river had returned within its banks.