Connecticut western news., 1874-05-29
THE FLOOD IN LOUISIANA.
A Vivid Picture of that Portion of Louisiana Flooded by the Breaks In the Banks of the Mississippi.

A correspondent of the Boston Jour- nuz, writing from Mayfower Plantation, Iberville parish, Louisiana, gives a vivid picture of that neighborhood dur ing the flood. We quote
 "For weeks, since March, the river has been steadily rising out of it's banks against the levees, creeping up the levees to the very top, and running over with the waves of every passing steamboat. All plantation work was abandoned, and along the bank on both sides of the river for hundreds of miles negroes and planters toiled day and night, building the levees higher with slaves and earth, strengthening the weak places, and, as the darkies say, Fighting the river every whar. With fear and trembling we fell asleep at night to find the river one or two inches higher at dawn.
 "Just at twilight, 8 Wednesday, we were startled to see Q man dashing by on horshback, yelling as the passed, 'Crevasse at Australia Plantation On he sped with the direful news from house to house, along the coast, while with rapid haste negroes and white men on foot, in carts and on horseback, with alarmed faces, hastened to stop, if possible, the break, five miles above. An hour later the wind blew 8 hurri- cane, with thunder, lightning, hail and earth before. All that dreadful night, river, two hundred men worked with no light to guide them, save the inces- sant lightning flashes, until 4 o'clock in the morning, when all came singing home in darkey chorus, believing for the moment the danger was over and the crevasse stopped.
 "At daybreak the planters were aghast to see the muddy river water covering their fields at tho back of the plantations.
 Mayfower,' the plantation from which write, is situated on a point fifteen miles around by river and three miles from the house, on the river bank front, straight back to the river again, whence runs the public road to Baton Rouge, at d here for long distance the levee is fifteen feet high. Mir. Hicky owns the adjoining plantation on this road his house, an immense brick dwelling, faced the river, almost hid den in 8 grand old grove of magnolia and pecan trees, and here, in the black ness and storm of that long-to-be-re- membered morning, the big levee broke. The house fell in twenty minutes, the family barely escaping with their lives, while drowning mules, horses, sheep and poultry were borne with cabins, fences, stables and furniture by the merciless torrent to the woods.
 Rapidly came the water over our fields, sweeping everything before it, filling the bayou and ditches to the sugar house quickly it rushed to the quarters, from which the affrighted negroes fled to the sugar house and hxddled high up among the machinery, saving nothing but their babies. The overseer, with his numerous family, sought refuge in @ ne1ghboring store ; mules and cattle scampered, praying and snorting in terror around the house dogs howled in every direction, while ducks, geese, tree-toads and frogs were noisy and iubilant at the pros pect.
 "All that terrible day the rain fell in torrents, and still came the river on, until noon, when it crept more slowly to the garden fence and stopped, the waters having made a current parallel with the river, and flowing in that di- rection. All night the rain fell, and the wind blowing against the bank be- fore, threatened to burst the levee- soft and soaked by the heavy rain-and rush to meet the river behind us. We laid rubber cloaks and blankets handy, ready to flee any moment out in the tempest, we knew not whither. moored two skiffs under the rese-bush by the gallery, built roaring fires of cypress wood in five freplaces to keep up our spirits, while old black Charlotte, in a very tight basque, ornate with brass buttons and glass buttons of every size and description, her good old face sur. rounded by the gayest bandanna, poked the fire at intervals all around, falling on her knees to pray at the slightest provocation, or in dismal minor key keeping time with the bowling wind through the cotton trees, as she swayed to and fro in the fre-light, singing, 'Oh Lord come along, come along. trouble done bore me down.
 "Day came with no cessation of the storm, but before night the river ir front had fallen twenty eight inches From this fact we were assured the levee must have broken in many places
 "All the following day the tempest of wind and rain continued, and until noon on Sunday, when, unwill1ngly l the blessed sun shone glittering on { waste of water, bordered by 8 greer ridge whereon our little white house stands peacefully.
 '' It was perilous time to the people of Iberville parish, perilous expert ence to all the dwellers on the lowlands of Louisiana, which hope never agair | to witness or record.
 "Now, where three weeks ago green thrifty canefelds bespoke the abundan flows, six, eight and ten feet deep where we galloped on horseback W, now row in skiffs or sail in pleasure the tired men, after hard days toiline in the field, told their droll stories ant watched the hoecake baking, and in thu little garden patches where the women planted scarlet beans and sweet pota toes together, and guarded with simple pleasure their young chickens and hives of bees, now the blind buffalo and gar-fsh, with the pink shrimp ant poisonous scorpion, disport sole pos sessors.
 "This sHicky Crevasse is one hun. dred miles above New Orleans, mid way between Plaquemine and Batol Rouge; it is two-thirds of 8 mile il width, ten feet deep, through whicl the river rushes with the noise of dis
 tant Niagara, at velocity of ten mile an hour. After deluging two parishes
 it's waters have swelled the Atchafalaya
 Teche and Lafourche to such a'volum
 as to overflow every parish onits cours
 to the sea, inundating many of the fai1
 est plantations of the State, drivin
 poor white people from the swan
 lands, who, half clad and starving, com
 wading for miles, more dead than alive
 to Plaquemine for food end shelter