Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1881-09-27

said the old circuit rider, ''and before
this country between the Mississippi
and the White and st. Francis was
lifted up by the earthquakes, breaking
the canals, the water, when the Missis-
sippi began to rise, ran out Of it
through these canals into the smaller
rivers" This superintendent water
Of the great river, drawn off by its
tributaries, returned TO it at Helena.
Meanwhile the great volume Of the
food, descending the comparatively
direct channel of the Mississippi, had
reached Vicksburg or Natchez. Over
flows in this district Of country were
thus rendered impossible, except that
those ancient people, when they pro-
posed to enrich broad, cultivated dis
tricts, opened food gates, and slowly
submerging their fields found them
covered, when the water disappeared,
with that deposit of fine mud that
comes down the Missouri and makes
this valley the richest and most pro-
Iductive in the world. IF the river
be walled in with levees," said the old
man, ten years will not have passed
when this soil will not produce cotton
or wheaton corn" Here was a lesson
for that grand Mississippi river COM
mission, always asking how not to ac-
eomplish anything. These canals,
you will observe, not only made de
structive floods impossible, but per-
petuated and restored forever the
matchless fecundity of this great val
ley. Hardly less valuable were these
transverse waterways in transferring
enormous crops produced by dense
populations to cities which evidently
existed ages ago on the sites Of great
commercial marts Of our time. DeSoto
discovered the dwelling place of In-
dian kings at Memphis, where there
are great mounds, and Choteau found
great mounds, as did the patriarchs
OF Cincinnati and Louisville at those
points, designating the spot on.which
modern st. Louis stands as the proper
site for an imperial capital.
| was going to say that when | first
published these facts affecting the re-
mains of Mound Builders toll and
genius fifteen years ago, nobody gave
credence. But book makers
now tell the old story, and the
learned world opens its eyes in silent
amazement. When l told of the ex.
istence of artificial and paved lakes in
the lOwlands opposite Memphis, ven
cradle saees who sat around the hall
of the Ohio building, at the Philadel-
phia world's fair in 1876. were wholly
ineredulous. When | said that a
series Of lofty mounds. from a point
ten OF twelve miles below Little Rock,
had been erected at such intervals
that Mound Builders communicated
with one another by signal fires, such
as once blszed on the watch towers of
Belgium, between points one hundred
and thirty miles apart, the venerable
sages we're wholly befogged. They
had not heard OF the canals or of the
aguadas, or ofthat greatest mound on
the continent a few miles below Little
Rock. Forty miles west of Memphis,
on the western bank of the St. Fran
els, are the remains of a great city.
Everywhere along this river, as along
the shores Of the Mississippi, from
Cairo to the Cult, there are number
less mounds. So countless are they
that many must have been constructed
as nilometers, to show the height Of
successive floods through successive
years and ages. But is it not singular
that no allusion is made to these arti-
fetal hillocks and hills by those who
ehronicled events Of DeSoto's wan
behring's in America? Is it not certain
that races encountered by DeSoto
knew as little of those mounds and
Of their purpose and builders as do
dwellers in the sEamps of to-day?
An aged Indian, who said his fathers
dwet in Western New York, still
lived in 0seeola, in Eastern Arkansas,
in 1919. He was quite eighty years
old when | saw him at the home of
Charley Morris (now of Pacific
Place, on the Mississippi, in Fort
Pickering, a mile below Memphis.
With this venerable Indian and Nor
ris' father, and talking of the tradi-
tions of DeSoto as preserved BY red
men, we assembled the great mound. [
asked the old Indian who executed
this great task" At that time there
was another mound of great height
just across the river, on the Arkansas
swept away in 1878 by floods
Of those years. II cannot tell" he
answered, Il cannot tell why THE was
built and that just opposite over
there"
Most white people think" l sug-
gested. that Indians reared these
great heaps Of earth as tombs Of chief
tains."
mo, no." answered the old man.
we have no tombs. You have plowed
over the graves Of my fathers. 1t was
the misfortune of my a C that we
never toiled. We built no mounds.
and there are no monuments or books
10 tell Of our brave deeds. | have
heard old Indians say that they had
heard Of the terrible bearded men who
marched across this country many
many years ago. They destroyed great
numbers Of Indians, going far toward
the setting sun, fighting and destroy
ing as they went, and as they came
back. | used to think that these ter
Iible white men built these strange
hills. But | have seen too many OF
them. They are countless as the stars
in that forest beyond the river, and
older than the forests that
have overgrown them and gone to
decay to be succeeded by other gener-
atoms Of great old oaks like those that
stand about us here upon the summit
Of this great mound
published, a few days afterwards.in
the Herald, a little Memphis paper Of
the period, a local article Of which the
above is a subtantial copy. If the
great picture Of the discovery of the
Mississippi in the capitol at Washing
ton then existed | had never seen It,
but ! am now accustomed to contem
plate its wonders and bluaders. De-
Soto, as represented by the artist. an.
pears at the base of this great mound
at Memphis of which | was talking.
He bestrides a steed, fat, full, sleek
and round, as if he had just emerged
from Bonner's or Vanderbilt's stables.
After a hard winter and fierce fight.
ing, and fatiguing march from Tupelo.