The weekly Thibodaux sentinel and journal of the 8th Senatorial District. [volume] (Thibodaux, Lna. [i.e. La.]) 1875-1898, 1897-02-27
TIE AMERICAN NILE.
SUCH is TIE GREAT RIO GRANDE,
WITH ITS vAGARIES.

WITH ITS vAGARIES.
1t IL 3 River OF Freakish Habits and
Must BE Seen More Than Once to BE I'm
hut at Tines There Is a Torrent on Tor.
Its a river 1, 500 miles long, meas
ured III its windinss," said the man
from New Mexico, speaking Of the Rio
Granoe. For a few miles, at its mouth,
light draft steamers run VI from the
gulf of Mexico. Above hat it doesn't
float a craft except at ferries. III the old
days, when New Mexico was q province
of Spain, the people along the river
didn't even have ferTyboats, and the
only way they had Of getting across was
by fcrding. For this purpose a special
breed of large horses was reared to be
kept at ths fords. When the river was
too high for these horses to wade across,
travellers canped on the bank and wait
ed for the waters to subside. Now there
are bridges over the river at the larger
Rio Grande towns, and in other places
rope ferries and rowboats are the means
of crossing.
I'm times of low water a stranger
seeing it's current for the first time
would be apt to think s,ightingly Of the
Rio Bravo del Norte, as the New Mexi-
cans love to call the great river. Mean
dering in a small part Of a very wide
channel he would see only q little muddy
stream, for ordinarily nine-tenths Of the
Rio Grande is underground, the water
soaking along toward the gulf through
the sands beneath its channel. The val
ley, bounded everywhere to left and
right by mountains or foothills, ssandy,
and the water, percolatlng the sands
down to hard pan, spreads out on each
side 70 that it may always be found
anywhere in the valley by digging down
to the level Of the rivers surface. For
the greater part of the year the river
above ground flows swift and muddy,
narrowing as it swirls round a sand bar
and widening over shadows. But the
thing that strikes the stranger most
Queerly is its disappearance altogether
for reaches, many miles in length, Of
its channel, which, except, it may be,
for q water hole here and there, Is as
dry as Sahara The river is keeping
right along about its business, however,
and where a rock reef or clay bed blocks
it's snbterranean current it energies to
the surface and takes q fresh start above
ground, running as a big stream which,
farther down, may lose itself in the
sands again.
lit ia when the foods come down
that the Rio Grande shows why it re
quires SO big q channel for it's all the
year round use and demonstrates that
If the waterway were even wider it
would be an advantage to residents
along its banks. It is fed by a watershed
of vast area and steep descent, which
I'm times of rain and melting SHOWS pre-
cipitates the waters rapidly into the
channel In June, when the snow melts
on the peaks about its headwaters in
Colorado and northern New Mexico, and
later in the summer, when heavy show
ers and c1oudbursts are the order of the
day. the Rio Grande overflows its banks.
deluging wide tracts of valley and some
times carving a new channel for itself,
changing its course for miles. Where
the valley is unusually wide and sandy,
n below Isleta and in the Merilla val
ley, the old channels in which the river
used to flow are plainly indicated in the
landscape.
mo one who has seen the great river
in food is likely to forget the positive
ferocity it seems to display a. its waters
sweep all before them. and woe to the
man or beast who is overtaken by them!
The food arrives without warning. The
sky may be clear above when the travel
er, leisurely jogging across the wide
channel hears his wagon wheels CRATE
upon the sand with a peculiar sound. 1t
means that the waters are stirring the
sands beneath him, and then, if he
knows the river, he lashes his horse.
making at all speed for the nearest
bank, and lucky he is if he reaches it
safe. The chances are that before he gets
there he hears the roaring of waters up
the channel and sees them coming down
toward him with q front like q wall,
rolling forward and downward as if
over q fall, with = rising food behind.
Many q man and whole wagon trains