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This shortened the river twenty-eight miles. In our day, if you travel by river from the southernmost of these three cut-offs to the northernmost, you go only seventy miles. To do the same thing a hundred and seventy- six years ago, one had to go a hundred and fifty-eight miles! shortening of eighty-eight miles in that trifling distance.
At some forgotten time in the past, cut-offs were made above Vidalia, Louisiana; at island 92; at island 84; and at Hale's Point. These shortened the river, in the aggregate, seventy-seven miles. Since my own day on the Mississippi, cut-offs have been made at Hurricane Island; at island 100; at Napoleon, Arkansas; at Walnut Bend; and at Council Bend.
More than once it has shortened itself thirty miles at a single jump! These cut-offs have had curious effects: they have thrown several river towns out into the rural districts, and built up sand bars and forests in front of them. The town of Delta used to be three miles below Vicksburg: a recent cutoff has radically changed the position, and Delta is now TWO MILES ABOVE Vicksburg.
Those youngsters, wise in the ways of the plains, were filled with sad surprise over the incompetence of it all. "But thar ain't no manner of use in it!" cried Old. "They are just bullin' at it plumb regardless! They ain't handled their cattle right! They ain't picked their route right why, the old Mormon trail down by the Carson Sink is better'n that death-trap across the Humboldt. And cut-offs!
He was up betimes and away, giving a wide berth to the larger towns; taking byways and cut-offs, yet always with the Western pathfinder's instinct, even among these alien, poplar-haunted plains, low-banked willow-fringed rivers, and cloverless meadows.
They are quick, vigorous records that show confidence and knowledge. Under the head of "Second high-water trip Jan., 1861 'Alonzo Child," the notes tell the story of a rising river, with overflowing banks, blind passages, and cut-offs a new river, in fact, that must be judged by a perfect knowledge of the old guessed, but guessed right.
The wide shallows made a bar now to the average sailing craft, and as for a motor-yacht like ours, the presence of a local pilot, acquainted with all the oyster reefs and shallows, all the channels and cut-offs, made us feel more easy, for we knew we could no longer sail merely by compass and chart. A great sense of remoteness from all the world came over me.
Our next illustration is of a green-house and grapery combined, seventy feet in length by twenty feet wide. It is divided by a glass partition into two compartments, either of which can be heated at pleasure from the same boiler, by means of cut-offs in the pipes.
The workers' Free Speech Halls were all provided with receiving horns by which they made their appeals to His Majesty, of which I shall speak presently. These instruments were provided with cut-offs in the halls.
"Yes, that's so; but seems to me he said we'd better keep our eyes and ears open all the way down, and ask questions. Sometimes these cut-offs fill up, and then a shanty-boat gets lost in a heap of cross canals. He says they're like hen tracks sometimes." "Well," remarked Maurice, thoughtfully, "it would be a pretty tough deal if WE ever got mixed up in one of those puzzles.
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