Yazoo River

“ Grant now turned his attention to possibilities on the eastern side of the Mississippi. By blowing up a levée he tried to open again an old and abandoned waterway from the Mississippi into the Yazoo river, by way of the Tallahatchie and Yalobusha rivers. Those two streams unite at Greenwood to form the Yazoo river. They are narrow, tortuous, uncertain of channel, and densely wooded along their banks. ”

“ Sick people, when wealthy, treated their friends to a sort of donation party (or pótlatch of the Pacific coast) after their recovery; a custom called tonshpashúpa by the tribe.
TRIBES ON THE YAZOO RIVER.
Along the Yazoo river existed a series of towns which seem to have been independent at the time of their discovery, but at a late period, about 1836, were incorporated into the Chicasa people. Some were inhabited by powerful and influential tribes, but it is uncertain whether any of them were of Maskoki lineage and language or not. ”

“ In a letter which I wrote on that occasion, I gave the following description of the country adjoining the river, and the incidents of a night bivouac before the battle:--"The bottom-land of the Yazoo is covered with a heavy growth of tall cypress-trees, whose limbs are everywhere interlaced. In many places the forest has a dense undergrowth, and in others it is quite clear, and affords easy passage to mounted men. These huge trees are heavily draped in the 'hanging moss,' so common in the Southern States, which gives them a most gloomy appearance. ”

“ The crooked Yazoo is marked on the maps as crossing almost from the north to the south of this wilderness; yet the Yazoo can scarce claim a bed all its own, for it passes through many ancient bayous, and is fed by many of the old "hatchees" which the canoes of the red man explored long ago. Upon one side of the Yazoo comes the Sunflower, deep cut into the fathomless loam; yet sometimes the Sunflower is reversed in current; and the Sunflower and the Hushpuckenay may be one stream or two; and the latter may run as the levees say, or as the floods dictate ”

“ Campbell from Bayau Pierre, who has made a good opening. The family which had commenced near the whirlpool above, were residing with him. The river in general at its greatest height never rises more than a foot higher than it was now. It is ten miles from hence to Yazoos river, and twenty to the Walnut hills, eighteen below the last three new settlements, and one hundred below Ville Aussipot.
A mile and a half lower, is a beautiful situation on the right, partly cleared, with a cabin on it, but no inhabitants. ”

“ That the constructions and vigilance of the men working under this commission have been effective, the showing of the Yazoo Basin proves. This basin, having an area of about 6,300 square miles, equivalent to the combined areas of Connecticut and Rhode Island, has in twenty years experienced an increase of over 100 per cent, in its population. In 1900, 195,346 people were living in this area. Railroads have been built, forests have been removed, lands cultivated, industries of many kinds developed and holdings of scarcely a nominal price have become farms of considerable value. ”

“ The Nile here enters a rocky valley between Gebel Kookoo and the western mountains, and foams and frets around and against rock and island, until, suddenly contracting, it breaks into a roaring torrent, and dashes furiously onward in the shadow of perpendicular cliffs. Waterfall succeeds to waterfall, and it is difficult to identify the swollen, thunderous, angry river with the calm clear stream that brightens the fertile pastures of Shooa. ”

“ Following for one mile along the glaciated granite slope, the trail parallels the river, which here descends in a series of rapids, cascades and low falls.
We arrive finally at Lake Merced (Alt. 7300) . This is one of the most accessible and well known of the lakes in Yosemite's High Sierra. At its shores and along the entire seven-mile canyon above are ideal camping places. Horse-feed is abundant above the lake. Fishing is excellent in both lake and river. The lake contains Loch Leven, German brown and rainbow trout. Rowboats may be hired at fifty cents per hour or $2.50 per day. ”

“ That protection has not always been accorded the dwellers of this and other basins is also evident when the records of flood seasons are reviewed. In the Yazoo Basin during the high water of 1903, the last high water season, one fourth of the basin was under water; one half of the city of Greenville inundated; 60,000 people, or one third of the inhabitants of the basin driven from their homes and traffic was suspended on the railroads, on the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad for twenty days and on the Riverside Division for forty days. ”

“ The Gwelo River itself is not a pleasing one; it is chiefly a bed of hard, black mud, lying between black, shiny rocks, with a few pools here and there, with an unpleasant smell about it. The sun, too, is now very powerful, and we are all feeling tired. ”

“ It was a rare day in summer when we thus meandered over the alluring trail, past the Takakkaw falls—Canada's highest Niagara—past the Laughing falls and the Twin falls, and many another no less beautiful, to the great Yoho glacier at the uppper end of the valley, with its giant caverns, showing strangely blue and green, and from the throats of which the streams had their birth that later made the Yoho river. ”

“ The plateau which stretches between the two rivers Tom and Chulym, affluents of the Obi, at a height of between 800 and 900 feet above the level of the plain, is extremely fertile, the vegetation being most varied, and the whole region is vastly superior in point of picturesqueness to any hitherto visited. The valley of the Yenissei, dominated to the east by mountains and traversed by the magnificent river, is extremely beautiful. The water runs rapidly, is remarkably clear, and in more than one place the majestic stream widens to over 1,000 yards. ”

“ The Approach To The Valley Sauntering up the foothills to Yosemite by any of the old trails or roads in use before the railway was built from the town of Merced up the river to the boundary of Yosemite Park, richer and wilder become the forests and streams. At an elevation of 6000 feet above the level of the sea the silver firs are 200 feet high, with branches whorled around the colossal shafts in regular order, and every branch beautifully pinnate like a fern frond. ”

“ In early summer, after the flood season, the Yosemite streams are in their prime, running crystal clear, deep and full but not overflowing their banks — about as deep through the night as the day, the difference in volume so marked in spring being now too slight to be noticed. Nearly all the weather is cloudless and everything is at its brightest — lake, river, garden and forest with all their life. Most of the plants are in full flower. ”

“ During the last four years, forty thousand settlers have taken up lands in the Yazoo basin alone, and it was estimated that in the fall of 1889 twenty thousand more would seek homes in the same district. These settlers have been mostly negroes from the worn out high lands to the eastward. ”

“ Each observer is looking for the things that sustain him and his point of view, and is not directly interested in the things that are foreign. One writer tries to establish the security of the basin of the Yazoo against danger to life and property, because that is what the board was created to do; a second writer tries to show how weak the levee is, in order to press home the need of funds—and he makes imminent danger to the basin area a means ”

“ The span of each opening never exceeds 40 feet and generally is not more than 30 feet. One of the longest bridges in Yedo is at Yae tai and has 24 spans of 30 feet each.
The Japanese seem always to have been alive to the necessities for a plentiful and pure supply of fresh water. Yedo has had its water-works for many years, and the native town of Yokohama will also very soon be supplied with water in the same manner. The source of supply for both places is the River Tame-gawa and the fountain-head is about 13 miles distant from each place. ”

“ As in Yosemite, the sublime rocks of its walls seem to glow with life, whether leaning back in repose or standing erect in thoughtful attitudes, giving welcome to storms and calms alike, their brows in the sky, their feet set in the groves and gay flowery meadows, while birds, bees, and butterflies help the river and waterfalls to stir all the air into music — things frail and fleeting and types of permanence meeting here and blending, just as they do in Yosemite, to draw her lovers into close and confiding communion with her. ”

“ Good camp sites are numerous in the vicinity and at the Yosemite Creek Crossing, about a quarter of a mile eastward, the new Ten Lakes Trail follows up the east bank of the creek. Our road now ascends about two and a half miles of heavy grades, finally passing over a flat divide and descending almost imperceptibly to the large meadows at Porcupine Flat, an excellent camping place. One mile further the Yosemite Falls Trail branches to the right and leads southwest five miles to Yosemite Point.
In another mile Snow Creek is crossed. Fishing is fair down stream. ”

“ Thus, as Dawson has well pointed out, in coming up the stream the valley of the Big Salmon appears to be more nearly the continuation of the main valley below than that which still (and properly) continues to be designated the Lewes (Yukon) above; and this is still more markedly the case with the Hootalinqua (Teslin-too or Newberry River) at the confluence with the Thirty Mile. Even the valley of the Pelly at its junction with the Yukon, near Fort Selkirk, would perhapS to most persons suggest itself as the main channel of erosion. ”

“ Davis suggests that a great derangement of waters of the Yellow River, one of the largest in the world, might even now cause the flood of Yaou to be repeated, and lay the most fertile and populous plains of China under water. In modern times the bursting of the banks of an artificial canal, into which a portion of the Yellow River has been turned, has repeatedly given rise to the most dreadful accidents, and is a source of perpetual anxiety to the government. ”

“ I have crossed about 100 rivers and streams on the Yezo coast, and all the larger ones are marked by a most noticeable peculiarity, i.e. that on nearing the sea they turn south, and run for some distance parallel with it, before they succeed in finding an exit through the bank of sand and shingle which forms the beach and blocks their progress.
On the way I saw two Ainos land through the surf in a canoe, in which they had paddled for nearly 100 miles. A river canoe is dug out of a single log, and two men can fashion one in five days ”

“ In the woods there are almonds of various kinds and superior quality. Towards the east there is another small lake called Puaja, whose waters (united with those of Rogoaguado and Yapacha) form the river Yatachico, or Black river, which is a confluent of the Mamoré. I presume the Yata Grande is only an arm of the Beni from the clearness of its waters, from the declivity of the land towards the Mamoré, and because its sources are not found in the Steppes, (Llanos) there only arising from the Black river of the Lake Rogagua of Reyes, which is a confluent of the Beni. ”

“ Some few of the Indians judiciously vary the two methods to suit the circumstances. On long stretches of only moderately swift water the tired trackers would take turns in resting in the canoe, using a paddle to hold the bow out from the shore. The current of the Dayay is very swift, and two days' "tracking" is often required to traverse the navigable part of the stream. Every few hundred yards or so the river needs to be crossed, wherever the timber on the banks is dense, or where the circuitous river cuts deep into the high hillsides that form the boundaries of its narrow valley. ”

“ Neither can they see how water may possibly have been the agent, for they find the same strange polish upon ridges and domes thousands of feet above the reach of any conceivable flood. Of all the agents of whose work they know anything, only the wind seems capable of moving across the face of the country in the directions indicated by the scratches and grooves. The Indian name of Lake Tenaya is “Pyweak”—the lake of shining rocks. One of the Yosemite tribe, Indian Tom, came to me and asked if I could tell him what had made the Tenaya rocks so smooth. ”

“ The Franz Josef is almost free from moraine, though there are a few grey rocks and stones and coarse silt scattered about on the ice above the terminal face, which in the centre of the glacier is a sheer ice-wall, two hundred feet high. The Waiho River rises here, in an amphitheatre of blue and white ice, sometimes at one point, sometimes at another; great blocks of ice are constantly breaking away at the snout, and the river escapes wherever it can force its way. The ice of the Franz Josef has the most beautiful colouring ”

“ It seems probable that they climbed the eastern flank of the Sierra by one of the southern tributaries of the East Walker River. Once over the crest of the range, they traveled west along the divide between the Tuolumne and the Merced rivers directly into the heart of the present Yosemite National Park.
In Leonard’s narrative is found the following very significant comment regarding the crossing:
We travelled a few miles every day, still on top of the mountain, and our course continually obstructed with snow hills and rocks. ”

“ In general views the Yosemite Creek basin seems to be paved with domes and smooth, whaleback masses of granite in every stage of development—some showing only their crowns; others rising high and free above the girdling forests, singly or in groups. Others are developed only on one side, forming bold outstanding bosses usually well fringed with shrubs and trees, and presenting the polished surfaces given them by the glacier that brought them into relief. ”