water. We could see the inmates in the second stories. But
the negro cabins were upset and many of them were floating about. It
was evident enough that they had been built on lower ground than the
residences of the planters. The knoll was covered with shade-trees and
shrubs, and the estates were as beautiful as anything I ever looked
upon--that is, what I could see of them above the water.

"Eight feet!" shouted the leadsman, with energy.

I rang to stop her, for I could feel a sort of sensation as though the
keel of the Sylvania was making a furrow in the field under us. The
steamer stopped almost as soon as I rang the bell. But as the water was
rising instead of falling, I did not feel at all concerned about her
situation. I immediately ordered both boats to be lowered. Ben and Hop
went off in one, and Buck and Landy in the other. Not far from the
knoll, which could not have been more than three or four feet above the
flat over which we had been sailing, I saw the boat the two men from
the steamer had been swamped in. I told Buck to tow it to the steamer,
and we had it alongside in a few moments. I sent the quarter-boat back
to the rescue of the people in the houses and cabins. The river
steamer's boat was full of water. We drew her under the davits on the
port side, made fast to her, and hauled her out of the water, hoisting
the bow end first, so that the water would run out of her. When both
ends were abreast of the rail of the vessel, we tipped her over, and
entirely freed her of water. I sent Washburn and Dyer Perkins in her to
assist the other two boats.

Even at this important hour, the abominably dirty condition of the
Sylvania, which had been bathed in mud, actually pained me. Away from
the furious current of the crevasse, the mud settled, and the water was
comparatively clean. Cobbington and the two waiters had been at work
swabbing the quarter-deck, but with no good result. I directed the
engineer to rig the fire-engine, and we soon drowned the decks with
water. This, with the swabs, made clean work. By the time the first
boat came off from the knoll, the Sylvania looked nearly as neat as
when she had left the great river. The hot sun dried the planks about
as soon as they were swabbed.

In the port-boat, under the direction of Ben Bowman, was a family of
four persons whom I took to be the occupants of one of the mansions. A
gentleman and his wife, with a son and daughter, were the first helped
on board: