Davis Island was densely populated, as about twenty-five hundred people
lived on it. Help had to be sent for, and steamers and barges came down
and rescued the people and the cattle.

Telephone and telegraph messages are being hourly received from points
along the river, asking for boats to come and save the unfortunate people,
who in many cases are clinging to trees and housetops till help comes.

Many stories are being told of the way the people are rescued.

In some instances the relief steamers will find a whole family perched on
the cottage roof, the women and children, half-dead with fright, clinging
panic-stricken to the roof, and crying aloud for help. In others the
people will not realize the danger they are in, and refuse to be taken off
their housetops, insisting that the floods will subside in a short while,
and that they need no help.

One party of negroes was found seated on the roof of a cottage. The water
had risen to the eaves, and the house was in danger of collapsing under
the pressure of the angry waters.

The negroes, however, were busily engaged in playing cards, and were
annoyed at being rescued from their perilous position before their game
was finished.

The present flood is the worst ever known in the history of the river.

In 1862, during the war, there was a great rise of the Mississippi, which
destroyed most of the levees along the banks, and from Vicksburg down the
whole country was flooded.