At length little thatched cottages began to appear on knolls along
the way, and as we chugged our way around the tree-tops upon them
the inhabitants slipped quickly into some clothes that were
evidently kept for just such emergencies. Then we began nearing
higher land, so that the upper and then the lower branches of the
forest stood out of water, then only the ends of the lower limbs
dipped in the rising flood, downcast, as if they knew the sentence
of death was upon them also. For though there was sunk already
beneath the flood a forest greater than ten Fontainebleaus, the
lake was steadily rising a full two inches a day. Where it touched
that morning the 27-foot level, in a few months more, says "the
Colonel," it will reach the 87-foot level and spread over one
hundred and sixty-four square miles of territory--and when "the
Colonel" makes an assertion wise men hesitate to put their money
on the other horse. Then will all this vast area with more green
than in all the state of Missouri disappear forever beneath the
flood and man may dive down, down into the forest and see what the
world was like in Noah's time, and fancy the sunken cities of
Holland, for many a famous route, and villages older than the days
of Pizarro will be forever wiped out by the rising waters--a scene
to be beheld today nowhere else, and in a few years not even here.
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