A
Big Island That Used To Be Away Out In Mid-River, Has Retired To The
Missouri Shore, And Boats Do Not Go Near It Any More.
The island called
Jacket Pattern is whittled down to a wedge now, and is booked for early
destruction.
Goose Island is all gone but a little dab the size of a
steamboat. The perilous 'Graveyard,' among whose numberless wrecks we
used to pick our way so slowly and gingerly, is far away from the
channel now, and a terror to nobody. One of the islands formerly called
the Two Sisters is gone entirely; the other, which used to lie close to
the Illinois shore, is now on the Missouri side, a mile away; it is
joined solidly to the shore, and it takes a sharp eye to see where the
seam is - but it is Illinois ground yet, and the people who live on it
have to ferry themselves over and work the Illinois roads and pay
Illinois taxes: singular state of things!
Near the mouth of the river several islands were missing - washed away.
Cairo was still there - easily visible across the long, flat point upon
whose further verge it stands; but we had to steam a long way around to
get to it. Night fell as we were going out of the 'Upper River' and
meeting the floods of the Ohio. We dashed along without anxiety; for
the hidden rock which used to lie right in the way has moved up stream a
long distance out of the channel; or rather, about one county has gone
into the river from the Missouri point, and the Cairo point has 'made
down' and added to its long tongue of territory correspondingly.
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