The Timber
Is Shorn Off Clear To The Rear Of The Plantations, From Two To Four
Miles.
When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off
their crops in a hurry.
When they have finished grinding the cane, they
form the refuse of the stalks (which they call BAGASSE) into great piles
and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is
used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills. Now the piles of damp
bagasse burn slowly, and smoke like Satan's own kitchen.
An embankment ten or fifteen feet high guards both banks of the
Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this
embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a
hundred feet, according to circumstances; say thirty or forty feet, as a
general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of
smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles, when the river is
over the banks, and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and
see how she will feel. And see how you will feel, too! You find
yourself away out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless,
that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances; for you cannot
discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see
a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are
transformed by the smoke, and look like a part of the sea.
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