to show signs of receding about May 20th. Several weeks must pass
before now submerged lands become tillable, perhaps one-third by June
20th, one-third more by the 10th July, the remainder in some indefinite
time longer and too late for any crop this year.

As to the condition in which the subsiding flood will leave the sufferers,
I quote from a recent published letter of the Hon. J. M. Sandidge, of our
Relief Committee, who hears or reads the appeals of the distressed and who
is well acquainted with the overflowed region and the situation of the
inhabitants.

The few mules, horses and cattle preserved from the flood will be
unfit for any immediate service, and must continue to live, if they
live at all, upon the leaves, moss and cane tops, until such time as
the grass can grow again.

The people, with nothing now, will have no more when the water
subsides; and cannot have until the land can be made to yield its
fruits. How are they to be fed and supported until such time?

Death by famine on the dry, but barren ground, would be quite as
terrible as to have been swallowed up in the waters!

The Relief Committee see and understand all this, and it is a source
of the most sickening anxiety to know that they will be impotent to
avert what seems inevitable. The people, as rapidly as possible, and
under whatever circumstances, hardships and sacrifices, must begin
quickly to make arrangements for themselves by engaging for food and
raiment alone, to work, wherever work on such terms can be had; and
if not to be had in their present neighborhoods, to seek it in more
distant places, if able to reach them. It is true that a great part
of the most helpless and destitute would be, by such policy, left
where they are, to live upon public charities, or perish in the
swamps.

Nothing less than $1,000,000 in supplies will enable these people to
re-commence and continue to labor where they are, until the earliest
products of the soil can give subsistence, and if not sustained to
that extent who shall say what crimes may not be committed, if crime
it could be called, in the desperation of these starving thousands,
thrown upon communities, now barely self-supporting? This is a gloomy
picture truly, but it is best always to look dangers straight in the
face, and see them in their full proportions