OCR Text |
Show RFVER Red River of the North-all these rivers great and small flow into and become the Missouri and the Upper Mississippi. The Rivers of the East-the Cumberland, the Tennessee, the Kentucky, the Hiwassee, the Licking, the Kanawha and the Little Kanawha, the Mud, the Tradewater, the Tygarts, the Mad, the Rough, the Lost and the Hocking and the Rattlesnake and the Paint, the Busseron, the Elkhorn, the Embarras, the Miami and the Great Miami and the Muskingum, Big and Little, the Muscatatuck, the Allegheny, the Duck and the Pigeon and the Scioto and the Symmes and the Big Sandy, the Rock Castle, the Pocatalico, the Elk and the Twelve Pole and the Birch, the Reedy and the Pigeon, the Monongahela and and the Youghiogheny, the Guyandotte, the Powell and the Clinch, the Salt and the Saline, the Cache, the Whitewater, the French Broad, the Barren, the Wabash and the Little Wabash, and the White and the Green-and their own thousand branches and creeks feed the Ohio and ultimately unite with the Mississippi. The names of the creeks that create this great flood capture the poetry and the music and the history of the land. They catalog the trees-Locust and Willow and Cherry and Laurel and Hatwillow and Ash and Lodgepole-the animals- Raven, Cow, Dogie, Turtle, Swan, Rabbit, Antelope, Wolf, Sheep, Wild Cat, Wild Horse, Pinto, Spotted Horse, Blacktail, Eagle-and the events-Hanging Woman, Crazy Woman, Bear in the Lodge, Wagonhound, Chugwater, No Water, Arrow, Stockade-that make our history. They in turn are divided into forks, north and south and middle, Dry Forks and Roaring Forks. All this collected water surges past Cairo to become one silent torrent that nothing can stop or placate or satisfy except the sea, making the spot heavy with history and meaning. The river is a great flood, draining states from Montana to -18- |