We passed no place of importance during the night; and at five o'clock in the morning we were at Donaldsonville. We made fast to the levee, and as we were in no hurry, I did not call any of the passengers. I told Gopher and Cobbington who the planter we had rescued was, that they might have things in proper condition at the breakfast-table. I inquired what boats had stopped at the place, and learned that the Queen of the South had left two hours before. This showed that her speed did not exceed that of our little fleet.
I asked if any passengers had landed, and was informed that several had done so. I thought I would visit the hotels, and see if Cornwood and Nick were at any one of them. I was about to leave the steamer when the governor came out of the cabin. He insisted that I should not leave the vessel, as the rascals might see me. They could not escape from the place except by boat. He went ashore himself, after I had given him a full description of the fugitives.
He returned in a short time, and said a report would come down in the course of an hour or two. Our party had a merry time at breakfast, and the meal was as elaborate as the resources of the New Orleans market and the skill of Gopher could make it. Colonel Hungerford, as he insisted that we should call him, was in the highest spirits. Before the meal was over, a gentleman came on board and desired to see the governor. He was the marshal of the city. No such passengers as had been described to him had landed. He had telegraphed to Baton Rouge for the police to search the steamer on her arrival.
Nothing more could be done, and we started up the river again. We arrived at the capital of the state at four in the afternoon. We spent the day in viewing the wonders of the mighty river, the waters of which were almost up to the top of the levees. The governor said that the country was inundated for thirty miles, though we could see but little water except what was between the fringe of the trees on the banks of the stream.
It takes the waters about a month to travel from the melting snows on the north and north-west to the Gulf. At the mouth of the Missouri the flood rises about twenty-five feet; below the Ohio the rise is sometimes more than fifty feet, while at New Orleans it seldom exceeds twelve feet. The greater height, caused by the addition of the waters of the Ohio to the flood, is reduced in Louisiana by the passage of much of the flow through the Atchafalaya, La Fourche, and other bayous, into the Gulf of Mexico.