Note 14 — Chapter III · THE GREAT RIVER

From a broad waterway, from two to three miles in width, the river here contracts to a narrow channel which, at low water, is not more than a half mile in width. According to Codazzi,14 the mean depth of the river at this point is sixty feet. Towards the end of the rainy season, however, the water rises from forty to fifty feet above low-water mark. Sometimes it rises considerably higher. In 1891 the flood was so high that the stores and dwellings of the part of the city fronting the river were inundated to a height of several feet. Then the inhabitants were obliged to have recourse to canoes in passing from house to house. Then, too, stray alligators were seen in the streets and it was possible to catch enough fish for a meal in the patio—court-yard—of one’s residence.