[Illustration:  A WATER JAM OF LOGS.]

Now, this work of draining is going on so fast that this year nearly six hundred miles of levee will be completed among the islands alone, not to speak of reclamation districts on the main-land.  There seems to be a general determination to do the work thoroughly, the high floods of 1871-72 having shown the farmers and land-owners that they must build high and strong levees, or else lose all, or at least much, of their labor and outlay.  During the spring of 1872 I saw huge breaks in some of the levees, which overflowed lands to the serious damage of farmers, for not only is the crop of the year lost, but orchards and vineyards, which flourish on the Tule lands, perished or were seriously injured by the waters.

Chinese labor is used almost entirely in making the levees.  An engineer having planned the work, estimates are made, and thereupon Chinese foremen take contracts for pieces at stipulated rates, and themselves hire their countrymen for the actual labor.  This subdivision, to which the perfect organization of Chinese labor readily lends itself, is very convenient.  The engineer or master in charge of the work deals only with the Chinese foremen, pays them for the work done, and exacts of them the due performance of the contract.

The levee stuff is taken from the inside; thus the ditch is inside of the levee, and usually on the outside is a space of low marsh, which presently fills with willow and cotton-wood.  You may sail along the river or slough, therefore, for miles, and see only occasional evidences of the embankment.

The soil is usually a tough turf, full of roots, which is very cheaply cut out with an instrument called a “tule-knife,” and thrown up on the levee, where it seems to bind well, though one would not think it would.  At frequent intervals are self-acting tide-gates for drainage; these are made of the redwood of the coast, which does not rot in the water.  The rise and fall of the tides is about six feet.  The levees have been in some places troubled with beaver, which, however, are now hunted for their fur, and will not long be troublesome.  There is no musk-rat—­an animal which would do serious damage here.  The tule-rat lives on roots on the land, but is not active or strong enough to be injurious.

The levee is usually from six to eight feet broad on top, with the inside sloping; but I was told that experience had shown that the outside should be perpendicular.  It is not unusual for parts of a levee to sink down, but I could hear of no case of capsizing.  The Levee Board of a district appoints levee-masters, whose duty it is to look after the condition of the work, and on the islands I visited there were gangs of Chinamen engaged in repairing and heightening the embankments.

You land at a wharf, and, standing on top of the levee, you see before you usually the house and other farm buildings, set up on piles, for security against a break and overflow; and beyond a great track of level land, two or three or five feet below the level of the levee, and, if it has but lately been reclaimed, covered with the remnants of tules and of grass sods.