The Mississippi abandoned Greenville in the 1930s. When engineers cut through its meanders, the river retreated several kilometres westward, leaving behind Lake Ferguson, a long stretch of calm water where river boats now moor. It is therefore on an old bend of the river that your ship ties up, at the foot of the levee protecting the town since the great flood of 1927. This earthwork alone tells the region's story.

A Town Born of Water and Words

Greenville rebuilt itself several times. Burned during the Civil War, engulfed in 1927 when the levee failed upstream, it each time chose to remain at the water's edge. From this obstinacy arose a singular community, one that gave the country a striking concentration of writers: historian Shelby Foote grew up there, novelist Walker Percy spent his adolescence there. Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, was born there in 1936. For a town of this size, the account commands respect.

From the landing, a few minutes' walk or a short shuttle suffices to reach the centre. The 1927 Flood Museum there recounts the catastrophe that drove tens of thousands onto the roads and transformed American music, politics and demographics. Period photographs, where families camp on the levee amid the waters, leave a lasting mark.

Blues at Its Source

The delta invented the blues, and Greenville sits at the heart of this musical territory. Route 61, the one so many musicians sing, passes close by. Excursions offered during river stops often lead to the B.B. King Museum in Indianola, some forty kilometres away, a modern museum devoted to the region's most celebrated native son. Here you understand how cotton fields, churches and juke joints shaped a music that became universal.

Winterville Mounds

Some ten kilometres north, the Winterville Mounds historic site preserves a set of ceremonial mounds raised by the valley's indigenous peoples between the 11th and 15th centuries. The main mound dominates the agricultural plain at 17 metres. A small museum displays objects found on site. The site, designated a national historic monument, lends itself to a peaceful walk among the grassy mounds, beneath an immense sky.

Practical Reference Points

The Taste of the Delta

Greenville proclaims itself the world capital of the tamale, and the claim holds water. This small cornmeal roll stuffed with spiced meat, inherited from Mexican workers who came to the fields in the early 20th century, has simmered here for generations. Several restaurants in the centre serve it at dinner time, with the Southern cooking where fried catfish sits alongside braised vegetables. A simple meal, generous, that speaks volumes about the place.

Late in the day, the levee offers the finest observation point imaginable: on one side the town's roofs, on the other Lake Ferguson where the raking light reflects. Herons fish along the shores. One measures then what it means to live below water level, behind an earth wall, in a plain that owes everything to the river, even its sorrows. The delta is not recounted: it is experienced, slowly, at human height.