Midnight found us at the St. Charles Hotel, a five-story edifice, with granite basement and walls of stucco—that be-all and end-all of New Orleans architecture. The house has an imposing Corinthian portico, and in the hot season its stone floors and tall columns are cool and inviting to the eye.
Hospitality of a Stranger.
"You can not fail to like New Orleans," said a friend, before I left the North. "Its people are much more genial and cordial to strangers than ours." I took no letters of introduction, for introduction was just the thing I did not want. But on the cars, before reaching the city, I met a gentleman with whom I had a little conversation, and exchanged the ordinary civilities of traveling. When we parted, he handed me his card, saying:
"You are a stranger in New Orleans, and may desire some information or assistance. Call and see me, and command me, if I can be of service to you."
He proved to be the senior member of one of the heaviest wholesale houses in the city. Accepting the invitation, I found him in his counting-room, deeply engrossed in business; but he received me with great kindness, and gave me information about the leading features of the city which I wished to see. As I left, he promised to call on me, adding: "Come in often. By the way, to-morrow is Sunday; why can't you go home and take a quiet family dinner with me?"
I was curious to learn the social position of one who would invite a stranger, totally without indorsement, into his home-circle. The next day he called, and we took a two-story car of the Baronne street railway. It leads through the Fourth or Lafayette District—more like a garden than a city—containing the most delightful metropolitan residences in America. Far back from the street, they are deeply imbosomed in dense shrubbery and flowers. The tropical profusion of the foliage retains dampness and is unwholesome, but very delicious to the senses.
The houses are low—this latitude is unfavorable to climbing—and constructed of stucco, cooler than wood, and less damp than stone. They abound in verandas, balconies, and galleries, which give to New Orleans a peculiarly mellow and elastic look, much more alluring than the cold, naked architecture of northern cities.
An Agreeable Family Circle.
My new friend lived in this district, as befits a merchant prince. His spacious grounds were rich in hawthorns, magnolias, arbor-vitæs, orange, olive, and fig trees, and sweet with the breath of multitudinous flowers. Though it was only the tenth of March, myriads of pinks and trailing roses were in full bloom; Japan plums hung ripe, while brilliant oranges of the previous year still glowed upon the trees. His ample residence, with its choice works of art, was quietly, unostentatiously elegant. There was no mistaking it for one of those gilt and gaudy palaces which seem to say: "Look at the state in which Crœsus, my master, lives. Lo, the pictures and statues, the Brussels and rosewood which his money has bought! Behold him clothed in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day!"