Eight days in New-Orleans in February, 1847

by Albert James Pickett

A large portion of the city of Orleans is watered from the large reservoir in the upper part of the second municipality. An iron pipe eighteen inches in diameter, is placed in the river twelve feet below the surface, and through this, great columns of water are continually ascending by sixty horse power force-pumps, situated in brick buildings on Tchoupitoulas and Richard streets. The water is carried under ground for two hundred yards further, and forced up the reservoir alluded to, which has been made in the manner of an artificial mound, from the sediment of the river. The reservoir is built on the top of the mound, and is about three hundred feet square, walled with brick and cemented, with four apartments in it, each having about five feet live water in them. Every month or two, the water is drawn off from two of them, and the deposit formed six inches deep is scraped off, and the water let in again. A pavilion in the middle of the reservoir affords a pleasant seat, and affords you a commanding view of the immediate neighborhood. The pumps force up 2,280 gallons per minute. The cost of the works is about $1,490,000; expenses, $17,000; revenue, $75000. The water is distributed through cast iron pipes from sixteen to six inches in diameter, and is sold at the rate of three dollars per head. The daily consumption is near one million three hundred thousand gallons.

The city of New Orleans is more abundantly blessed, according to its extent, with good markets than any city on the continent. They may be found in all directions, affording a great abundance of the best that the whole Mississippi valley and the far western plains of Texas can produce.

The great attraction to visitors is the celebrated French Market. The French, English, Spanish, Dutch, Swiss and Italian languages are employed here in trading, buying, and selling, and a kind of mongrel mixture and jumble of each and all is spoken by the lower class in the market. It lies on the Levee, admirably situated, and extends a long ways. All is hurry, jostling and confusion; the very drums of your ears ache with the eternal jargon—with the cursing, swearing, whooping, hollowing, cavilling, laughing, crying, cheating and stealing, which are all in full blast. The screams of parrots, the music of birds, the barking of dogs, the cries of oystermen, the screams of children, the Dutch girl's organ, the French negro humming a piece of the last opera—all are going it, increasing the novelty of this novel place. The people engaged in building the tower of Babel, whose language was confounded and confused for their presumptuous undertaking, never made a worse jargon or inflicted a greater blow upon harmonious sounds, than is to be found here. While looking around at the various commodities exposed for sale, I saw scores of opossums, coons, crawfish, eels, minks, and frogs, brought there to satiate the fancy appetite of the French. But what was my astonishment on seeing a basket of five fat puppies about six weeks old, which the owner informed me were for French gentlemen to eat! In charity for the Frenchman's taste, I have sometimes thought the vender of these little barkers was palming a quiz upon me. I hope so.

This is an unrivalled market. Every fish that swims in the Gulf, every bird that flies in the air, or swims upon the wave, every quadruped that scours the plains or skulks in dens, which are usually eaten by men, can be had in great abundance. All kinds of grain and roots raised in the up country, all the luxuries of the tropics, are here. The elk of the Osage river, the buffalo of the Yellowstone, venison of Louisiana, and the bear of Mississippi, fill the list, and contribute in pandering to the appetites of luxurious citizens.

CHAPTER VII.

OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS.—THE FRENCH THEATRE.—THE CARNIVAL.—THE ST. CHARLES, ETC.

I cannot undertake to describe the numerous public buildings which adorn the city of Orleans. I will merely observe that the stranger would be much entertained and instructed by visiting the Gas Works, the Chapel of the Ursulines, St. Patrick's Church, the Cypress Grove Cemetery, and other beautiful resting places of the dead; the Charity Hospital, the Maison de Sante, the Marine Hospital, the Municipal Hall, the Workhouses in the First and Second Municipalities, the City Prisons, the City Hall, the Orleans Cotton Press, the Commercial Exchange, the Merchants' Exchange, the Medical College, and many others too numerous to mention.

A very great object of attraction at night is the Orleans Theatre, the most conveniently arranged building, perhaps in America. With a very commodious and elevated pit, with grated boxes on the sides for persons desiring to be private, two tiers of boxes and one of galleries above, the whole is so admirably arranged as to allow spectators every privilege of seeing and hearing. The pieces performed at this novel theatre are generally well selected operas, and although the acting is in the French language, yet the pantomime is so excellent and the costume so much to the life, that it requires but little practice on the part of the Alabamian to unravel the plot and become intensely engaged. Every kind of instrument necessary in producing sweet and harmonious sounds, is to be found in the orchestra, and the music is alternately melodious and grand. The dress circle surpasses all others for the beauty and fashion which it contains. It literally glows with diamonds and sparkling eyes!! In front are seated ladies most magnificently dressed, from all parts of the south and west, and among them sat the beautiful daughter of the hero of Mexico! As the child of the captor of Monterey, she was the object of attraction throughout the dress circle, and doubtless was loved by all for the noble deeds of her brave and patriotic father. On the sides of the circle are beauties still more richly attired, if possible, but darker and more effeminate than the former, but pretty and sweet beyond all description. They are the daughters of Louisianians!