During the business season, which continues from the first of November to July, the levee, for an extent of five miles, is crowded with vessels of all sizes, but more especially ships, from every part of the world—with hundreds of immense floating castles and palaces, called steamboats; and barges and flat-boats innumerable. No place can present a more busy, bustling scene. The loading and unloading of vessels and steamboats—the transportation, by some three thousand drays, of cotton, sugar, tobacco, and the various and extensive produce of the great west, strikes the stranger with wonder and admiration. The levee and piers that range along the whole length of the city, extending back on an average of some two hundred feet, are continually covered with moving merchandise. This was once a pleasant promenade, where the citizen enjoyed his delightful morning and evening walk; but now there is scarcely room, amid hogsheads, bales and boxes, for the business man to crowd along, without a sharp look out for his personal safety.
The position of New Orleans, as a vast commercial emporium, is unrivalled—as will be seen by a single glance at the map of the United States. As the depot of the west, and the half-way-house of foreign trade, it is almost impossible to anticipate its future magnitude.
Take a view, for instance, of the immense regions known under the name of the Mississippi valley. Its boundaries on the west are the Rocky Mountains, and Mexico; on the south, the Gulf of Mexico; on the east the Alleghany mountains; and, on the north, the lakes and the British possessions. It contains nearly as many square miles, and more tillable ground, than all continental Europe, and, if peopled as densely as England, would sustain a population of five hundred millions—more than half of the present inhabitants of the earth. Its surface is generally cultivable, and its soil rich, with a climate varying to suit all products, for home consumption or a foreign market. The Mississippi is navigable twenty one hundred miles—passing a small portage, three thousand may be achieved. It embraces the productions of many climates, and a mining country abounding in coal, lead, iron and copper ore, all found in veins of wonderful richness. The Missouri stretches thirty nine hundred miles to the Great Falls, among the Flat Foot Indians, and five thousand from New Orleans. The Yellow Stone, navigable for eleven hundred miles, the Platte for sixteen hundred, and the Kanzas for twelve hundred, are only tributaries to the latter river. The Ohio is two thousand miles to Pittsburgh, receiving into her bosom from numerous streams, the products of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Western Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana and Illinois. The Arkansas, Big Black, Yazoo, Red River, and many others, all pouring their wealth into the main artery, the Mississippi, upon whose mighty current it floats down to the grand reservoir, New Orleans.
The Mississippi valley contained over eight millions of inhabitants in 1840, having gained eighty per cent., during the last ten years. The present number cannot be less than ten millions.
The last year, the Mississippi was navigated by four hundred and fifty steamboats, many of which are capable of carrying 2,500 bales of cotton, making an aggregate tonnage of ninety thousand. They cost above seven millions of dollars; and to navigate them, required nearly fifteen thousand persons—the estimated expense of their navigation is over thirteen millions of dollars. The increase since, may be calculated at fifty additional boats—which would make an advance in all these items in a ratio of ten per cent.
Such statements as these, large as they seem, convey to the reader but a partial idea of the great valley, and of the wide extent of country upon which this city leans, and which guaranties her present and future prosperity. To form a full estimate, he must, besides all this, see her mountains of iron, and her inexhaustible veins of lead and copper ore, and almost boundless regions of coal. The first article mentioned (and the phrase in which it is expressed is no figure of speech) has been pronounced, by the most scientific assayer of France, to be superior to the best Swedish iron. These, and a thousand unenumerated products, beside the well known staples, constitute its wealth; all of which by a necessity of nature, must flow through our Crescent City, to find an outlet into the great world of commerce. With such resources nothing short of some dreadful convulsion of nature, or the more dreadful calamity of war, can prevent New Orleans from becoming, if not the first, next in commercial importance to the first city in the United States—perhaps, in the world. The flourishing towns upon the Mississippi and her tributaries, are merely the depositories for this great mart. In twenty years she must, according to her present increase, contain a population of three hundred thousand, with a trade proportionably extended.
With such views, it may be deemed folly to attempt to look forward to the end of the nineteenth century, when this metropolis will in all probability extend back to lake Pontchartrain, and to Carrolton on the course of the river. The swamps, that now only echo to the hoarse bellowing of the alligator, will then be densely built upon, and rendered cheerful by the gay voices of its inhabitants, numbering at least a million of human beings. If, like Rip Van Winkle, we may be permitted to come back after the lapse of half a century, with what surprise and astonishment shall we witness the change which the enterprise of man will have wrought. But let us not waste a moment in dreaming about it. Let us be up and doing, to fulfil our part of the mighty achievement. It would not be strange, however, if the present map, which is given to show the rapid growth of the city, by comparison with one drawn in 1728, should then be republished with a similar design, to exhibit the insignificance of New Orleans in 1845! We ask the kindness of the critics of that period, should they deign to turn over these pages, begging them to consider that our humble work was produced as far back as the benighted age of steam!
