FOOTNOTE:
[2] Our ship was not a line-packet: they never delay.
VII.
Louisiana—Arrival at New-Orleans—Land—Pilot stations—Pilots—Anecdote—Fort—Forests—Levée—Crevasses—Alarms—Accident—Espionage—A Louisianian palace—Grounds—Sugar-house—Quarters—An African governess—Sugar cane—St. Mary—"English Turn"—Cavalcade—Battle ground—Music—Sounds of the distant city—Land in New-Orleans—An amateur sailor.
We are at last in New-Orleans, the queen of the South-west—the American Waterloo, whose Wellington, "General Jackson"—according to the elegant ballad I believe still extant in the "Boston picture-books,"
—— "quick did go
With Yankee(?) troops to meet the foe;
We met them near to New-Orleans
And made their blood to flow in streams."
New-Orleans! the play-thing of monarchs. "Swapped," as boys swap their penknives. Discovered and lost by the French—possessed by the gold-hunting Spaniard—again ceded to the French—exchanged for a kingdom with the man who traded in empires, and sold by him, for a "plum" to our government!
We arrived between eight and nine last evening, after a very pleasant run of twenty-eight hours from the Balize, charmed and delighted of course with every thing. If we had landed at the entrance of Vulcan's smithy from so long a sea-passage, it would have been precisely the same—all would have appeared "couleur de rose." To be on land, even were it a sand bank, is all that is requisite to render it in the eyes of the new landed passenger, a Paradise.
During the first part of our sail up the river, there was nothing sufficiently interesting in the way of incident or variety of scenery, to merit the trouble either of narration or perusal. Till we arrived within forty-five or fifty miles of New-Orleans, the shores of the river presented the same flat, marshy appearance previously described. With the exception of two or three "pilot stations," near its mouth, I do not recollect that we passed any dwelling. These "stations" are situated within a few miles of the mouth of the river, and are the residences of the pilots. The one on the left bank of the river, which I had an opportunity of visiting, contained about sixteen or eighteen houses, built upon piles, in the midst of the morass, which is the only apology for land within twenty leagues. One third of these are dwelling houses, connected with each other for the purpose of intercourse, by raised walks or bridges, laid upon the surface of the mud, and constructed of timber, logs, and wrecks of vessels. Were a hapless wight to lose his footing, he would descend as easily and gracefully into the bosom of the yielding loam, as into a barrel of soft soap. The intercourse with the shore, near which this miserable, isolated congregation of shanties is imbedded, is also kept up by a causeway of similar construction and materials.