The suburbs of New Orleans lie low, and the swampy soil emits a poisonous miasma. This is, without doubt, the cause of virulent epidemics that visit the city annually with direful effect. Thousands fly to the northern states, to escape the contagion; but there are many who, for want of means, are obliged to risk a continued residence at such periods, and it is amongst those that the yellow fever, the ague, or the flux, plays dreadful havoc. It is the custom for the small store-keepers, as well as the more affluent merchants, to confide their affairs at such seasons to others, and I have frequently seen advertisements in the New Orleans Picayune, and other papers, offering a gratuity to persons to undertake the charge in their absence.
The heat, although the summer was not far advanced, was excessive, and the thousands of mosquitoes that filled the air, especially after a fall of rain, when they seemed to burst into life in myriads spontaneously, kept up an increasing annoyance. At night this was ten-fold, for notwithstanding the gauze awnings, or bars, as they are called, which completely enveloped the bedstead, to the floor of the room, they found admittance with pertinacious audacity, and kept up a buzzing and humming about my ears that almost entirely deprived me of rest. This unceasing nuisance in the hot season, makes it difficult to keep one's equanimity of temper, and has, probably, much to do with that extreme irascibility shown by the southern inhabitants of the American continent.
The appearance and situation of hundreds of quadroon females in this city, soon attracted my attention, and deserve notice. I saw numbers of them not only at the bazaars or shops making purchases, but riding in splendid carriages through the streets. So prodigal are these poor deluded creatures of their money, that, although slaves and liable to immediate sale at the caprice of their keepers, they have often been known to spend in one afternoon 200 dollars in a shopping excursion. Endowed with natural talents, they are readily instructed in every accomplishment, requisite to constitute them charming companions. Often as a carriage dashes by, the pedestrian is able to catch a glimpse of some jewelled and turbaned sultana, of dazzling beauty, attended by her maid, who does not always possess a sinecure, for the mistress is often haughty, proud, and petulant, very hard to please, and exacts great deference from her inferiors. Many of them live in regal splendour, and everything that wealth and pampered luxury can bestow is theirs, as long as their personal charms remain; but when their beauty has ceased to gratify the passions of their masters, they are, in most instances, cast off, and frequently die in a condition which presents the greatest possible contrast to their former gay but not happy life.
"Oh that they had earlier died,
Sleeping calmly side by side,
Where the tyrant's power is o'er,
And the fetter galls no more."
Many of such poor outcasts are to be found scattered all over the slave states, some employed as field hands, but in general they are selected as domestics, their former habits of luxury and ease rendering their constitutions too delicate for the exposure of ordinary field labour. It is not, however, as the reader will have observed, commiseration that saves them from that degradation. As soon as beauty begins to fade, which in southern climes it does prematurely, the unfeeling owners of these unfortunates succeed in ridding themselves of what is now considered a burden, by disposing of the individual to some heartless trader. This is done unknown to the victim, and the news, when it reaches her, drives her almost frantic; she at once seeks her perfidious paramour, and finds to her dismay, that he has been gone some days on a tour to the provinces, and is, perhaps, a thousand miles off. Tears and protestations avail her nothing, the trader is inexorable, she belongs to him by law, and go she must; at length, having vainly expended her entreaties, she becomes calm, and submits in sullen apathy to her wretched fate. This is the ordinary history of such cases.
Considering it unsafe to remain longer in this infected city, from the reports that the fever was gaining ground, I now made preparations for leaving New Orleans, and as I had made an engagement to manage the affairs of a gentleman in Florida, during his absence at Washington, I determined to proceed thither with the least possible delay. In furtherance of this object I made inquiries for a conveyance by water to St. Marks, giving the preference to steam. In this object I was, however, disappointed, and was obliged to take a passage on board a brig, about to sail for that obscure port. The vessel was towed down to the balize or mouth of the Mississippi, in company with two others, by a departing steamer, which had on board the mail for Bermuda and St. George's Island. Arrived at the balize, whose banks for several miles are overflowed by the sea, I saw a small fleet of vessels, some outward and some inward bound. Amongst these was a United States ship of war, of great beauty, carrying heavy guns. A boat from this vessel, in charge of an officer, boarded us, and delivered to the captain a sealed packet, which I understood to be a dispatch, addressed to General Taylor, the officer in command of the troops operating against the Indians in Florida.
The coast about the balize is low and swampy, and everywhere abounds in rush and cane brakes which give its sea-beach a desolate appearance. These morasses harbour thousands of alligators, whose roar had a singular effect as it rose above the breeze. Flocks of aquatic birds were to be seen on every side, the most numerous being the pelican, and a bird of the cotinga species, about the size of an English throstle, the plumage of which, being jet black and flamingo red, had a beautiful effect in the sunshine, as they flew or settled in thousands on the canes.