We next visited the women’s gallery, where female criminals of all classes are huddled together indiscriminately. On opening the door, the stench from the open verandah, in which the prisoners were sitting, was so vile that I could not proceed further; but I saw enough to convince me that the poor, erring woman who was put in there for some trifling offence, and placed in contact with the beings who were uttering such language as we heard, might indeed leave hope behind her.
The prisoners have no beds to sleep upon, not even a blanket, and are thrust in to lie as they please, five in each small cell. It may be imagined what the tropical heat produces under such conditions as these; but as the surgeon was out, I could obtain no information respecting the rates of sickness or mortality.
I next proceeded to a yard somewhat smaller than that appropriated to serious offenders, in which were confined prisoners condemned for short sentences, for such offences as drunkenness, assault, and the like. Among the prisoners were some English sailors, confined for assaults on their officers, or breach of articles; all of whom had complaints to make to the Consul, as to arbitrary arrests and unfounded charges. Mr. Mure told me that when the port is full he is constantly engaged inquiring into such cases; and I am sorry to learn that the men of our commercial marine occasion a good deal of trouble to the authorities.
I left the prison in no very charitable mood towards the people who sanctioned such a disgraceful institution, and proceeded to complete my tour of the city.
The “Levee,” which is an enormous embankment to prevent the inundation of the river, is now nearly deserted except by the river steamers, and those which have been unable to run the blockade. As New Orleans is on an average three feet below the level of the river at high water, this work requires constant supervision; it is not less than fifteen feet broad, and rises five or six feet above the level of the adjacent street, and it is continued in an almost unbroken line for several hundreds of miles up the course of the Mississippi. When the bank gives way, or a “crevasse,” as it is technically called, occurs, the damage done to the plantations has sometimes to be calculated by millions of dollars; when the river is very low there is a new form of danger, in what is called the “caving in” of the bank, which, left without the support of the water pressure, slides into the bed of the giant river.
New Orleans is called the “crescent city” in consequence of its being built on a curve of the river, which is here about the breadth of the Thames at Gravesend, and of great depth. Enormous cotton presses are erected near the banks, where the bales are compressed by machinery before stowage on shipboard, at a heavy cost to the planter.
The custom-house, the city-hall, and the United States mint, are fine buildings, of rather pretentious architecture; the former is the largest building in the States, next to the capital. I was informed that on the levee, now almost deserted, there is during the cotton and sugar season a scene of activity, life, and noise, the like of which is not in the world. Even Canton does not show so many boats on the river, not to speak of steamers, tugs, flat boats, and the like; and it may be easily imagined that such is the case, when we know that the value of the cotton sent in the year from this port alone exceeds twenty millions sterling, and that the other exports are of the value of at least fifteen millions sterling, whilst the imports amount to nearly four millions.
As the city of New Orleans is nearly 1700 miles south of New York, it is not surprising that it rejoices in a semi-tropical climate. The squares are surrounded with lemon-trees, orange-groves, myrtle, and magnificent magnolias. Palmettoes and peach-trees are found in all the gardens, and in the neighbourhood are enormous cypresses, hung round with the everlasting Spanish moss.
The streets of the extended city are different in character from the narrow chaussées of the old town, and the general rectangular arrangement common in the United States, Russia, and British Indian cantonments is followed as much as possible. The markets are excellent, each municipality, or grand division, being provided with its own. They swarm with specimens of the composite races which inhabit the city, from the thorough-bred, woolly-headed negro, who is suspiciously like a native-born African, to the Creole who boasts that every drop of blood in his veins is purely French.