CHAPTER V.
NEW ORLEANS AND GALVESTON.
New Orleans stands on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, one hundred and ten miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and is called the "Crescent City," because of the sublime and beautiful sweep of the "Father of Waters" around the city in a perfect circle, striking in on the north, thence circling to the west, then south, then east, then gently north, on a bend enchanting to behold, coming up to the landing at a point due east two or three miles only, from the river on the west of the city, where it first heaves in sight to the traveler on the deck of a steamer coming down, making a distance of ten to fifteen miles in the circuit, and leaving the city stand on a grand dead level peninsula, almost an island. The magnificent bosom of the waters heaves and presses up the river sides in fresh beauty constantly, as if "Old Neptune's" soul stood beneath in the river's mighty depths, and throwing out broad shoulders and long arms spanning its breadth, were intent on heaving the waters over its leveed banks to deluge and drown out the inhabitants.
Water is taken from the river and conducted along either side of the streets, just at the edge of the sidewalks, in stone ducts, built up square a foot or so in depth and width. With such facilities for irrigating the streets New Orleans may be, and is, one of the cleanest and sweetest cities in the world. The spirit of the people seems broken since the war, and doubtless many a year will pass ere the old romantic gayeties and business pluck and prosperity will come back again. The evil genius of the "peculiar institution" is gone never to return, though its corporal presence remains, to man the live industries of the olden times.
But to resume our narrative of travel. We staid in New Orleans during the night of the 21st of January, but did not remain the next day to witness the further movement of secession, but crossed the river ferry at eight o'clock in the morning, and took the train at Algiers, on the west side, for Berwick's Bay, seventy-five miles distant, and the terminus west of the railroad. Most of the route may be characterized as crocodile or alligator swamp. It was covered with water and heavy timber, and a thick undergrowth of cane, Spanish daggers and dwarf palm, such as is manufactured into palm-leaf hats, with other kinds of water shrubbery. When cleared up and properly prepared these lands will make splendid rice and sugar plantations. The alligator will migrate before the hand and foot of civilization.
Thence we shipped by "Morgan Line" of steamers to Galveston, two hundred and fifty miles, on the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing occurred to mar the general pleasure of this part of the journey. Neptune was unusually quiet, only showing his disposition in gentle undulations of the deep; no heaving billows, with white caps breaking on their angry crests, and dashing the iron-bound vessel up in the air, and dropping her again in cradles of the deep; no qualms and retching to make one feel he didn't care whether the vessel lived or went to the bottom, but rather preferred the latter; and the sooner the better. No, a "norther'" was blowing off mainland—now and then in sight—and laid the waters smooth so that we took regular meals and kept them down, and were not thrown from our berths by a bouncing boat.
On approaching Galveston at sea, twenty miles away, vision is frequently cheated by the intervention of a mirage, the effect of which is to give to the city the appearance of air-suspension—a heavenward elongation, sitting on the lap of the ocean with no terra firma beneath. But on nearer approach the illusion disappears, and there stands before you, on a small piece of nature's ground-work, and as though painted by a fairy hand, in spiritual shadows, on the low extended horizon beyond, Galveston, exciting the strange beholder into the romantic feeling that it is a city of fairies. And though the romance is toned down by the reality on landing, yet there she stands, one of the finest and most beautiful cities in the South of her size. She had before the war a population of twelve to fifteen thousand, and in one year after the war she had twenty-five thousand souls, and three thousand additional buildings.
Galveston stands on the east end of an island of the same name, running northeast and southwest, thirty miles in length, and with a varying width of two to four miles. Plausible tradition has it that when the island was first occupied and settled by Anglo-Americans, forty to fifty years ago, they found as its lone occupant a beautiful Castillian woman in male attire, supposed to have been connected with the notorious Captain Lafitte, who, with his band, committed piratical depredations on the Gulf and in the West Indies, and who had headquarters there and up the wilds of the Trinity River. Hence the island was first facetiously called "Gal-with-a-vest-on," but afterward it was reduced to the more elegant trisyllabic of Galveston.
The island is a huge long sandbank, the work of the Gulf waters for ages in sand deposits. The indentation of the main shore where the island lies was favorable for such deposits. But this alone does not sufficiently account for the fact that the island is at that particular place. The Gulf Stream, in its rebound and return movement from the shore of Western Texas, a hundred and fifty miles to the southwest of Galveston, after having been driven there by the "trade winds" that come in from the direction of the Coast of Africa—from the southeast, through the channel between Cuba and Yucatan—passes near the island, en route to the channel between Florida and Cuba, and in its passage throws off inshore the sand disturbed and gathered up in its course from the bottom of the Gulf. Besides Trinity River comes in at the head and east of the island, and passes out into the Gulf Stream in a southeasterly direction, throwing to the right, toward the island, deposits similar to those made to the left by the Gulf Stream. Thus do we theorize as to the natural causes for the formation and existence of the island. These two counter forces of water co-operate, and between them have made it what it is. Besides this sandbar above water there are lying between these two water forces, and a few feet beneath the surface, sand reefs running from the head of the island southeast, and circling south and west five or six miles, forming a splendid outside harbor, with a depth of water ranging from a minimum of ten to a maximum of seventy feet. The heaviest vessels can lie there and ride at anchor in perfect safety, as they are protected from the heavy "trade winds" from the southeast, and others from the south, by these reefs. Nature has furnished the surface of the island with a few inches of light sandy soil, warm and quick-producing, growing corn, the largest and sweetest sweet potatoes, the largest and most delicious melons of all kinds one ever saw or ate, with garden sauce of every name and nature; even Irish potatoes, if grown from seed imported from the north each year. The whole island from the city to the southwest end thereof furnishes fine grazing for cattle and other stock, and the butchers keep their beeves there a few days before they are slaughtered and sold in the market, and the beef when marketed and on the table is the sweetest and most savory the writer ever found in any country, particularly that fattened on mesquite grass. The Gulf beach in low tide furnishes the finest ride or drive imaginable, and at eventide hundreds of vehicles and pedestrians may be seen enjoying themselves there.
The commercial importance of Galveston may be judged of by the single fact that of the four hundred thousand bales of cotton produced in Texas in the year 1860 three hundred thousand bales were compressed and exported at Galveston, worth at that time $15,000,000 in gold, but would now be worth $25,000,000. The geographical location of Galveston speaks also for its commercial importance. It is the New York of Texas, and Galveston Island is the Long Island of Texas. The inside harbor lies in the bay immediately in the rear of the city, between the island and the mainland, where the bay is two miles wide. The entrance to the harbor has ten feet of water over the bar in low tide, and fourteen to sixteen feet in high tide.