Illustrated Catalogue of New Books for Children, Free.
At booksellers; or sent postpaid on receipt of price by the publishers,
ALPHA PUBLISHING COMPANY,
212 Boylston Street, BOSTON, MASS.
A Stranger in New Orleans.
Changing one's home from Staten Island to New Orleans in the fall of the year means a good deal of a change in climate and weather, not to mention the change in one's surroundings noticeable at any season. We like our new home much. Canal, the principal street, is very wide, and there are seven trolley lines upon it. Yesterday we took one of them and went six miles out to Jackson Barracks, where the United States troops are.
The barracks face the Mississippi River, and are not casemates or stone walls, as are barracks in most of the forts around New York. They are houses, large and roomy. The soldiers seemed to know the place little better than we did, for they said they had only recently come here. They belong to the First United States Artillery, batteries of which are now scattered along the Gulf coast, some being at Pensacola, and others at St. Augustine. The Mississippi River is here higher than the city, hence the foundations for buildings are none of the best. So one of the peculiarities one notices, in contrast with the tall buildings I was long familiar with in New York, is the low structures. Everything seems so flat. Since coming here we have had much rain—tropical rain, it seems to me to be, for the water simply tumbles down for hours at a time. The days are warm, but the nights are not. I hope we shall like New Orleans, as we must live here for some years, but just now I am seeing new and strange things, and sometimes I long for a sight of Brooklyn Bridge, the Liberty Statue, and the White Squadron lying off Tompkinsville.
F. W.
New Orleans.