Part 21

NEW ORLEANS.

The day of my first arrival at this capital of many waters, this city sui generis, was one to which I had looked forward with much impatience and highly-roused expectations.

The disastrous affair of 1812 had made New Orleans a name familiar to Britain, and given to it a celebrity more general amongst all sorts of men than its vast trade alone would have achieved for it in double the time.

From the day also of my landing on the continent I had never heard this city named without accompanying remarks being elicited descriptive of its rapid increase, its singular position, and motley population, together with the speculations founded on the promise of its future greatness derived from its present healthful condition; that is, its political and commercial sanity; since no term can be worse applied, as illustrative of the views entertained of it by the North, whether physically or morally considered; views however that, on both these points, I have decided are singularly overcharged, even by persons one would conceive possessed of the information likely to lead to a correct judgment. This I attribute partly to the habit we are in of taking reports of places for granted, and repeating them from father to son without much personal examination, or rather comparison, and partly to the changes constantly operating upon society here, with a rapidity at least equal to the growth of building or the increase of produce and population; changes which come like Duncan's couriers, "thick as hail," the last giving the flat lie to the truth just told; to be, in turn, proved false by a successor.

To a stranger, the point of observance most original and striking, and which will at once inform and interest him, is the view from the Levee, with a walk along this artificial embankment, which commencing a hundred miles above New Orleans, and thence waiting on the stream whose rule it circumscribes, here bends like a drawn bow about the city, forming a well-frequented quay of some seven miles.

For three miles of this, the Levee is bordered by tiers of merchant shipping from every portion of the trading world, and close against it, those of the greatest tonnage, having once chosen a berth, may load or unload without shifting a line; a facility derived from nature that no port in the world can rival.

Along the whole extent of this line situated below the Levee, but at a distance of some two hundred feet, runs a range of store-houses, cotton-presses, and shops, connected by tolerably well-flagged side-walks; and certainly in no other place is such accommodation more absolutely required, the middle space or street, so called, being, after rain, a slough, to which that of Despond, as described by Bunyan, was a bagatelle; and floundering through, or pounded in which, are lines of hundreds of light drays, each drawn by three or four fine mules, and laden with the great staple, cotton.

At both extremities of the tiers of shipping, but chiefly at the south, lie numberless steamboats of all sizes; and yet again, flanking these, are fleets of those rude rafts and arks constructed by the dwellers on the hundred waters of the far West; and thence pushed forth, freighted with the produce of their farms, to find, after many days, a safe haven and a sure market here.

Let it not be forgotten that many of the primitive-looking transports lying at this point have performed a drift of three thousand miles. Their cargoes discharged, they are immediately disposed of to be broken up; their crews working their way back on board the steamers, to return in the following year with a vessel and a freight, both of which are at this time flourishing in full vegetation in field and in forest.

The interest with which I looked upon these far-travelled barks I dare hardly trust myself to declare or to describe; they told me of men and of their increase, who, only for the waters on which they live, would be as little known and quite as uncivilized as the Indian whose land they have redeemed from the wild beast or more savage hunter, to bid it teem with abundance, and to be a refuge and a home for millions to rejoice in.

The appearance of the Levee during this season is most animated. At the quarter occupied by the great Western steamboats, the lading and discharging cargoes seldom ceases during the busy months, when each hour appears to be grudged if not devoted to toil. At night, fires mark the spots where work is most brisk, and the warehouses along the line are frequently illuminated from the street to the upper story: crowds of labourers, sailors, bargemen, and draymen cheer, and order, and swear in every language in use amongst this mixed population; and, above all, at regular intervals, rises the wild chorus of the slaves labouring in gangs, who, if miserable, are certainly the merriest miserables in existence.

No scene is more likely to impress a stranger with a full knowledge of the vast deal of trade transacted here in a few months than this prolonged bustle at a time when the rest of the city sleeps; and, as he pursues his way amongst tens of thousands of bales of cotton that actually cover the Levee for miles, he will cease to doubt of the wealth which he learns is on all hands accumulating with a rapidity almost partaking of the marvellous.

I had heard in the North much said about the great danger incurred by a night-stroll in New Orleans, and so will the stranger who next follows after me: but do not let these bug-a-boo tales deter him from a walk upon the Levee after ten P.M. It is not amongst these sons of industry, however rude, that he will encounter either insult or danger: I have traversed it often on foot and on horseback, and never met with the first, or had the slightest cause to apprehend the latter.

In a city like this, amongst a concourse of strangers, the worst sort of men are doubtless to be met with, as in all large cities; but surely not in greater numbers. I question whether London or Paris can boast of less crime in proportion; certainly, not fewer felonies. Here, it is too true, a quarrel in hot blood is often followed by a shot or a stroke with the ready poniard; but for this both parties are equally prepared, and resolute to abide the issue: and for the stranger, all he has to do is to keep out of low places of gambling and dissipation, and, if in a large hotel, to keep his door locked; a precaution which would be as much called for at Cheltenham or Spa, were the congregated numbers equally great; although, in the latter places, I admit, the thieves might be nicer men, better dressed, and not chewers of 'baccy.

The streets, after nightfall, are the very quietest I ever saw in any place possessing one-third of the population. The theatres, I repeat, as far as my observation goes, might serve as models to cities boasting greater claims to refinement.

As a set-off, however, let the stranger visit the gambling tables, which are numerous; the low balls, masked or other, occurring every night, for whites or quadroons, or both; let him visit the low bar-rooms, or even look into that of the first hotel, which bar forms a half-circle of forty feet, yet is, during ten hours of the twenty-four, only to be approached in turn, and whose daily receipt is said to exceed three hundred dollars for drams; and he will, if such be his only sources of information, naturally come to conclusions anything but favourable to the moral condition of New Orleans.

The crowd so occupied, however, be it remembered, is composed of strangers, or what is here called the transient population, at this season counting at least forty thousand persons, the greatest proportion of whom are here without a home except the bar-room of a public-house, or a shelter save the bedchamber which they have in common with from three to twenty companions, as luck or favour may preside over their billet.

This assemblage is compounded of men from every section of the Union,--the quiet Yankee, cautiously picking his way to fortune, with small means and large designs; the gay Virginian, seeking a new location on the rich land of Mississippi or Alabama; the suddenly enriched planter of Louisiana, full of spare cash, which can only be got rid of in a frolic, having settled with his merchant and purchased the contemplated addition to his slave stock, and resolute to enjoy his holiday after his own fashion; the half-civilized borderers from the banks of the Gazoo, or the prairies of Texas, come hither with the first produce ever won by industry from the swamp or the forest, to see New Orleans, form connexions, and arrange credit for future operations.

Numerous as are these classes, they are yet readily distinguished by one who has seen and observed them in turns, and noted their characteristics, which are indeed sufficiently distinct.

The Yankee, slow, observant, concentrated, with thin, close-compressed lips, bilious complexion, and anxious countenance, may be picked out amidst a hundred other men, edging cautiously from place to place, scanning every group, and having, as it were, eyes and ears for all present.

The Virginian, tall of stature, thin and flexile of form, of an easy carriage, with an open up-look, and an expression at once reckless and humorous, talking rapidly and swearing loudly, frank in his abord, of engaging deportment, and assuming as though there were no country so good as the "Old Dominion," and no better man than her son.

The Kentuck farmer--whose marked characteristics are pervading all the States bordering on the Mississippi, and who, together with the Buck-eye of Ohio, will ultimately give tone and manner to the dwellers on its thousand streams--of a stronger outline and coarser stamp, as is fitted to and well-becoming the pioneer of the grandest portion of the continent, and of one who is putting forth the thew and sinew of a giant, to benefit posterity; his only present recompense the possession of a rude independence, and the consciousness of increasing wealth, to add to which his energies are unceasingly devoted; his relaxation, meantime, an occasional frolic or debauch, which he grapples with, as his father did with fortune and the forest, closely and constantly, only pausing for breath through sheer exhaustion, or prostration rather. His person is square, and better knit together than most men's; his complexion clear, though bronzed by exposure to sun and storm; his manner rustic, but not rude; with a self-possession that is evident at a glance, and which makes him at all times equal to any chance or change that may cross him. Good-humoured, sociable, and very observant, his confidence is quickly won, or lost, according to a first impression. Proffering largely, yet ever ready to more than make his words good; full of kindliness to those he loves or esteems; boisterous, rude, and ill to deal with, where he dislikes; capable withal of rapid refinement, and having a ready perception of its advantages.

The Creole of Louisiana forms another distinct specimen to be met with here, though seldom mixing much with either of the first named classes. He invariably conserves much of the air and appearance of la belle France, and can never be mistaken, offering, according to his disposition, all the varieties of his original stock, from the amiable deportment and companionable bonhommie of the well-bred Frenchman, to the fierce brusquerie and swaggering sneer of the gallant of the estaminet.

What will be the result of a complete amalgamation of all these classes, which one day must arrive, together with an admixture yet more opposed,--an admixture as certain nevertheless as is the march of time, but which cannot now be named, and which these classes would each and all shudder to contemplate,--an amalgamation that has already begun, and is in truth in full progress; and this increase a falling-off in the price of cotton, so as to render slave-labour less valuable, will infallibly hasten in a ratio perfectly geometrical.

Time is the surest emancipator after all; for proof of which look not to the prospect presented here, but turn back on the old States. At what period did philanthropy triumph there? why exactly at that point where interest joined issue with its dictates; the slave was, in fact, admitted as a hired labourer, when he ceased to be profitable as a bondsman: and that day will arrive here also, as surely as that the sun shines on Louisiana; and the lower valley of the Mississippi will yet be peopled by a free and hardy race, born on the soil made each year more fruitful and less pestilential, until it shall rival the valleys of the Ganges or the Nile, if not in the splendour of art, at least in the more solid and enduring possessions,--education, intelligence, and freedom; for only whilst so sustained can the institutions of democracy exist; these once failing to advance hand-in-hand with population, the whole fabric will, with inconceivable rapidity, be resolved into a rude anarchy for some bold mind to re-form and re-model.

One of the greatest works now in progress here, is the canal planned to connect Lac Pontchartrain with the city. In the month of February it was completed to within three miles of the lake; and as it was a pleasant ride to the point where the digging was in progress, I two or three times visited the scene, after its bearings had been explained by the two intelligent persons under whose guidance I first penetrated the swamp.

I only wish that the wise men at home who coolly charge the present condition of Ireland upon the inherent laziness of her population, could be transported to this spot, to look upon the hundreds of fine fellows labouring here beneath a sun that at this winter season was at times insufferably fierce, and amidst a pestilential swamp whose exhalations were foetid to a degree scarcely endurable even for a few moments; wading amongst stumps of trees, mid-deep in black mud, clearing the spaces pumped out by powerful steam-engines; wheeling, digging, hewing, or bearing burdens it made one's shoulders ache to look upon; exposed meantime to every change of temperature, in log-huts, laid down in the very swamp, on a foundation of newly-felled trees, having the water lying stagnant between the floor-logs, whose interstices, together with those of the side-walls, are open, pervious alike to sun or wind, or snow. Here they subsist on the coarsest fare, holding life on a tenure as uncertain as does the leader of a forlorn hope; excluded from all the advantages of civilization; often at the mercy of a hard contractor, who wrings his profits from their blood; and all this for a pittance that merely enables them to exist, with little power to save, or a hope beyond the continuance of the like exertion.

Such are the labourers I have seen here, and have still found them civil and courteous, with a ready greeting for the stranger inquiring into their condition, and a quick jest on their own equipment, which is frequently, it must be admitted, of a whimsical kind.