Miscellanies [pp. 550-560]

554 IMIPRESSIONS OF NEW ORLEANS BY A FOREIGNER.
however, were going the way of the animals they have exterminated-were
disappearing in the direction of the setting sun, expending their remaining
energies and final services, in lighting the way and guiding the footsteps of the
emigrant and the settler, to the home they are seeking in Oregon and Califbrnia.
Many of them there were, w hose unwritten biographies were crowded with " hair
breadth'scapes and moving accidents by flood and field," stranger anl. more
romantic than fiction; and he only regretted that he had not opportunity there to
bestow upon them that measure of honor and justice to which they were so
highly entitled.
3.-IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ORLEANS BY A FOREIGNER.
Every sort of opinion we have heard ventured by those across the water, in
,elation to our country. We suffer ourselves, sometimes, to be provoked; we
generally smile; we are always interested. The latest notions of us we have
seen are those of Charles Hooton, Esq., whose St. Louis Isle, or Texiana, has
been published in London. As this writer is characterized in general by muich
fairness, and remained several months in New Orleans, we will give a few of
his views of that city.
DISTINCTIVE FEATURES OF THE CITY.
Perhaps it is owing to the prospective horrors of yellow fever, the almost instinctive abhorrence of slavery, or the dread of those innumerable arnnoyances to
which a hot climate subjects the Northern visitor, that we owe so little in the
way of information to the majority of our tourists in America respecting that
great Southern metropolis of the States, New Orleans. Even when visited, it
appears to have been much ufinder the same feeling as one mig,ht undertake a
mrorning call upon some unhappy patient in the blue stage of the cholera; the
predominant tendency being, to get away again as quickly as possible,* and without allowing time either for the due exercise of the judgment, or the investigation
of such matters as a laudable curiosity naturally leads us to desire acquaintance
with-a matter much to be regretted in itself, since the remarkably distinctive
features which characterize American society in this broiling region, as compared with the strong English character of the Northern citizens, deserve imuch
more attention than, as far as I am aware, they have hitherto received. The
place itself, too, is something of a curiosity in the way of a city, and, together
with its inhabitants, amply sufficient, be it hoped, to afford material for an amusing (and perhaps instructive) half-hour's reading.
APPROACHES TO TIIE CITY.
All the way up to "The Crescent City," a vast forest extends on either side. as
tar as the eye can reach; opened here and there by the axe of the settler, and
enlivened by happy-looking rustic homesteads, or the more extensive village-like
establishments of the planter. Though past the middle of December when I
arrived, the negroes were at work cutting the sugar-cane-that tall and beautiful
plant, whose height made themselves and their cattle appear dwindled to the size
of Shetland ponies. About the houses, rows of orange trees, covered with their
glittering fruit, gave brilliancy to the scene; though some regret was felt that
those monstrous alligators, which abound in this river, and afford amusement to
the voyager during the hotter months, had betaken themselves to winter quarters
so universally, that not a solitary one put up his nose and his formidable threatening eye above water.
APPEARANCE OF NEW ORLEANS.t
Viewed from the river below, New Orleans does not appear materially inferior
to Liverpool. The appearance, howvever, is nearer than the reality by far; since
the absence of basins and docks causes all the vessels in port to lie out alongside,
and thus the commercial marine is displayed to the fullest advantage. Neither is
the city so large by three-fourths, or possessed of such excellent buildings, if we
except the old French cathedral, which is a handsome pile, directly facing the
river.t In one feature, however, it is far superior to Liverpool, and'that a very
* On the contrary, Mr. Hooton, we never knew a traveler who did not overstay his
allotted time in New Orlean~, and regard a departure with pain.
t In our back volumes we have a great variety of sketches of the city. The number
for March, 1847, contained a beautiful engraving of it. The number for June, same
year, embraces an engraved view of Balize at the mouth of the river.
+ Quere-" handsome."-ED.