 | X. The South-west |  |
10. X.
First impressions—A hero of the “Three Days”—Children's
ball—Life in New-Orleans—A French supper—Omnibuses—
Chartres street at twilight—Calaboose—Guard-house—The vicinage
of a theatre—French cafés—Scenes in the interior of a café
—Dominos—Tobacco-smokers—New-Orleans society.
The last three days I have spent in perambulating
the city, hearing, seeing, and visiting every
thing worthy the notice of a Yankee, (and consequently
an inquisitive) tourist.
As I shall again have occasion to introduce you
among the strange and motley groups, and interesting
scenes of the Levée, I will not now resume
the thread of my narrative, broken by the conclusion
of my last letter, but take you at once into the
“terra incognita” of this city of contrarieties.
The evening of my visit to the market, through
the politeness of Monsieur D., a young Frenchman
who distinguished himself in the great “Three
Days” at Paris, and to whom I had a letter of
introduction, was passed amid the gayety and brilliancy
of a French assembly-room. The building
in which this ball was held, is adjacent to the Theatre
d'Orleans, and devoted, I believe, exclusively
to public parties, which are held here during the
winter months, or more properly, “the season,”
attended, was one of peculiar interest. It was
termed the “Children's ball;” and it is given at
regular intervals throughout the gay months. I
have not learned the precise object of this ball, or
how it is conducted; but these are unimportant. I
merely wish to introduce to you the dazzling crowd
gathered there, so that you may form some conception
of the manner and appearance of the lively
citizens of this lively city, who seem disposed to
remunerate themselves for the funereal and appaling
silence of the long and gloomy season, when
“pestilence walketh abroad at noon-day,” by giving
way to the full current of life and spirits. Adopting,
literally, “Dum vivimus vivamus,” for their
motto and their “rule of faith and practice,” they
manage during the winter not only to make up for
the privations of summer, but to execute about as
much dancing, music, laughing, and dissipation, as
would serve any reasonably disposed, staid, and
sober citizens, for three or four years, giving them
withal from January to January for the perpetration
thereof.
After taking a light supper at home, as I already
call my hotel, which consisted of claret, macaroni,
cranberries, peaches, little plates of fresh grapes,
several kinds of cakes and other bonbons, spread
out upon a long polished mahogany table, resembling
altogether more the display upon a confectioner's
counter than the table d' hote of a hotel, in
company with Monsieur D. I prepared to walk to
the scene of the evening's amusement. But on
at its stand at the intersection of Canal and Chartres
streets. The driver, already upon his elevated
station, with his bugle at his lips, was sounding his
“signal to make sail,” as we should say of a ship;
and thereupon, being suddenly impressed with the
advantages the sixteen legs of his team had over our
four, in accomplishing the mile before us, we without
farther reflection, sprang forthwith into the
invitingly open door at the end of the vehicle, and
the next instant found ourselves comfortably seated,
with about a dozen others, “in omnibus.”
There are two of these carriages which run from
Canal-street through the whole length of Chartres-street,
by the public square, and along the noble
esplanade between the Levée and the main body of
the city, as far as the rail-road; the whole distance
being about two miles. The two vehicles start
simultaneously from either place, every half-hour,
and consequently change stands with each other
alternately throughout the day. They commence
running early in the morning, and are always on the
move and crowded with passengers till sun-down.
For a “bit” (twelve-and-a-half cents) as it is denominated
here, one can ride the whole distance, or
if he choose, but a hundred yards—it is all the
same to the knight of the whip, who mounted on
the box in front, guides his “four-in-hand” with the
skill of a professor.
As we drove through the long, narrow and dusky
street, the wholesale mercantile houses were “being”
closed, while the retail stores and fancy shops,
horsemen, and noisy drays, with their noisier draymen,
were rapidly moving in all directions, while
every individual upon the “trottoirs” was hurrying,
as though some important business of the day had
been forgotten, or not yet completed. All around
presented the peculiar noise and bustle which always
prevail throughout the streets of a commercial
city at the close of the day.
Leaving our omniferous vehicle with its omnifarious
cargo—among whom, fore and aft, the chattering
of half a dozen languages had all at once, as
we rode along, unceasingly assailed our ears—at the
head of Rue St. Pierre, we proceeded toward Orleans-street.
Directly on quitting the omnibus we
passed the famous Calaboos, or Calabozo, the city
prison, so celebrated by all seamen who have made
the voyage to New-Orleans, and who, in their
“long yarns” upon the forecastle, in their weary
watches, fail not to clothe it with every horror of
which the Calcutta black hole, or the Dartmoor
prison—two horrible bugbears to sailors—could
boast. Its external appearance, however, did not
strike me as very appaling. It is a long, plain,
plastered, blackened building, with grated windows,
looking gloomy enough, but not more so than a
common country jail. It is built close upon the
street, and had not my companion observed as we
passed along, “That is the Calaboos,” I should not
probably have remarked it. On the corner above,
and fronting the “square,” is the guard-house, or
quarters of the gens d'armes. Several of them in
about the corner as we passed, mingling and
conversing with persons in citizens' dress. A glance
en passant through an open door, disclosed an apparently
well-filled armory. A few minutes walk
through an obscure and miserably lighted part of
Rues St. Pierre and Royale, brought us into Orleans-street,
immediately in the vicinity of its theatre.
This street for some distance on either side of
the assembly-room, was lighted with the brightness
of noonday; not, indeed, by the solitary lamps which,
“few and far between,” were suspended across the
streets, but by the glare of reflectors and chandeliers
from coffee-houses, restaurateurs, confectionaries
and fancy stores, which were clustered around that
nucleus of pleasure, the French theatre.
We were in the French part of the city; but
there was no apparent indication that we were not
really in France. Not an American (“Anglo”)
building was to be seen, in the vicinity, nor scarcely
an American face or voice discoverable among the
numerous, loud-talking, chattering crowd of every
grade and colour, congregated before the doors of
the ball-room and cafés adjoining. Before ascending
to the magnificent hall where the gay dancers
were assembled, we repaired to an adjoining café,
à la mode New-Orleans, with a pair of Monsieur
D.'s friends—whom we encountered in the lobby
while negociating for tickets—to overhaul the evening
papers, and if need there should be, recruit our
spirits. A French coffee-house is a place well
worth visiting by a stranger, more especially a
little longer from the brilliant congregation of beauty
and gallantry in the assembly room, and introduce
you for a moment into this cafe and to its inmates.
As the coffee houses here do not differ materially
from each other except in size and richness of decoration,
though some of them certainly are more
fashionable resorts than others, the description of
one of them will enable you perhaps to form some
idea of other similar establishments in this city.
Though their usual denomination is “coffee-house,”
they have no earthly, whatever may be their spiritual,
right to such a distinction; it is merely a
“nomme de profession,” assumed, I know not for
what object. We entered from the street, after
passing round a large Venetian screen within the
door, into a spacious room, lighted by numerous
lamps, at the extremity of which stood an extensive
bar, arranged, in addition to the usual array of
glass ware, with innumerable French decorations.
There were several attendants, some of whom
spoke English, as one of the requirements of their
station. This is the case of all employés throughout
New-Orleans; nearly every store and place of
public resort being provided with individuals in attendance
who speak both languages. Around the
room were suspended splendid engravings and fine
paintings, most of them of the most licentious description,
and though many of their subjects were
classical, of a voluptuous and luxurious character.
This is French taste however. There are suspended
in the Exchange in Chartres-street—one of
paintings which, did they occupy an equally conspicuous
situation in Merchant's Hall, in Boston,
would be instantly defaced by the populace.
Around the room, beneath the paintings, were arranged
many small tables, at most of which three
or four individuals were seated, some alternately
sipping negus and puffing their segars, which are
as indispensable necessaries to a Creole at all times,
as his right hand, eye-brows, and left shoulder in
conversation. Others were reading newspapers,
and occasionally assisting their comprehension of
abstruse paragraphs, by hot “coffee,” alias warm
punch and slings, with which, on little japanned salvers,
the active attendants were flying in all directions
through the spacious room, at the beck and
call of customers. The large circular bar was surrounded
by a score of noisy applicants for the liquid
treasures which held out to them such strong temptations.
Trios, couples and units of gentlemen
were promenading the well sanded floor, talking in
loud tones, and gesticulating with the peculiar vehemence
and rapidity of Frenchmen. Others, and by
far the majority, were gathered by twos and by fours
around the little tables, deeply engaged in playing
that most intricate, scientific, and mathematical of
games termed “Domino.” This is the most common
game resorted to by the Creoles. In every café
and cabaret, from early in the morning, when the
luxurious mint-julep has thawed out their intellects
and expanded their organ of combativeness, till late
at night, devotees to this childish amusement will
often renewed and properly sangareed, at their
elbows. Enveloped in dense clouds of tobacco-smoke
issuing from their eternal segars—those inspirers
of pleasant thoughts,—to whose density,
with commendable perseverance and apparent good
will, all in the café contribute,—they manœuvre
their little dotted, black and white parallelograms
with wonderful pertinacity and skill. The whole
scene forcibly reminds one, if perchance their fame
hath reached him, of a brace of couplets from a
celebrated poem (a choral ode I believe) composed
upon the shipwreck of its author. The lines are
strikingly applicable to the present subject by
merely substituting “cafe” for “cabin,” and negus-drinkers
for “hogsheads and barrels.”
Threat'ning every soul to choke:
Negus-drinkers crowding in,
Make a most infernal din.”
There are certainly one hundred coffee-houses in
this city—how many more, I know not,—and they
have, throughout the day, a constant ingress and
egress of thirsty, time-killing, news-seeking visiters.
As custom authorises this frequenting of these popular
places of resort, the citizens of New-Orleans
do not, like those of Boston, attach any disapprobation
to the houses or their visiters. And as there
is, in New-Orleans, from the renewal of one half of
its inhabitants every few years, and the constant
influx of strangers, strictly speaking no exclusive
clique or aristocracy, to give a tone to society and
as among the worthy Bostonians, one cannot say to
another, “It is not genteel to resort here—it will
injure your reputation to be seen entering this or
that café.” The inhabitants have no fixed criterion
of what is and what is not “respectable,” in the
northern acceptation of the term. They are neither
guided nor restrained from following their own inclinations,
by any laws of long established society,
regulating their movements, and saying “thus far
shalt thou go, and no farther.” Consequently, every
man minds his own affairs, pursues his own business
or amusement, and lets his neighbours and
fellow-citizens do the same; without the fear of the
moral lash (not law) before his eyes, or expulsion
from “caste” for doing that “in which his soul delighteth.”
Thus you see that society here is a perfect democracy,
presenting variety and novelty enough to
a stranger, who chooses to mingle in it freely, and
feels a disposition impartially to study character.
But a truce to this subject for the present, as I wish
to introduce you into the presence of the fair democrats,
whose fame for beauty is so well established.
Forcing our way through the press around the
door, we entered the lobby, from which a broad
flight of steps conducted us to a first, and then a second
platform, through piles of black servants in attendance
upon their masters and mistresses in the ball-room.
At the second landing our tickets were received,
and we toiled on with difficulty toward the
hall door, with our hats (which the regulations forbid
the air, for if placed under the arm they would have
been flattened in the squeeze to the very respectable
similitude of a platter, as one unlucky gentleman
near me had an opportunity of testing, to his
full conviction. We were soon drawn within
the current setting into the ball-room, and were
borne onward by the human stream over which a
score or two of chapeaux waved aloft like signals
of distress.—But I have already spun out my letter
to a sufficient length, and lest you should cry “hold,
Macduff,” I will defer your introduction to the beau
monde of New-Orleans till my next.
| X. The South-west | |