LETTER XL.
New Orleans, La.
My Dear Mr. —:
This is the first moment which I can call “my
own,” since I arrived in this splendid bedlam of a city,
the diurnal roar of which, although it is nearly eleven
o'clock at night, has not yet ceased. Carriages are
swiftly rattling past, over the rocky streets, taking theatre
and party-goers home; the night-policeman's staff
echoes hollowly on the banquette, as he signalizes to his
fellow-guardians of the city; the wild song of a group of
bacchanals swells not unmusically up into the air, and
penetrates my open window; while from an opposite
drawing-room comes the rich soprano voice of some
maiden singing at the piano—perhaps to a late-lingering
lover.
Fatigued with the sweet excitement of the day in
choosing her bridal attire, Isabel sleeps softly within the
snowy folds of the lace musquito bar (which guards every
bed in this climate); and as excitement always renders
me wakeful, I embrace the hour till midnight to give you
some idea of this great city of the South—this magnifificent
key of the Mississippi, which stands, as Constantinople
at the entrance of the Bosphorus, the gate of a
commercial interior, the value of which “no man can
number.”
In my last letter, dated at the sugar estate of M. de
Clery, I briefly stated the happy engagement of my dear
pupil Isabel to young Isdiore, his son, and that we were
to come to the city to make preparations for the wedding.
At first it was determined that we should go down in
one of the handsome packets that daily descend the
river; but it was finally decided that we should take the
carriages, and drive down by the Levee road, the distance
being easily accomplished in two or three hours.
At six o'clock in the morning, therefore, the horses were
at the door, and as we had breakfast early, in order to
take advantage of the cool air of the early day, we were
soon on our way, rolling smoothly along over one of the
most delightful of roads.
I have already mentioned the novelty and beauty of
both of the green shores of the Mississippi,—how a verdant
embankment five feet high borders each side, to
prevent overflows; and how within this embankment is
the river-road, following in and out every curve of the
embanked shore, and level as a race-course track. Thus,
one riding along this road has constantly the green
bank, or Levee, on one side, with the mile-wide river
flowing majestically by, bearing huge steamers past on
its tawny bosom. On the other hand are hedges separating
gardens, lawns, cottages, villas, and emerald cane-fields,
with groups of live-oaks, magnolias, lemon, and
banana trees interspersed. For miles, all the day long,
the traveler can ride through a scene of beauty and ever
lively interest. At no moment is he out of sight of the
water, with its moving fleets, and the opposite shore
beautiful with residences, groves, and gardens; at no moment
is he not passing the tasteful abode and grounds
of some planter, bordering the road-side.
If this drive is so attractive to one on the land,
what must the scenery appear to the eyes of the passengers
on steamers sailing from sunrise to sunset through
it? But I cannot attempt to convey to you a just conception
of these gorgeous river coasts of Louisiana. It
is not the charming landscape alone that lends them
their attraction to a northern eye, but the delicious
climate, which bathes every thing, and in which every
object seems to float.
You may judge that our ride towards the city was
greatly enjoyed by me. I could not help, at the time,
feeling a sensation of awe steal over me, as I looked from
the carriage window and saw the level of the river higher
than we were; for we had to rise up in the carriage as
we rode along to overlook the Levee, when we could
see that the river was within a foot even with it on
the outer side, while the road over which our wheels
rolled was four feet lower than its surface on the inner
side; in a word, we were riding with a wall of water,
kept from overwhelming us, and the fields, villas, and
whole country, only by the interposing bank of the Levee,
from four to six feet in height, and yet this guard
of heaped earth was for hundreds of leagues enough to
confine the monarch of waters within his bounds, so that
the people dwelt in security upon his borders.
There are, however, times of terror, when the vast
river, swelling to unwonted height, presses with irresistible
power against some weaker part of this barrier,
and forces a passage into the road beneath. At first,
the breach may not be larger than a stream of water
from a hose, and can easily be stopped with cotton-bales,
or bags of earth, if at once applied. But when at night
one of these crevices (which they call here “crevasses,”
when they become large) begins to form unseen by any
watchful eye, it rapidly enlarges, till what at first could
have been stopped by a schoolboy's dam, in half an hour
becomes strong enough to turn a wheel, and in an hour
plunges a roaring cataract twenty yards wide, rushing
like a mill-race, and deluging road, gardens, fields, and
pastures. The thunder of its fall, at length, awakes the
planter or his sleepy slaves; the alarm-bell is rung out,
as if for fire, and the whole coast is soon awake and alive.
One plantation bell after another takes up the note
of terror, and for miles is heard their affrighted clamor,
accompanied by the shouts of hundreds of slaves, hastening
from all quarters to the scene of danger; for the
peril of a crevasse is a common peril to all, for only stopping
the incipient Niagara can save the whole region
down to the Gulf, for a thousand square miles, from
overflowing and ruinous devastation.
The scene at the stopping of a crevasse is only equalled
by that at putting out a conflagration. The constant
arrival, spurring at mad speed, of planters, followed by
gangs of half-naked Africans, armed with spades and
gunny-bags filled with dirt, the loud commands, the louder
response, the tramp of hoofs and of men's feet, the
darkness of the night, the glare of torches, and the roar
of the ceaselessly plunging and enlarging torrent, as
described to me by Isidore de Clery, must be both sublime
and fearful. Imagine the reservoir on Fairmount
to burst its sides some fine night, and the scenes that
would follow in the neighborhood of the path its wild
waters would make, in the efforts of the people to stop
them, and you will be able to form some picture in your
mind of a
crevasse, and its destructive effects in the level
country of Louisiana.
Not long ago a crevasse opened in the Levee not far
from New Orleans, and became so alarming that steamers,
laden with hundreds of men, sailed from the city for the
place, and it was not finally stopped until fifty leagues
square of the richest portion of the country had become
submerged, and a hundred sugar planters ruined.
Nevertheless, in the face of all these facts, we rode
calmly and securely on, with the river wall four feet
higher than our road, thinking of any thing but crevasses,
and enjoying the scenery that was ever changing
its features, and increasing in beauty at every change.
Our cortége consisted of two carriages, in one of which
rode the colonel, Isabel, and the senior M. de Clery, and
Mademoiselle Marie Victoire La Blanche, his niece, a
beautiful, olive-cheeked, dark-eyed Louisianaise, who was
to be one of Isabel's bridesmaids. In another carriage,
which was an open phæton, was Isidore, the happy and
handsome affiancé and Miss Conyngham. Why they
placed this young gentleman under my charge, separating
him for the drive from Isabel, I can't tell; unless it
was a pretty piece of tyranny, allowable, perhaps. At
any rate, it was the plan of M. de Clery, the senior, who
said, “The young folks will be enough in each other's
society after they are married, so let them ride in different
carriages now. Miss Kate will be so kind as to keep
the young gentleman in proper decorum.”
Dear me! I—a young, giddy girl of twenty scarcely,
to be selected by two gray-headed gentlemen—to be the
guardian of a young gentleman of three-and-twenty, as
handsome as Adonis! So, what with answering Isidore's
hundred and one questions, all about what I knew of
Isabel ever since I had known her, and looking at the
scenery, I was kept very busy,—for the scenery constantly
challenged my attention, and the lover would
constantly talk of Belle. By the time we reached the
city I was half in love with him myself; and I then recollected
how that Isabel had said to me, smilingly, when
I was seated in the carriage,
“Take care of your heart dear Kate!”
But I hear an awful clamor throughout the city that
compels me to stop. A deep-mouthed tocsin is ringing
out “Fire! fire! fire!” as plain as a human voice could
utter it; and a score of lesser bells reply, even as a huge
ban-dog, alarmed in the night by a prowling burglar,
opens his deep-mouthed bay, while Tray, Blanche, and
Sweetheart, and all the little dogs, in every key, chime
in, in confused, discordant uproar; so are all the bells
of the city clamoring, and the streets, which had begun
to sink into midnight quiet, are once more thundering
with the artillery-like wheels of engines, hastening, amid
a Babel of voices, to the scene of conflagration, the light
of which, reflected from an opposite tower, already glares
redly and balefully into my window.
I will now say “Good Night,” but not without a
heartfelt prayer for those who shall be made houseless
and destitute by this fire, which rages more and more
terribly, lighting up all the city roofs like a burning
crater.
