University of Virginia Library

14. XIV.

Canal-street, as I have in a former letter observed,
with its triple row of young sycamores,
extending throughout the whole length, is one of
the most spacious, and destined at no distant period,
to be one of the first and handsomest streets
in the city. Every building in the street is of
modern construction, and some blocks of its brick
edifices will vie in tasteful elegance with the
boasted granite piles of Boston.

Yesterday, after a late dinner, the afternoon
being very fine, I left my hotel, and without any
definite object in view, strolled up this street. The
first object which struck me as worthy of notice
was a small brick octagon church, enclosed by a
white paling, on the corner of Bourbon-street.

The entrance was overgrown with long grass, and
the footsteps of a worshipper seemed not to have
pressed its threshold for many an unheeded Sunday.
In its lonely and neglected appearance, there
was a silent but forcible comment upon that censurable
neglect of the Sabbath, which, it has been
said, prevails too generally among the citizens of
New-Orleans. In front of this church, which is
owned, I believe, by the Episcopalians, stands a
white marble monument, surmounted by an urn,
erected in memory of the late Governor Claiborne.
With this solitary exception, there are no public
monuments in this city. For a city so ancient, (that
is, with reference to cis-Atlantic antiquity) as New-Orleans,
and so French in its tastes and habits, I
am surprised at this; as the French themselves
have as great a mania for triumphal arches, statues,
and public monuments, as had the ancient Romans.
But this fancy they seem not to have imported
among their other nationalities; or, perhaps, they
have not found occasions for its frequent exercise.

The government house, situated diagonally opposite
to the church, and retired from the street,
next attracted my attention. It was formerly a
hospital, but its lofty and spacious rooms are now
converted into public offices. Its snow-white front,
though plain, is very imposing; and the whole structure,
with its handsome, detached wings, and large
green, thickly covered with shrubbery in front, luxuriant
with orange and lemon trees, presents, decidedly,
one of the finest views to be met with in
the city. These two buildings, with the exception

of some elegant private residences, are all that are
worth remarking in this street, which, less than a
mile from the river, terminates in the swampy commons,
every where surrounding New-Orleans, except
on the river side.

Not far beyond the government house, the Mall,
which ornaments the centre of Canal-street, forms
a right angle, and extends down Rampart-street to
Esplanade-street, and there making another right
angle, extends back again to the river, nearly surrounding
the “city proper” with a triple row of
sycamores, which, in the course of a quarter of a
century, for grandeur, beauty, and convenience, will
be without a parallel. The city of New-Orleans is
planned on a magnificent scale, happily and judiciously
combining ornament and convenience. Let
the same spirit which foresaw and provided for its
present greatness, animate those who will hereafter
direct its public improvements, and New-Orleans,
in spite of its bug-bear character and its unhealthy
location, will eventually be the handsomest, if not
the largest city in the United States.

Following the turning of the Mall, I entered Rampart-street,
which, with its French and Spanish
buildings, presented quite a contrast to the New-England-like
appearance of that I had just quitted.
There are some fine buildings at the entrance of
this street, which is not less broad than the former.
On the right I passed a small edifice, much resembling
a Methodist meeting-house, such as are seen
in northern villages, which a passing Frenchman,
lank and tall, in answer to my inquiry, informed me

was “L'eglise Evangelique, Monsieur,” with a
touch of his chapeau, and a wondrous evolution of
his attenuated person. This little church was as
neglected, and apparently unvisited as its episcopalian
neighbour. A decayed, once-white paling surrounded
it; but the narrow gate, in front of the edifice,
probably constructed to be opened and shut by
devout hands, was now secured by a nail, whose red
coat of rust indicated long and peaceable possession
of its present station over the latch. Comment again,
thought I, as I passed on down the street, to where
I had observed, not far distant, a crowd gathered
around the door of a large white-stuccoed building,
burthened by a clumsy hunch-backed kind of tower,
surmounted by a huge wooden cross.

On approaching nearer, I discovered many carriages
extended in a long line up the street, and a
hearse with tall black plumes, before the door of the
building, which, I was informed, was the Catholic
chapel. Passing through the crowd around the entrance,
I gained the portico, where I had a full view
of the interior, and the ceremony then in progress.
In the centre of the chapel, in which was neither
pew nor seat, elevated upon a high frame or altar,
over which was thrown a black velvet pall, was
placed a coffin, covered also with black velvet. A
dozen huge wax candles, nearly as long and as large
as a ship's royal-mast, standing in candlesticks five
feet high, burned around the corpse, mingled with
innumerable candles of the ordinary size, which
were thickly sprinkled among them, like lesser
stars, amid the twilight gloom of the chapel. The

mourners formed a lane from the altar to the door,
each holding a long, unlighted, wax taper, tipped at
the larger end with red, and ornamented with fanciful
paper cuttings. Around the door, and along
the sides of the chapel, stood casual spectators,
strangers, and negro servants without number. As
I entered, several priests and singing-boys, in the
black and white robes of their order, were chanting
the service for the dead. The effect was solemn
and impressive. In a few moments the ceremony
was completed, and four gentlemen, dressed in deep
mourning, each with a long white scarf, extending
from one shoulder across the breast, and nearly to
the feet, advanced, and taking the coffin from its
station, bore it through the line of mourners, who
fell in, two and two behind them, to the hearse, which
immediately moved on to the grave-yard with its
burthen, followed by the carriages, as in succession
they drove up to the chapel, and received the mourners.
The last carriage had not left the door, when
a man, followed by two little girls, entered from the
back of the chapel, and commenced extinguishing the
lights:—he, with an extinguisher, much resembling
in size and shape an ordinary tunnel, affixed to the
extremity of a rod ten feet long, attacking the larger
ones, while his youthful coadjutors operated with
the forefinger and thumb upon the others. In a
few moments every light, except two or three, was
extinguished, and the “Chapel of the Dead” became
silent and deserted.

To this chapel the Roman Catholic dead are
usually brought before burial, to receive the last holy

office, which, saving the rite of sepulture, the living
can perform for the dead. These chapels are the
last resting-places of their bodies, before they are
consigned for ever to the repose of the grave. To
every Catholic then, among all temples of worship,
these chapels—his last home among the dwelling-places
of men—must be objects of peculiar sanctity
and veneration.

Burial-grounds, even in the humblest villages, are
always interesting to a stranger. They are marble
chronicles of the past; where, after studying the
lively characters around him, he can retire, and over
a page that knows no flattery, hold communion
with the dead.

The proposition that “care for the dead keeps
pace with civilization” is, generally, true.—The
more refined and cultivated are a people, the more
attention they pay to the performance of the last
offices for the departed. The citizens of the
United States will not certainly acknowledge themselves
second to any nation in point of refinement.
But look at their cemeteries. Most of them crown
some bleak hill, or occupy the ill-fenced corners of
some barren and treeless common, overrun by
cattle, whose preference for the long luxuriant grass,
suffered to grow there by a kind of prescriptive
right, is matter of general observation. Our neglect
of the dead is both a reproach and a proverb. Look
at England; every village there has its rural burying-ground,
which on Sundays is filled with the
well-dressed citizens and villagers, who walk among
the green graves of parents, children, or friends,

deriving from their reflections the most solemn and
impressive lesson the human heart can learn. In
America, on the contrary, the footsteps of a solitary
individual, the slow and heavy tramp of a funeral
procession, or the sacrilegious intrusion of idle
school-boys—who approach a grave but to deface
its marble—are the only disturbers of the graveyard's
loneliness.

But even, England is behind France. There
every tomb-stone is crowned with a chaplet of
roses, and every grave is a variegated bed of
flowers. Spain, dark and gloomy Spain! is behind
all. Whoever has rambled among her gloomy
cemeteries, or gazed with feelings of disgust and
horror, upon the pyramids of human sculls, bleaching
in those Golgothas, the Campos santos of Monte
Video, Buenos Ayres, and South America generally,
need not be reminded how little they venerate
what once moved—the image of God! The
Italians singularly unite the indifference of the
Spaniards with the affection of the French in their
respect for the dead. Compare the “dead vaults”
of Italia's cities, with the pleasant cemeteries in her
green vales! Without individualising the European
nations, I will advert to the Turks, who, though not
the most refined, are a sensitive and reflecting people,
and pay great honours to their departed friends,
as the mighty “City of the Dead” which encompasses
Constantinople evinces. But the cause of
this respect is to be traced, rather to their Moslem
creed, than to the intellectual character, or refinement
of the people.

To what is to be attributed the universal indifference
of Americans to honouring the dead, by those
little mementos and marks of affection and respect
which are interwoven with the very religion of other
countries? There are not fifty burial-grounds
throughout the whole extent of the Union, which
can be termed beautiful, rural, or even neat. The
Bostonians, in the possession of their lonely and
romantic Mount Auburn, have redeemed their
character from the almost universal charge of apathy
and indifference manifested by their fellow countrymen
upon this subject. Next to Mount Auburn,
the cemetery in New-Haven is the most beautifully
picturesque of any in this country. In Maine there
is but one, the burial-place in Brunswick, deserving
of notice. Its snow-white monuments glance here
and there in bold relief among the dark melancholy
pines which overshadow it, casting a funereal gloom
among its deep recesses, particularly appropriate
to the sacred character of the spot.

I intended to devote this letter to a description
of my visit to the Roman Catholic burying-ground
of this city, the contemplation of which has given
occasion to the preceding remarks, and from which
I have just returned; but I have rambled so far and
so long in my digression, that I shall have scarcely
time or room to express all I intended in this sheet.
But that I need not encroach with the subject upon
my next, I will complete my remarks here, even at
the risk of subjecting myself to—with me—the
unusual charge of brevity.

Leaving the chapel, I followed the procession

which I have described, for at least three quarters of
a mile down a long street or road at right angles
with Rampart-street, to the place of interment.
The priests and boys, who in their black and white
robes had performed the service for the dead, leaving
the chapel by a private door in the rear of the
building, made their appearance in the street leading
to the cemetery, as the funeral train passed
down, each with a black mitred cap upon his head,
and there forming into a procession upon the side
walk, they moved off in a course opposite to the
one taken by the funeral train, and soon disappeared
in the direction of the cathedral. Two priests, however,
remained with the procession, and with it, after
passing on the left hand the “old Catholic cemetery,”
which being full, to repletion is closed and
sealed for the “Great Day,” arrived at the new
burial-place. Here the mourners alighted from
their carriages, and proceeded on foot to the tomb.
The priests, bare-headed and solemn, were the last
who entered, except myself and a few other strangers
attracted by curiosity.

This cemetery is quite out of the city; there being
no dwelling or enclosure of any kind beyond it.
On approaching it, the front on the street presents
the appearance of a lofty brick wall of very great
length, with a spacious gateway in the centre.
This gateway is about ten feet deep; and one passing
through it, would imagine the wall of the same
solid thickness. This however is only apparent.
The wall which surrounds, or is to surround the
four sides of the burial-ground, (for it is yet uncompleted,)

is about twelve feet in height, and ten in
thickness. The external appearance on the street
is similar to that of any other high wall, while to a
beholder within, the cemetery exhibits three stories
of oven-like tombs, constructed in the wall, and
extending on every side of the grave-yard. Each
of these tombs is designed to admit only a single
coffin, which is enclosed in the vault with masonry,
and designated by a small marble slab fastened in
the face of the wall at the head of the coffin, stating
the name, age, and sex of the deceased. By a
casual estimate I judged there were about eighteen
hundred apertures in this vast pile of tombs. This
method, resorted to here from necessity, on account
of the nature of the soil, might serve as a hint
to city land-economists.

When I entered the gateway, I was struck with
surprise and admiration. Though destitute of trees,
the cemetery is certainly more deserving, from its
peculiarly novel and unique appearance, of the attention
of strangers, than (with the exception of that
at New-Haven, and Mount Auburn,) any other in
the United States. From the entrance to the opposite
side through the centre of the grave-yard, a
broad avenue or street extends nearly an eighth of a
mile in length; and on either side of this are innumerable
isolated tombs, of all sizes, shapes, and descriptions,
built above ground. The idea of a Lilliputian
city was at first suggested to my mind on looking
down this extensive avenue. The tombs in
their various and fantastic styles of architecture—if
I may apply the term to these tiny edifices—resembled

cathedrals with towers, Moorish dwellings,
temples, chapels, palaces, mosques—substituting
the cross for the crescent—and structures of almost
every kind. The idea was ludicrous enough; but
as I passed down the avenue, I could not but indulge
the fancy that I was striding down the Broadway
of the capital of the Lilliputians. I mention
this, not irreverently, but to give you the best idea I
can of the cemetery, from my own impressions.
Many of the tombs were constructed like, and
several were, indeed, miniature Grecian temples;
while others resembled French, or Spanish edifices,
like those found in “old Castile.” Many of them,
otherwise plain, were surmounted by a tower supporting
a cross. All were perfectly white, arranged
with the most perfect regularity, and distant little
more than a foot from each other. At the distance
of every ten rods the main avenue was intersected
by others of less width, crossing it at right angles,
down which tombs were ranged in the same novel
and regular manner. The whole cemetery was
divided into squares, formed by these narrow streets
intersecting the principal avenue. It was in reality
a “City of the Dead.” But it was a city composed
of miniature palaces, and still more diminutive villas.

The procession, after passing two-thirds of the
way up the spacious walk, turned down one of the
narrower alleys, where a new tomb, built on a line
with the others, gaped wide to receive its destined
inmate. The procession stopped. The coffin was
let down from the shoulders of the bearers, and rolled
on wooden cylinders into the tomb. The mourners

silently gathered around; every head was bared;
and amid the deep silence that succeeded, the calm,
clear, melancholy voice of the priest suddenly swelled
upon the still evening air, in the plaintive chant
of the last service for the dead. “Requiescat in
pace!” was slowly chanted by the priest,—repeated
in subdued voices by the mourners, and echoing
among the tombs, died away in the remotest
recesses of the cemetery.

The dead was surrendered to the companionship
of the dead—the priest and mourners moved slowly
away from the spot, and the silence of the still
evening was only broken by the clinking of the careless
mason, as he proceeded to wall up the aperture
in the tomb.

As night was fast approaching, I hastened to leave
the place; and, taking a shorter route than by the
principal avenue, I came suddenly upon a desolate
area, without a tomb to relieve its dank and muddy
surface, dotted with countless mounds, where the
bones of the moneyless, friendless stranger lay buried.
There was no stone to record their names
or country. Fragments of coffins were scattered
around, and new-made graves, half filled with water,
yawned on every side awaiting their unknown
occupants; who, perchance, may now be “laying
up store for many years” of anticipated happiness.
Such is the nature of the soil here, that it is impossible
to dig two feet below the surface without
coming to water. The whole land seems to be only
a thin crust of earth, of not more than three feet in
thickness, floating upon the surface of the water.

Consequently, every grave will have two feet or
more of water in it, and when a coffin is placed
therein, some of the assistants have to stand upon
it, and keep it down till the grave is re-filled with
the mud which was originally thrown from it, or it
would float. The citizens, therefore, having a very
natural repugnance to being drowned, after having
died a natural death upon their beds, choose to have
their last resting-place a dry one; and hence the
great number of tombs, and the peculiar features
of this burial-place.

Returning, I glanced into the old Catholic cemetery,
in the rear of the chapel before alluded to. It
was crowded with tombs, though without displaying
the systematic arrangement observed in the one I had
just left. There is another burying-place, in the
upper faubourg, called the Protestant cemetery.
Here, as its appellation indicates, are buried all
who are not of “Holy Church.” There are in
it some fine monuments, and many familiar names
are recorded upon the tomb-stones. Here moulder
the remains of thousands, who, leaving their distant
homes, buoyant with all the hopes and visions of
youth, have been suddenly cut down under a foreign
sun, and in the spring time of life. When present
enjoyment seemed prophetic of future happiness,
they have found here—a stranger's unmarbled
grave! A northerner cannot visit this cemetery,
and read the familiar names of the multitudes who
have ended their lives in this pestilential climate,
without experiencing emotions of the most affecting
nature. Here the most promising of our northern

young men have found an untimely grave:
and, as she long has been, so New-Orleans continues,
and will long continue to be, the charnel-house
of the pride and nobleness of New-England.