The Hotel St. Charles is a very fine impressive building in the centre of the city of New Orleans. It is of white stone, and the simple colonnaded front, with its tall straight fluted columns, gives it quite a classical appearance. It is the best hotel in the town, but it might be better; it has spacious corridors, and handsomely furnished rooms, but the cuisine is not so good as it should be in an hotel of such pretensions, the table is poorly served, and it is wanting in that liberality which is characteristic of the South. The service is very scanty; one servant seems to have to do the work of six. Our waiter was a simple biped—a mere man, when he ought to have had as many arms and legs as a devil fish; he had need of them, he was always wanted here, there, and everywhere, and seemed to flash about on invisible telegraph wires.

We start in the early morning on a pedestrian excursion through this “Paris of the South.” We almost fancy that we have gone to sleep in the new world, and woke up in the old fair and familiar city across the sea. It is the same, yet not the same; there is a similarity in the general features, especially in the vicinity of Canal Street, to which I shall allude more fully by and by, and an insouciant gaiety in the aspect of the people, which pervades the very air they breathe; an electric current seems always playing upon their spirits, moving their emotional nature, sometimes to laughter, sometimes to tears. It seems as though the two cities had been built on the same model, only differently draped and garnished, decorated with different orders, and stamped with a different die. Coming down a narrow lane, we met a typical old Frenchwoman, her mahogany coloured face scored like the bark of an old tree scarcely visible beneath her flapping sun-bonnet. She wore short petticoats, and came clattering along over the rough stones in her wooden sabots, while her tall blue-bloused grandson carrying her well-filled basket strode beside her; and a meek eyed sister of charity bent on her errand of mercy passed in at a creaking doorway. These were the only signs of life we saw as we first turned on our way to the French quarter of the town, which still bears the impress of the old colonial days. This is the most ancient portion of the city, and full of romantic traditions of the days that are dead and gone. The long, narrow, crooked streets, running on all sides in a spidery fashion, with rows of shabby-looking houses, remain exactly as they were a hundred years ago. Strict conservatism obtains here; nothing has been done in the way of improvement; the old wooden houses are bruised and battered as though they had been engaged in a battle with time and been worsted; they are covered with discolorations and patches, naked and languishing for a coat of new paint. There are no dainty green sun blinds here, but heavy worm-eaten wooden shutters, and queer timber doors hung on clumsy iron hinges; here and there we get a glimpse of the dingy interiors while a few bearded men are lounging smoking in the doorways, and a few children, chattering like French magpies, are playing on the threshold. Everything is quiet and dull—a sort of Rip Van Winkle-ish sleep seems drooping its drowsy wings and brooding everywhere, till a lumbering dray comes clattering over the cobble stones, and sends a thousand echoes flying through the lonely streets.

From these stony regions, past the little old-fashioned church where the good Catholics worshipped a century ago and we emerge upon Canal Street, the principal business thoroughfare of the city; it is thronged with people at this time of day, busy crowds are passing to and fro, the shop windows are dressed in their most attractive wares, temptingly exposed to view. Confectioners, fruit, and fancy stores overflow into open stalls in front and spread along the sidewalk; huge bunches of green bananas, strawberries, peas, pines, cocoa-nuts and mangoes, mingled with dainty vegetables, are lying in heaps. We are tempted to try a mango, the favourite southern fruit, of whose luscious quality we have so often heard, but the first taste of its sickening sweetness satisfies our desires. The street is very wide, and the jingle-jangle of the car-bells, the rattling of wheels, and the spasmodic shriek and whistle of the steam engine—all mingle together in a not unsweet confusion. Lumbering vehicles, elegant carriages, street-cars, and a fussy little railway, all run in parallel lines along the wide roadway. This is the great backbone of the city, whence all lines of vehicular traffic branch off on their diverse tracks into all the highways and by-ways of the land. Here we get on to a car which carries us through the handsomest quarter of the city. Quaint, old-fashioned houses, surrounded by gardens of glowing flowers, and magnificent magnolias, now in full bloom, stand here and there in solitary grandeur, or sometimes in groups like a conclave of green-limbed giants, clothed in white raiment, and perfumed with the breath of paradise. Past lines of elegant residences, where the Élite of the city have their abode, and we soon reach a rough wooden shed yclept a “depot.” Here the horses are unhitched, and a steam dummy attached to carry us on our way. The little dummy looks like a big-bellied coffee-pot as it puffs fussily along, on its way, but it does its work well, and in a little time lands us at “Carrolton.”

We alight at the railway terminus, at the foot of the levÉes, the Mecca of our morning pilgrimage. We ascend a dozen cranky steps, and stand on the top of the levÉe, with the coffee-coloured flood of the great Mississippi rolling at our feet, and look back upon the low-lying city behind us.

This king of rivers is here wide and winding, but drowsy and sluggish; its vast waters rolling down from the north seem to languish here in the indolence of the South; it stretches its slow length along, like a sleeping giant with all its wondrous strength and power hushed beneath the summer sun.

The levÉes form a delightfully cool promenade, and are thronged with people on summer evenings. Cosy benches shaded by wide spreading green trees are placed at certain distances, and glancing across the broad brown lazy river to the opposite side the view is picturesque in the extreme.

The architectural beauty of New Orleans is unique, and wholly unlike any other Southern city; the avenues are wide and beautifully planted, a generous leafy shade spreads every way you turn. The dwelling houses which line St. Charles’s Avenue are graceful, classical structures; there are no Brummagem gingerbread buildings, no blending together of ancient and modern ideas, and running wild into fancy chimney-pots, arches, points, and angles like a twelfth-cake ornament. Some are fashioned like Greek temples, most impressive in their chaste outline and simplicity of form; others straight and square, with tall Corinthian columns or fluted pillars, sometimes of marble, sometimes of stone. The severe architectural simplicity, the pure white buildings shaded by beautiful magnolias and surrounded by brilliant shrubs and flowers, form a vista charming to the eye and soothing to the senses, and all stands silhouetted against the brightest of blue skies—a blue before which the bluest of Italian skies would seem pale.

The aspect of the city changes on every side; we leave the fashionable residential regions, and enter broad avenues lined with grand old forest trees, sometimes in double rows, the thick leaved branches meeting and forming a canopy overhead. The ground is carpeted with soft green turf, and bare-legged urchins, black and white, are playing merry games; a broken down horse is quietly grazing, and a cow is being milked under the trees, while a company of pretty white goats, with a fierce looking Billie at their head, are careering about close by. Pretty pastoral bits of landscape on every side cling to the skirts, and fringe the sides of this quaint city. As we get farther away from St. Charles’s Avenue the better class of residences grow fewer and fewer, till they cease altogether, and we come upon pretty green-shuttered cottages, with their porches covered with blossoms, and rows of the old-fashioned straw beehives in front. Here and there are tall tenement houses built of cherry-red bricks, which are let out in flats to the labouring classes.

We happen to be the only occupants of the car, and our driver, glancing back at us through the sliding door, and realising that we are strangers in the land, divides his attention between his horses and his passengers. He has a pale, fair, melancholy face and dreamy eyes—a kind of blond Henry Irving—and we cannot get rid of an idea that Hamlet the Dane has followed his lamented father’s custom of “revisiting the glimpses of the moon,” and is doing us the honour of driving our car.

Presently we come upon a procession that attracts our interest. A party of people, chiefly of the gentler sex—I cannot in this case say the fairer, as they are all black as coals—are slowly parading the sidewalk, the girls, even down to little children three or four years old, all clad in white. It has been raining and the streets are still wet; they are tramping over muddy crossings in white satin slippers, their white dresses draggling in the damp, while their brown or black faces and black shining eyes beam with a kind of grotesque incongruity through their white veils.

“A bridal party?” we remark interrogatively to our Hamlet. The Prince of Denmark shakes his head, and vouchsafes a grave and dreamy smile as he corrects our mistake: “No, ma’am. It’s a coloured funeral.”

Turning into Claiborne Street we fancy it must be the entrance-gate to the forest primeval; as far as the eye can reach we gaze through long vistas of ancient trees, whose huge trunks are gnarled and knotted and scarred by the passing ages. This delightful avenue has four rows of these glorious trees, with double car-tracks running under their cool and welcome shade; down the centre, and crossed by rude rustic bridges, runs what we supposed to be a narrow canal or natural running stream, but we learn that it is an open sewer, the peculiar soil and sanitary arrangements of the city necessitating a system of open drainage—which is, however, by no means unsightly or offensive; and through the arteries of the city there run these narrow sewers, carrying all the impurities and refuse as a kind of tributary offering to the glorious Mississippi.

The burial grounds or cemeteries we pass on our way have a strange appearance, as in consequence of the peculiarities of the soil and climate, the dead are not buried under the earth, but are laid upon its surface with the stone monument raised above them.

Another day we have a light springy carriage, and avoiding the car-tracks bowl over the soft green turf, beneath the arching trees, with the sunlight glinting through. We drive out of the city, and wind about among its picturesque suburbs—a charming drive, though the air is moist and warm, and our strength seems oozing from our finger-tips. We can imagine what New Orleans must be in summer time, when even in these April days our vital forces grow faint and feeble.

The public buildings, state offices, and churches, are remarkably fine architectural features of the city. There is no need to describe them here, for the written description of one church, unless indeed there is some special history connected therewith, sounds much the same as another; and any visitor to the city can get an excellent guide thereto and familiarise himself with their appearance so far as he desires, and some are interesting enough to repay him for his trouble.

There is one very favourite excursion, largely patronised by the inhabitants of the city on warm summer evenings, and one which the most casual tourist should not fail to take. We enter the little railway train in Canal Street, the very heart of the city, and steaming leisurely along we soon reach the outskirts, and run through pretty woodland scenery, with dainty dwellings scattered here and there among the full-foliaged trees. Presently we come upon a long stretch of open country; on one side is the canal, with a wide roadway and spacious tracts of cultivated lands beyond it. On the other side of the railway track, on our right, there runs a similar carriage road and footway running along the edge of a luxuriant thicket of green low-lying bushes, which seem like the ragged fringe of the virgin forest; then there rises clusters of slight willowy slips; a part of the pristine family of oaks and alders which have grown and developed into gigantic trees, thickening and twining their long arms together till they form an impenetrable mass of green, but instead of a bit of forest primeval, we are told that this is a most dismal swamp of many miles extent, utterly impassable for either man or beast, and varying from two to eight or ten feet deep, the abode of repulsive reptiles and other obnoxious creatures. They say that it is no uncommon thing at certain seasons of the year for a huge black or green snake to wriggle out of its home of slush and slime and coil itself up on the pathway, or an alligator will sometimes be found stretched along the railway track, its lidless eyes staring stupidly at the sun.

The whole of this part of New Orleans has been reclaimed from these extensive swamps, and no doubt, if the necessity should arise, the whole ground may be reclaimed and cultivated or built over; but such a proceeding could only be carried out at an almost fabulous expense, and as the great lungs of the city have plenty of breathing room in other directions, it will no doubt be left, for this century at least, in the occupation of noisome reptiles, the refuse of God’s creatures.

Lake Ponchartrain, where we are presently safely deposited, is one of the most picturesque spots in all this region; a silver shining sheet of water, on whose surface the passing clouds seem softly sailing, for the skies are reflected therein as in a mirror. We look across the water upon wide stretches of undulating cultivated lands, “with verdure clad,” a soft mossy carpet with purple flags and long lance-like grasses reaching down to the water’s edge. A lovely garden, artistically arranged with tropical flowers, fully half a mile long, runs along this side of the lake, and among the beds of gorgeous blossoms there are pretty winding walks, and rustic benches are arranged beneath wide-spreading shady trees. A glorious promenade runs like a golden band along the borders, and a pretty fancifully-built hotel and restaurant stands at the head of the lake. It is a perfect nest of a place, hung round with balconies and covered with climbing plants, the luxurious Virginian creeper with its wealth of purple bloom with white star-like flowers mingling between. Surrounding the hotel is a wide space studded with little marble-topped tables, dedicated to the convenience of the hungry and thirsty multitudes who flock thither up from the hot, dusty town on summer evenings, to breathe the fresh cool air which blows across the surface of the lake.

Tables and chairs are set in all kinds of shady nooks and corners, and merry parties are sipping sherbet, lemonade, and ice-cream; even the democratic “lager beer” is served in foaming goblets, and while the band is playing people stroll to and fro or group under the trees eating ices, and not always confining themselves to the above harmless beverages. They enjoy themselves each after his own fashion, and it is generally midnight before the last train returns with its living freight towards the town.

We take our last evening stroll through the streets of New Orleans, which have a fascination unknown to them by day. They are everywhere brilliantly illuminated; we fancy it must be some special occasion, but it is always the same; electric lights and gas-jets in quaint devices are flaring everywhere, strains of music are floating on the air, the shops and stalls are ablaze with brilliant colouring, and appear in fancy dress—as a lady throws off her morning robes and appears en grande toilette for the evening festivities; open air performances, shows, and theatres are in full swing. Strange to say, places that have seemed quiet and harmless, even dingy, during the daytime, bloom out into gambling dens, where the rattling of dice and the rolling of billiard balls make deadly music through the night. How often some haggard form, hunted by ruin and despair, slips like a shadow from these lighted halls; a pistol-shot, a groan, and he vanishes into a darker night, “where never more the sun shall rise or set.” There are no laws against gambling; they are a free people here, and are allowed to choose each his own road to ruin, consequently gambling is carried on to a frightful extent, and by all kinds and conditions of men. It seems indigenous to the soil, for while men stake houses and lands, nay, the very last coin from their pockets, the very children gamble over their tops and marbles or dirt pies in the gutter.

The inhabitants of New Orleans are never tired of expatiating on the beauties of their city, and dilating on the golden history of its romantic past, or the prosperous record of its present day. Their devotion further insists on the general healthiness of its climate; they admit there are occasional epidemics, but then at certain seasons epidemics rage everywhere, they are not specially improvised for New Orleans, and the black population suffers always more than the white.

Lovely though it be—a most quaint, picturesque old city, with its bright skies and gorgeous growth of tropical flowers—no sane person could have faith in its sanitary perfections. A beautiful human nest it is; low-lying, as in a hole scooped out of the solid earth, many feet below the waters of the Mississippi, partially surrounded by swamps of the rankest kind, and girdled by silver streams and deep flowing rivers, it must necessarily be the favourite resort of the malarial fiend. Here that scourge of the South, the yellow fever, too, rising from sweltering earth, sends forth his scorching, blighting breath, and clothes the land in mourning. But every man clings to his own soil; no matter whether it brings forth thorns or roses, he is satisfied with the gathering thereof.

“Well,” exclaimed a devoted citizen as he cheerfully discussed the subject with us, “in every country there is an occasional force which carries off the surplus population; sometimes it is fire, or flood, earthquakes or mining explosions. Nature sends us the yellow fever; of course it is not a pleasant visitor, but it does its work well enough, and I don’t know but it is as well to get out of the world that way as any other.”

It is impossible to enumerate half the pleasant excursions which may be taken from New Orleans. Its wonderful watery highways are among the finest in the world, and wind through the land in all directions. By them you may travel anywhere and everywhere through the loveliest scenery of the South, as pleasantly as though the panorama were passing the windows of your own drawing-room.

Splendid steamers—floating palaces indeed of gigantic proportions, luxuriously upholstered, and fitted with all the carving and gilding so dear to some travellers’ hearts—are eternally passing to and fro. We were strongly disposed to take a trip on the “Natchez,” the sovereign vessel, but time pressed, and we were compelled to move on.