The Climate of Louisiana.—The Yellow Fever.

That a country, the fourth part of which consists of marshes, stagnant waters, rivers, and lakes, and which is so near the torrid zone, cannot be altogether healthy, is not to be denied. Although Louisiana is not so salubrious a country as the creoles or settlers inured to the climate, would persuade us that it is; on the other hand it is not the seat of the plague, or of continued disease, as the North Americans or Europeans imagine. Louisiana is no doubt a most agreeable country during the winter and spring. The former commences in December, and continues through January. Rains and showers will sometimes fall, during several successive weeks, snow very seldom. North and north-east winds prevail; a south wind will occasionally change the temperature, on a sudden, from a northern April day to the heat of summer. The coldest winter experienced for twenty years past, was that of the year 1821; the gutters were choked up with ice, and water exposed in buckets, froze to the thickness of an inch and a half. Fahrenheit’s thermometer fell to 20° below zero. In this year, the orange, lime, and even fig-trees were destroyed by the frost.

Towards the close of January the Mississippi rises, and the ice of the Ohio breaks up. This river, seldom, however, causes an inundation. This is generally reserved for the Missouri, the principal river that empties itself into the Mississippi. With the month of February the spring breaks forth in Louisiana. Frequent rains fall in this month, the vegetation advances astonishingly, and the trees receive their new foliage. On the 1st of March we had potatoes grown in the open fields, pease, beans, and artichokes. South winds prevail alternately with north-west winds. The month of March is undoubtedly the finest season in Louisiana; there are sometimes night frosts, though scarcely felt by any one except the creoles, and the equally tender orange flowers. The thermometer is in this month at 68°–70°. At this time prevails a disease, the influenza, which arises from the sudden alternations of cold and warm weather; it has carried off several persons. It is always necessary to wear cotton shirts, whether in cold or warm weather. Towards the close of March, the fruit-trees have done blooming, the forests are clad in their new verdure, and all nature bursts out in the most exuberant vegetation; every thing develops itself in the country with gigantic strides. Already the musquitoes are beginning to make their troublesome appearance, and musquito bars become necessary. Still the heat is moderate, being cooled by the north winds and the refreshing waters of the Mississippi. May brings with it the heat of a northern summer, moderated however, by cooling north and north-east breezes. The thermometer is at 78° to 80°. At this season, frequent showers and hurricanes coming from the south, rage with the utmost fury in those extensive plains. With the month of June the heats become oppressive; there is not a breath of air to be felt; the musquitos come in millions; one is incessantly pursued by those troublesome insects. The worst, however, is, that they will sometimes force their way through the musquito bars. Nothing is more disagreeable than this buzzing sound, and the pain occasioned by their sting; they keep you from sleeping the whole night. Still they are not so troublesome as the millepedes, an insect whose sting causes a most painful sensation. In the month of July the heat increases. August, September, and October, are dangerous months in New Orleans. A deep silence reigns during this time in the city, most of the stores and magazines are shut up. No one is to be seen in the streets in the day time except negroes and people of colour. No carriage except the funeral hearse. At the approach of evening the doors open, and the inhabitants pour forth, to enjoy the air, and to walk on the Levee above and below the city. The yellow fever has not made its appearance since 1822. It is not the extraordinary heat which causes this baneful disease, the temperature seldom exceeding 100°. In the year 1825, when the thermometer rose in New York and Boston above 108°, it was in New Orleans, no more than 97°. It is the pestilential miasmata which rise from the swamps and marshes, and infect the air to a degree which it is difficult to describe. These oppressive exhalations load the air, and it is almost impossible to draw breath. If a breeze comes at all, it is a south wind, which, from its baneful influence, exhausts the last remaining force after throwing you into a dreadful state of perspiration. The years 1811, 1814, and 1823, were the most terrible of any for New Orleans. From sixty to eighty persons were buried every day, and nothing was to be seen but coffins carried about on all sides. Whole streets in the upper suburb, (inhabited chiefly by Americans and Germans) were cleared of their inhabitants, and New Orleans was literally one vast cemetery. Among the inhabitants, the poorer classes were mostly exposed to the attacks of the unsparing and deadly disease, as their situation did not permit them to stay at home; thus women were for this reason, less exposed to its effects; and least of all the wealthiest inhabitants, who were not compelled to quit their dwellings. The creoles and others who were seasoned to the climate, were little affected. The creole, mulatto, and negro women, are said to be the most skilful in the cure of the disease. In 1822, hundreds of patients died under the hands of the most experienced physicians, when these old women commonly succeeded in restoring their own patients. Their preservatives and medicines are as simple as they are efficacious, and every stranger who intends to stay the summer in New Orleans, should make himself acquainted with one of these women, in case a necessity should arise for requiring their attendance. They give such ample proofs of their superior skill, as to claim in this point a preference over the ablest physicians.

The inhabitants are in general forewarned of the approaching disease, by the swarms of musquitoes; although they come in sufficient quantity every summer, they make their appearance in infinitely greater numbers previously to a yellow fever.This is said to have been the case on the three occasions already mentioned. At such a time all business is of course suspended. The port is empty, the stores are shut up. Those officers alone whose presence is indispensable, or who have overcome the yellow fever, will remain with a set of wretches, who, like beasts of prey feed upon the relics of the dead, speculating upon the misery of their fellow creatures so far, as not unfrequently to buy at auctions the very beds upon which they have been known to expire in a few days afterwards. The first rain, succeeded by a little frost, banishes the deadly guest, and every one returns to his former business.

It is to be hoped, that this scourge of the land, if it should not be wholly extirpated, will at least become less prevalent for the future. The police regulations adopted during the last four years, have proved very effectual. Among these are a strict attention to cleanliness, watering the streets by means of the gutters, shutting up the grog-shops after nine o’clock; and removing from the city all the poor and houseless people, at the expense of the corporation, as soon as the least indication of approaching infection is perceived. These, and several other wise regulations will, it is hoped, contribute greatly to increase the population, and to give the new comers a firmer guarantee for their lives, than they have hitherto found. When the plans in contemplation shall have been carried into effect, and the swamps behind the city drained, a measure the more beneficial, as the soil of these swamps is beyond all imagination fertile; then the surrounding country, and the city itself, will become as healthy as any other part of the Union. With the increasing population, we have no doubt, that Louisiana will present the same features, as Egypt in former days, bearing, as it does, the most exact resemblance to that country. During six months, and already at the present time, it is a delightful place, successfully resorted to from the north, by persons in a weak state of health. The mildness of the climate, which even during the two winter months, is seldom interrupted by frost, the most luxuriant tropical fruits—bananas, pine-apples, oranges, lemons, figs, cocoa-nuts, &c., partly reared in the country, partly imported in ship loads from the Havannah, a distance of only a few hundred miles; excellent oysters, turtle of the best kind, arriving every hour; fish from the lake Pontchartrain; game, venison of all sorts; vegetables of the finest growth,—all these advantages give New Orleans a superiority over almost every other place. Sobriety, temperance, and moderation in the use of sensual enjoyments, and especially in the intercourse with the sex, with a strict attention to the state of health, and an instant resort to the necessary preservatives in case of derangement in the digestive system,—such are the precautions that will best enable a stranger to guard against the attacks of the disorders incident to this place.