After we left the cemeteries some of our party had an _al fresco_ lunch under some live-oak trees, where an honest German catered to our wants with the well-known products of the Fatherland. It was hot even there, but we wiled away an hour or so of rest in most satisfactory fashion. We did the French market early in the morning, but possibly we were not early enough; for the whole place, display, and everything there seemed tame and commonplace. I found, however, pleasant study in some of the people, especially the poor, but aristocratic looking women with blue jean sunbonnets on, market baskets on their arms, and wearing dresses of most uncrinoline proportions. We visited the new "St. Charles," where we all had dinner. The stay at this hotel brought back to mind the time, so long ago, when I first saw New Orleans. It was in January, 1870, shortly after the close of the War of the Rebellion. We were at the consecration of Bishop Pierce, at Mobile, Alabama, and visited New Orleans ere returning home. What memories came to me of the journey south through the historic battle-fields of the "Lost Cause"! I remember the long stretch of burnt locomotives standing on the tracks at Mobile; of Christ Church, where the consecration of Dr. Pierce was held, with its decoration of orange branches in fruit and flower; of the brilliant reception held at the residence of our hostess, Mrs. Perry; and the drawing-room, filled with flowers and elegantly dressed women; while a wood fire, all aglow, gave us a reminder that we must make believe it was winter, because it was January. Then there was the steamboat ride from Mobile _via_ Lake Pontchartrain, and thence to New Orleans. The city has changed much in these years. We stayed then at the old St. Charles, surely an old fire trap, as events proved, but stately for all that. The culmination of each day was the hotel dinner; and a daily parade, well worth seeing, was the progress of the ladies across the huge rotunda, through the lounging crowd, to the dining-room. All that is now gone, and the new St. Charles gets along without this primitive and, I must say, pleasing display. A memory also abides with me which I surely may rehearse. It was a dinner given to visiting ecclesiastics and lay dignitaries at the hospitable home of Dr. Mercer in Canal Street. If I am right, he was a bachelor; he lived in great elegance in his own house. The dinner was thoroughly Southern, and so intended. I still have pleasing reminiscences of the gumbo soup; and a boned turkey, boiled, and stuffed with oysters, ought not, and can not, ever be forgotten. It was pallid, but palatable, in its moist modesty, and a cut right through its entire circumference was something to be brought away as a grateful remembrance, safely disposed within the inner man. V Impressions of New Orleans.--Its Harbor.--The Levee at Night.--Southern Texas.--Its Forests, Flowers, and Birds.--The Prairie Pool.