In the cool of the evening, Mr. May drove us out to see the city. It recalls no other town in the South; reminds one more of Havana than of any of them, and is very much unlike even it. “A town where all their drains are above ground; where a cellar would be a cistern; where the river is as high as the roofs of the houses, and where, when you die, instead of burying you like a Christian, they tuck you away on a shelf, and plaster you in with lath and mortar—that’s New Orleans.” Such was the description once given by an energetic Yankee, and it conveys as accurate an idea as whole pages might. He should have added that it is a town where half the inhabitants think of Paris as their home, and feel as much interest in the Tuilleries as the White House; that of the other half, the most are cotton factors or commercial men of some sort, with principles not infrequently on sale with their goods; that it is at once the most luxurious, the most unprincipled, the most extravagant, and, to many, the most fascinating city in the Union—the only place that, before the war, could support the opera through an entire winter; the only place where the theaters are open on Sunday evening; where gambling is not concealed, and keeping a mistress is not only in no sense discreditable, but is even made legal. What Boston is to the North, Charleston and Richmond are, in a diminished sense, to the South; what New York is to the North, New Orleans is, in an exaggerated sense, to the South. The city itself showed no traces of war. Mounted orderlies dashed along the streets; and in front of a few palatial residences guards in uniform paced slowly to and fro. But the superb shrubbery of the Garden District had not suffered as had that of Charleston. The spacious and airy wooden residences in the upper part of the city never looked more attractive; below Canal Street, the quaint, projecting roofs, and curious green-barred doors and windows of the French quarter remained as in the days when Napoleon sold out to the United States, and the inhabitants woke up to find their allegiance transferred. Even the levee began to be crowded again, and business seemed quite as active as could have been expected in June. * * * * *