Eight days in New-Orleans in February, 1847 — John Shaqi
Eight days in New-Orleans in February, 1847Pickett, Albert James
History
Eight days in New-Orleans in February, 1847
Pickett, Albert James
Louisiana -- Social life and customs; New Orleans (La.) -- Description and travel
Spanish fill up the First, with a large mixture of native Americans;
but the Third Municipality is entirely French and Spanish. It was
impossible for me to ascertain how many streets run through the
city, but there are many. No fault can be found of the topography of
Orleans, and it is strange that the regularity of the thorough
fares should have been so well preserved under all the changes and
vicissitudes through which she has passed. Everything is of interest
here; even the names of the streets attract the notice of the visitor;
and as he rides along, he may trace the different races who have
formed and named them. He will pass through streets which the
descendants of Spain first laid out, such as Esplanade, Ferdinand
Casacalvo, Morales, and Perdido. Again his eye will glance at French
names, such as Josephine, Bourbon, Chartres, Notre Dame, Dauphin, and
Toulouse. Then there are various streets bearing the names of all the
saints known to the Catholic devotee. In respect to names very little
of Orleans has been Americanized. Occasionally you will meet with such
names as Commerce and Canal, which doubtless sound very vulgar to the
the French. But the master street of the world is the great Levee,
usually from two to five hundred feet wide from the river to the
buildings. From this great thoroughfare all others diverge, and it
is the greatest mart of its extent in the world. While I was there,
THIRTY-SIX THOUSAND BARRELS OF FLOUR were sold in a few hours! And
while this astonishing transfer was going on, thousands of other
produce and commodities were changing hands. Many years ago it
was used as a fashionable promenade to enjoy the breezes of the
Mississippi. Commerce has changed its character entirely. Now scenes
of the most intensely exciting character are upon the Levee. The
very air howls with an eternal din and noise. Drays and wagons of
all descriptions, loaded with the produce of every clime, move on
continually in one unbroken chain. Ships from every nation, whose
masts tower aloft in a dense forest for five miles, with thirty
thousand sailors and stevedores, busily loading and unloading, stand
in your view. Steamboats, and crafts of every make and shape, from
every river which empties into the Mississippi, are here mingling in
the strife of commerce. The rough and homely produce of the far and
cold Iowa--of the distant Wisconsin--of the black and stormy Northern
Lakes, is here thrown upon the Levee in hurry and confusion mingled
and mixed with the sweets and luxuries of the sunny tropics. Here,
too, the various races of men astonish one. The Kentuckian with an
honest and ruddy face; the Yankee with his shrewd and enterprising
look; the rich planter of Mississippi; the elegant and chivalrous
Carolinian; the sensible and honest citizen from the "Old North
State;" the lively, fine-looking, and smart Georgian; the talented and
handsome Virginian; the swarthy creole sugar planter; the rough hunter
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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