Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)Power, Tyrone
History
Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)
Power, Tyrone
Canada -- Description and travel; United States -- Description and travel
No decision, however, against their views was ever objected to; and it
was most gratifying to me to hear Captain S----n assert that he had
never met with any class of men whose regard for even-handed justice
appeared so strong as that of these poor Irish labourers.
THE LEVEE MARKET.
Viewed at an early hour, the large market-place on the Levee is a lounge
of a most amusing kind, exhibiting at one glance a more striking picture
of the variety of people to be found here than might be attained in any
other place.
Here may be seen the Spanish creole, cloaked and capped, followed by a
half-naked slave, making, with a grave quiet air, and in slow deliberate
speech, his frugal market. Bustling along directly in his wake, but with
frequent halts and crossings from side to side, comes a lively daughter
of France, her market-slave leading a little boy fancifully dressed _a
la hussarde_; with these she holds a running fire of chatter, only
interrupted by salutations to passing friends, or nods and smiles to
those more distant. Look yet a little longer, and, yawing along in
squads of three and four abreast, you will see sailors of all kinds
cheapening fruit and vegetables, together with cooks, stewards, and all
their dingy subordinates. Here is the up-looking, dare-devil Jack of Old
England; the clean, holiday-looking, well-dressed seaman of Marseilles,
with large gold ear-rings twinkling beneath the rim of his high-crowned
bright glazed hat. Next, moving stealthily by, with an uneasy, restless
look, notice a couple of low-built, light-limbed, swarthy fellows,
moustached and bearded, one wearing a red shirt and a broad-leafed
Panama hat, the other clad in a white _blouse_ with a scarlet worsted
sash drawn about his hips, a Montero cap, naked legs, and white canvass
slippers.
These fellows might, on the high seas, be easily mistaken for pirates;
here they are understood to belong to some one of the many snaky
schooners lying here, hailing from Havannah and the various ports along
the Mexican Gulf, and whose calling may be honest enough, but which
certainly look as though the necessity of stowing a cargo had been quite
overlooked in their building.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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