One might make various studies of New Orleans: its commercial life; its methods, more or less antiquated, of doing business, and the leisure for talk that enters into it; its admirable charities and its mediaeval prisons; its romantic French and Spanish history, still lingering in the old houses, and traits of family and street life; the city politics, which nobody can explain, and no other city need covet; its sanitary condition, which needs an intelligent despot with plenty of money and an ingenuity that can make water run uphill; its colored population—about a fourth of the city—with its distinct social grades, its superstition, nonchalant good-humor, turn for idling and basking in the sun, slowly awaking to a sense of thrift, chastity, truth-speaking, with many excellent order-loving, patriotic men and women, but a mass that needs moral training quite as much as the spelling-book before it can contribute to the vigor and prosperity of the city; its schools and recent libraries, and the developing literary and art taste which will sustain book-shops and picture-galleries; its cuisine, peculiar in its mingling of French and African skill, and determined largely by a market unexcelled in the quality of fish, game, and fruit—the fig alone would go far to reconcile one to four or five months of hot nights; the climatic influence in assimilating races meeting there from every region of the earth. But whatever way we regard New Orleans., it is in its aspect, social tone, and character sui generis; its civilization differs widely from that of any other, and it remains one of the most interesting places in the republic. Of course, social life in these days is much the same in all great cities in its observances, but that of New Orleans is markedly cordial, ingenuous, warmhearted. I do not imagine that it could tolerate, as Boston does, absolute freedom of local opinion on all subjects, and undoubtedly it is sensitive to criticism; but I believe that it is literally true, as one of its citizens said, that it is still more sensitive to kindness. The metropolis of the South-west has geographical reasons for a great future. Louisiana is rich in alluvial soil, the capability of which has not yet been tested, except in some localities, by skilful agriculture. But the prosperity of the city depends much upon local conditions. Science and energy can solve the problem of drainage, can convert all the territory between the city and Lake Pontchartrain into a veritable garden, surpassing in fertility the flat environs of the city of Mexico. And the steady development of common-school education, together with technical and industrial schools, will create a skill which will make New Orleans the industrial and manufacturing centre of that region. IV.—A VOUDOO DANCE.