Since the war New Orleans has been transformed from the likeness of a quiet old French city like Orleans which gave it name, to the appearance of a new French city with pretty relics here and there, and strong cosmopolitan attachments. The great river which sweeps in splendid curves past this city has compelled the streets to conform to some extent to its shores, but the consequence is a charming disposition of streets to both those who hate crooked streets, and those who hate straight ones. The town may be likened to the spokes of a wheel with streets laid out between the spokes in both directions, and conforming to them to some extent. In front of the city stretches the great bank called the levee, at the foot of which ride the majestic steamers which come from all portions of the Mississippi valley and are often like palaces in cardboard, and since the jetties have been made a success by Captain Eads and the United States engineers, you also see at New Orleans, riding cosily, the huge steamships from New York, Liverpool and Cuba. The chief maritime lines from New York to Texas now stop at New Orleans and the journey is continued by rail. This great levee, which is an artificial hill thrown up to keep the river back, is lined with the sugar hogsheads and cotton bales of the South, with coal and iron, plows and stoves, kegs of nails, merchandise assembled from all parts of the globe, and massive presses driven by steam to further compress the bales of cotton and reduce them in bulk for shipment. A canal runs through the city, and its other termination is on Lake Pontchartrain. At the lake is a beautiful new resort built in recent years, nearly as agreeable as Chautauqua Lake, and the peculiar Creole and negro cooking of New Orleans is to be found in perfection there, as well as at the Spanish fort, in the environs of the city. The shops of New Orleans are open to the air all winter long, and art of a local nature is taking root there. Whatever the Gulf produces is to be seen at the Creole capital, and a visit to it for even a few days is the next thing to a trip to Europe. THE UPPER CHAUTAUQUA. BY CHANCELLOR J. H. VINCENT, D.D.