All the streets are laid out both in length and breadth by the line, and intersect and cross each other at right angles. The streets divide the town into sixty-six isles; eleven along the river lengthwise, or in front, and six in depth: each of those isles is fifty square toises, and each again divided into twelve emplacements, or compartments, for lodging as many families. The Intendant's house stands behind the barracks on the left; and the magazine, or warehouse-general behind the barracks on the right, on viewing the town from the river side. The Governor's house stands in the middle of that part of the town, from which we go from the place of arms to the habitation of the Jesuits, which is near the town. The house of the Ursulin Nuns is quite at the end of the town, to the right; as is also the hospital of the sick, of which the nuns have the inspection. What I have just described faces the river. On the banks of the river runs a causey, or mole, as well on the side of the town as on the opposite side, from the English Reach quite to the town, and about ten leagues beyond it; which makes about fifteen or sixteen leagues on each side the river; and which may be travelled in a coach or on horseback, on a bottom as smooth as a table. The greatest part of the houses is of brick; the rest are of timber and brick. The length of the causeys, I just mentioned, is sufficient to shew, that on these two sides of the Missisippi there are many habitations standing close together; each making a causey to secure his ground from inundations, which fail not to come every year with the spring: and at that time, if any ships {52} happen to be in the harbour of New Orleans, they speedily set sail; because the prodigious quantity of dead wood, or trees torn up by the roots, which the river brings down, would lodge before the ship, and break the stoutest cables. At the end of St. John's Creek, on the banks of the Lake St. Louis, there is a redoubt, and a guard to defend it. From this creek to the town, a part of its banks is inhabited by planters; in like manner as are the long banks of another creek: the habitations of this last go under the name of Gentilly. After these habitations, which are upon the Missisippi quite beyond the Cannes Brulées, Burnt Canes, we meet none till we come to the Oumas, a petty nation so called. This settlement is inconsiderable, tho' one of the oldest next to the capital. It lies on the east of the Missisippi.