Part 15

The interior of the house was richly decorated; and the panelling in the interior of the boxes was composed of massive mirror-plates, multiplying the audience with a fine effect. The stage was lofty, extensive, and so constructed, either intentionally or accidentally, as to reflect the voice with unusual precision and distinctness. The scenery was in general well executed: one of the forest scenes struck me as remarkably true to nature, both in colouring and design. While surveying the gaudy interior, variegated with gilding, colouring, and mirrors, the usual cry of "Down, down?--Hats off," warned us to be seated. The performance was good for the pieces represented. The company, with the indefatigable Caldwell at its head, is strong and of a respectable character. When the second act was concluded we left the house; and passing through a parti-coloured mob, gathered around the entrance, and elbowing a gens d'armes or two, stationed in the lobby _in terrorem_ to the turbulent-- we gained the street, amidst a shouting of "Your check, sir! your check! --Give me your check--Please give me your check!--check!--check!--check!" from a host of boys, who knocked one another about unmercifully in their exertions to secure the prizes, which, to escape a mobbing, we threw into the midst of them; and jumping into a carriage in waiting, drove off to the French theatre, leaving them embroiled in a _pele mele_, in which the sciences of phlebotomy and phrenology were "being" tested by very practical applications.

After a drive of half a league or more through long and narrow streets, dimly lighted by swinging lamps, we were set down at the door of the Theatre d'Orleans, around which a crowd was assembled of as different a character, from that we had just escaped, as would have met our eyes had we been deposited before the _Theatre Royale_ in Paris. The street was illuminated from the brilliantly lighted cafes and cabarets, clustered around this "nucleus" of gayety and amusement. As we crossed the broad _pave_ into the vestibule of the theatre, the rapidly enunciated, nasal sounds of the French language assailed our ears from every side. Ascending the stairs and entering the boxes, I was struck with the liveliness and brilliancy of the scene, which the interior exhibited to the eye. "Magnificent!" was upon my lips--but a moment's observation convinced me that its brilliancy was an illusion, created by numerous lights, and an artful arrangement and lavish display of gilding and colouring. The whole of the interior, including the stage decorations and scenic effect, was much inferior to that of the house we had just quitted. The boxes--if caverns resembling the interior of a ship's long-boat, with one end elevated three feet, and equally convenient, can be so called--were cheerless and uncomfortable. There were but few females in the house, and none of these were in the pit, as at the other theatre. Among them I saw but two or three pretty faces; and evidently none were of the first class of French society in this city. The house was thinly attended, presenting, wherever I turned my eyes, a "beggarly account of empty boxes." I found that I had chosen a night, of all others, the least calculated to give me a good idea of a French audience, in a cis-Atlantic French theatre. After remaining half an hour, wearied with a tiresome _ritornello_ of a popular French air--listening with the devotion of a "Polytechnique" to the blood-stirring Marseillaise hymn--amused at the closing scene of a laughable comedie, and edified by the first of a pantomime, and observing, that with but one lovely exception, the Mesdames _du scene_ were very plain, and the Messieurs very handsome, we left the theatre and returned to our hotel, whose deserted bar-room, containing here and there a straggler, presented a striking contrast to the noise and bustle of the multitude by which it was thronged at noon-day. In general, strangers consider the _tout ensemble_ of this theatre on Sabbath evenings, and on others when the elite of the New-Orleans society is collected there, decidedly superior to that of any other in the United States.

Beside the theatres there are other public buildings in this city, deserving the attention of a stranger, whose institution generally reflects the highest eulogium upon individuals, and the public. The effects of the benevolence of the generous M. Poydras, will for ever remain monuments of his piety and of the nobleness of his nature. Generation after generation will rise up from the bosom of this great city and "call him blessed." The charitable institutions of this city are lights which redeem the darker shades of its moral picture. Regarded as originators of benevolence, carried out into efficient operation, the Orleanese possess a moral beauty in their character as citizens and men, infinitely transcending that of many other cities ostensibly living under a higher code of morals. In the male and female orphan asylums, which are distinct institutions, endowed by the donations of M. Poydras--in a library for the use of young men, and in her hospitals and various charitable institutions, mostly sustained by Roman Catholic influence and patronage, whose doors are ever open to the stranger and the moneyless--the poor and the lame--the halt and the blind--and unceasingly send forth, during the fearful scourges which lay waste this ill-fated city, angels of mercy in human forms to heal the sick--comfort the dying--bind up the broken-hearted--feed the hungry, and clothe the naked--in these institutions--the ever living monuments of her humanity--New-Orleans, reviled as she has been abroad, holds a high rank among the cities of Christendom.

An original and able writer, with one or two extracts from whom I will conclude this letter, in allusion to this city says--"the French here, as elsewhere, display their characteristic urbanity and politeness, and are the same gay, dancing, spectacle-loving people, that they are found to be in every other place. There is, no doubt, much gambling and dissipation practised here, and different licensed gambling houses pay a large tax for their licenses. Much has been said abroad about the profligacy of manners and morals here. Amidst such a multitude, composed in a great measure of the low people of all nations, there must of course be much debauchery and low vice. But all the disgusting forms of vice, debauchery and drunkenness, are assorted together in their own place. Each man has an elective attraction to men of his own standing and order.

"This city necessarily exercises a very great influence over all the western country. There is no distinguished merchant, or planter, or farmer, in the Mississippi valley, who has not made at least one trip to this place. Here they see acting at the French and American theatres. Here they go to see at least, if not to take a part in, the pursuits of the "roulette and temple of Fortune." Here they come from the remote and isolated points of the west to behold the "city lions," and learn the ways of men in great towns; and they necessarily carry back an impression, from what they have seen, and heard. It is of inconceivable importance to the western country, that New-Orleans should be enlightened, moral, and religious. It has a numerous and respectable corps of professional men, and issues a considerable number of well edited papers.

"The police of the city is at once mild and energetic. Notwithstanding the multifarious character of the people, collected from every country and every climate, notwithstanding the multitude of boatmen and sailors, notwithstanding the mass of the people that rushes along the streets is of the most incongruous materials, there are fewer broils and quarrels here than in almost any other city. The municipal and the criminal courts are prompt in administering justice, and larcenies and broils are effectually punished without any just grounds of complaint about the "law's delay." On the whole we conclude, that the morals of those people, who profess to have any degree of self-respect, are not behind those of the other cities of the Union.

"Much has been said abroad, in regard to the unhealthiness of this city; and the danger of a residence here for an unacclimated person has been exaggerated. This circumstance, more than all others, has retarded its increase. The chance of an unacclimated young man from the north, for surviving the first summer, is by some considered only as one to two. Unhappily, when the dog-star is in the sky, there is but too much probability that the epidemic will sweep the place with the besom of destruction. Hundreds of the unacclimated poor from the north, and more than half from Ireland, fall victims to it. But the city is now furnished with noble water works; and is in this way supplied with the healthy and excellent water of the river. Very great improvements have been recently made and are constantly making, in paving the city, in removing the wooden sewers, and replacing them by those of stone. The low places, where the waters used to stagnate, are drained, or filled up. Tracts of swamp about the town are also draining, or filling up; and this work, constantly pursued, will probably contribute more to the salubrity of the city, than all the other efforts to this end united."

XXII.

A drive into the country--Pleasant road--Charming villa --Children at play--Governess--Diversities of society-- Education in Louisiana--Visit to a sugar-house--Description of sugar-making, &c.--A plantation scene--A planter's grounds--Children--Trumpeter--Pointer--Return to the city.

This is the last day of my sojourn in the great emporium of the south-west. To-morrow will find me threading the majestic sinuosities of the Mississippi, the prisoner of one of its mammoth steamers, on my way to the state whose broad fields and undulating hills are annually whitened with the fleece-like cotton, and whose majestic forests glitter with the magnificent and silvery magnolia--where the men are chivalrous, generous, and social, and the women so lovely,

---- "that the same lips and eyes They wear on earth will serve in Paradise."

A gentleman to whom I brought a letter of introduction called yesterday--a strange thing for men so honoured to do--and invited me to ride with him to his plantation, a few miles from the city. He drove his own phaeton, which was drawn by two beautiful long-tailed bays. After a drive of a mile and a half, we cleared the limits of the straggling, and apparently interminable faubourgs, and, emerging through a long narrow street upon the river road, bounded swiftly over its level surface, which was as smooth as a bowling-green--saving a mud-hole now and then, where a crevasse had let in upon it a portion of the Mississippi. An hour's drive, after clearing the suburbs, past a succession of isolated villas, encircled by slender columns and airy galleries, and surrounded by richly foliaged gardens, whose fences were bursting with the luxuriance which they could scarcely confine, brought us in front of a charming residence situated at the head of a broad, gravelled avenue, bordered by lemon and orange trees, forming in the heat of summer, by arching naturally overhead, a cool and shady promenade. We drew up at the massive gateway and alighted. As we entered the avenue, three or four children were playing at its farther extremity, with noise enough for Christmas holidays; two of them were trundling hoops in a race, and a third sat astride of a non-locomotive wooden horse, waving a tin sword, and charging at half a dozen young slaves, who were testifying their bellicose feelings by dancing and shouting around him with the noisiest merriment.

"Pa! pa!" shouted the hoop-drivers as they discovered our approach--"Oh, there's pa!" re-echoed the pantalette dragoon, dismounting from his dull steed, and making use of his own chubby legs as the most speedy way of advancing, "oh, my papa!"--and, sword and hoops in hand, down they all came upon the run to meet us, followed helter-skelter by their ebony troop, who scattered the gravel around them like hail as they raced, turning summersets over each other, without much diminution of their speed. They came down upon us altogether with such momentum, that we were like to be carried from our feet by this novel charge of _infantry_ and laid _hors du combat_, upon the ground. The playful and affectionate congratulations over between the noble little fellows and their parent, we walked toward the house, preceded by our trundlers, with the young soldier hand-in-hand between us, followed close behind by the little Africans, whose round shining eyes glistened wishfully--speaking as plainly as eyes could speak the strong desire, with which their half-naked limbs evidently sympathized by their restless motions, to bound ahead, contrary to decorum, "wid de young massas!"

Around the semi-circular flight of steps, ascending to the piazza of the dwelling,--the columns of which were festooned with the golden jasmine and luxuriant multiflora,--stood, in large green vases, a variety of flowers, among which I observed the tiny flowerets of the diamond myrtle, sparkling like crystals of snow, scattered upon rich green leaves--the dark foliaged Arabian jasmine silvered with its opulently-leaved flowers redolent of the sweetest perfume,--and the rose-geranium, breathing gales of fragrance upon the air. From this point the main avenue branches to the right and left, into narrower, yet not less beautiful walks, which, lined with evergreen and flowering shrubs, completely encircled the cottage. At the head of the flight of steps which led from this Hesperean spot to the portico, we were met by a little golden-haired fairy, as light in her motion as a zephyr, and with a cheek--not alabaster, indeed, for that is an exotic in the south--but like a lily, shaded by a rose leaf, and an eye of the purest hue, melting in its own light. With an exclamation of delight she sprang into her father's arms. I was soon seated upon one of the settees in the piazza,--whose front and sides were festooned by the folds of a green curtain--in a high frolic with the trundlers, the dismounted dragoon and my little winged zephyr. You know my _penchant_ for children's society. I am seldom happier than when watching a group of intelligent and beautiful little ones at play. For those who can in after life enter _con amore_, into the sports of children, tumble with and be tumbled about by them, it is like living their childhood over again. Every romp with them is death to a score of gray hairs. Their games, moreover, present such a contrast to the rougher contests of bearded children in the game of life, where money, power, and ambition are the stake, that it is refreshing to look at them and mingle with them, even were it only to realize that human nature yet retains something of its divine original.

The proprietor of the delightful spot which lay spread out around me--a lake of foliage--fringed by majestic forest trees, and diversified with labyrinthyne walks,--had, the preceding summer, consigned to the tomb the mother of his "beautiful ones." They were under the care of a dignified lady, his sister, and the widow of a gentleman formerly distinguished as a lawyer in New-England. But like many other northern ladies, whose names confer honour upon our literature, and whose talents elevate and enrich our female seminaries of education, she had independence enough to rise superior to her widowed indigence; and had prepared to open a boarding school at the north, when the death of his wife led her wealthier brother to invite her to supply a mother's place to his children, to whom she was now both mother and governess. The history of this lady is that of hundreds of her country-women. There are, I am informed, many instances in the south-west, of New-England's daughters having sought, with the genuine spirit of independence, thus to repair their broken fortunes. The intelligent and very agreeable lady of the late President H., of Lexington, resides in the capacity of governess in a distinguished Louisianian family, not far from the city. Mrs. Thayer, formerly an admired poet and an interesting writer of fiction, is at the head of a seminary in an adjoining state. And in the same, the widow of the late president of its college is a private instructress in the family of a planter. And these are instances, to which I can add many others, in a country where the occupation of instructing, whether invested in the president of a college or in the teacher of a country school, is degraded to a secondary rank. In New-England, on the contrary, the lady of a living collegiate president is of the elite, decidedly, if not at the head, of what is there termed "good society." Here, the same lady, whether a visiter for the winter, or a settled resident, must yield in rank--as the laws of southern society have laid it down--to the lady of the planter. The southerners, however, when they can secure one of our well-educated northern ladies in their families, know well how to appreciate their good fortune. Inmates of the family, they are treated with politeness and kindness; but in the soiree, dinner party, or levee, the governess is thrown more into the back-ground than she would be in a gentleman's family, even in aristocratic England; and her title to an equality with the gay, and fashionable, and wealthy circle by whom she is surrounded, and her challenge to the right of _caste_, is less readily admitted. But this illiberal jealousy is the natural consequence of the crude state of American society, where the line of demarcation between its rapidly forming classes is yet so uncertainly defined, that each individual who is anxious to be, or even to be thought, of the better file, has to walk circumspectly, lest he should inadvertently be found mingling with the _canaille_. The more uncertain any individual is of his own true standing, the more haughtily and suspiciously will he stand aloof, and measure with his eye every stranger who advances within the limits of the prescribed circle.

Education in this state has been and is still very much neglected. Appropriations have been made for public schools; but, from the fund established for the purpose, not much has as yet been effected. Many of the males, after leaving the city-schools, or the care of tutors, are sent, if destined for a professional career, to the northern colleges; others to the Catholic institutions at St. Louis and Bardstown, and a few of the wealthier young gentlemen to France. The females are educated, either by governesses, at the convents, or at northern boarding-schools. Many of them are sent to Paris when very young, and there remain until they have completed their education. The majority of the higher classes of the French population are brought up there. This custom of foreign education--like that in the Atlantic states, under the old regime, when, to be educated a gentleman, it was considered necessary for American youth to enter at Eton, and graduate from Oxford or Cambridge--must have a very natural tendency to preserve and cherish an attachment for France, seriously detrimental to genuine patriotism.--But all this is a digression.

After a kind of bachelor's dinner, in a hall open on two sides for ventilation, even at this season of the year--sumptuous enough for Epicurus, and served by two or three young slaves, who were drilled to a glance of the eye--crowned by a luxurious dessert of fruits and sweet-meats, and graced with wine, not of the _chasse-cousin vintage_, so common in New England, but of the pure _outre-mer_--we proceeded to the sugar-house or _sucrerie_, through a lawn which nearly surrounded the ornamental grounds about the house, studded here and there with lofty trees, which the good taste of the original proprietor of the domain had left standing in their forest majesty. From this rich green sward, on which two or three fine saddle-horses were grazing, we passed through a turn-stile into a less lovely, but more domestic enclosure, alive with young negroes, sheep, turkeys, hogs, and every variety of domestic animal that could be attached to a plantation. From this diversified collection, which afforded a tolerable idea of the interior of Noah's ark, we entered the long street of a village of white cottages, arranged on either side of it with great regularity. They were all exactly alike, and separated by equal spaces; and to every one was attached an enclosed piece of ground, apparently for a vegetable garden; around the doors decrepit and superannuated negroes were basking in the evening sun--mothers were nursing their naked babies, and one or two old and blind negresses were spinning in their doors. In the centre of the street, which was a hundred yards in width, rose to the height of fifty feet a framed belfry, from whose summit was suspended a bell, to regulate the hours of labour. At the foot of this tower, scattered over the grass, lay half a score of black children, _in puris naturalibus_, frolicking or sleeping in the warm sun, under the surveillance of an old African matron, who sat knitting upon a camp-stool in the midst of them.

We soon arrived at the boiling-house, which was an extensive brick building with tower-like chimneys, numerous flues, and a high, steep roof, reminding me of a New England distillery. As we entered, after scaling a barrier of sugar-casks with which the building was surrounded, the slaves, who were dressed in coarse trowsers, some with and others without shirts, were engaged in the several departments of their sweet employment; whose fatigues some African Orpheus was lightening with a loud chorus, which was instantly hushed, or rather modified, on our entrance, to a half-assured whistling. A white man, with a very unpleasing physiognomy, carelessly leaned against one of the brick pillars, who raised his hat very respectfully as we passed, but did not change his position. This was the overseer. He held in his hand a short-handled whip, loaded in the butt, which had a lash four or five times the length of the staff. Without noticing us, except when addressed by his employer, he remained watching the motions of the toiling slaves, quickening the steps of a loiterer by a word, or threatening with his whip, those who, tempted by curiosity, turned to gaze after us, as we walked through the building.

The process of sugar-making has been so often described by others, that I can offer nothing new or interesting upon the subject. But since my visit to this plantation, I have fallen in with an ultra-montane tourist or sketcher, a fellow-townsman and successful practitioner of medicine in Louisiana, who has kindly presented me with the sheet of an unpublished MS. which I take pleasure in transcribing, for the very graphic and accurate description it conveys of this interesting process.