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x JOURNEY FROM

from twelve to fifteen hundred flat boats lying along the
river. They would average from forty to sixty tons burden.
The number of vessels in the harbour from autumn to spring
is very great. More cotton is shipped from this port than
from any other in America, or perhaps the world. I could
never have formed a conception of the amount in any other
way, than by seeing the immense piles of it that fill the
streets, as the crop is coming in. It is well known that the
amount of sugar raised and shipped here is great, and in-
creasing. The produce from the upper country has no limits
to the extent of which it is capable ; and the commerce of
this important city goes on steadily increasing.

This city exhibits the greatest variety of costume, and
foreigners ; French, Spanish, Portugese, Irish in shoals ; in
short, samples of the common people of all the European
nations, Creoles, all the intermixtures of Negro and Indian
blood, the moody and ruminating Indians, the inhabitants of
the Spanish provinces, and a goodly woof to this warp, of
boatment, 'half horse and half alligator ;' and more languages
are spoken here than in any other town in America. There
is a sample, in short, of every thing. In March the town is
most filled ; the market shows to the greatest advantage ; the
citizens boast of it, and are impressed with the opinion that
it far surpasses any other. In effect this is the point of union
between the North and the South. The productions of all
climes find their way hither, and for fruits and vegetables, it
appears to me to be unrivalled. In a pleasant March fore-
noon, you see, perhaps, half the city here. The crowd covers
half a mile in extent. The negroes, mulattoes, French, Spa-
nish, Germans, are all crying their several articles in their
several tongues. They have a wonderful faculty of twanging
the sound through their noses, as shrill as the notes of a
trumpet. In the midst of the Babel trumpeting, 'un pica-
lion, un picalion,' is the most distinguishable tune."

"The communications from this city with the interior, are
easy, pleasant, and rapid, by the steam-boats. More than a
hundred are now on these waters. Some of them, for size,
accomodation, and splendour, exceed any that I have seen
on the Atlantic waters. The Washington, Feliciana, Pro-
vidence, Natchez, and various others, are beautiful and com-
modious boats. The fare is sumptuous, and passages are
comparatively cheap. I have also uniformly found the pas-