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viii JOURNEY FROM
It has one dreary drawback–the insalubrity of its situation.
Could the immense swamps between it and the bluffs be
drained, and the improvements commenced in the city be
completed; in short, could its atmospher ever become a dry
one, it would soon leave the greatest cities of the Union
behind.

Great efforts are making towards this result. Unhappily,
when the dog star rises upon its sky, the yellow fever is but
too sure to come in its train. Notwithstanding the annual,
or at least the biennial visits of this pestilence ; although its
besom sweeps off multitudes of unacclimated poor, and com-
pels the rich to fly ; notwithstanding the terror, that is every
where associated with the name of the city, after the ab-
sence of a season, I discover an obvious change. New build-
ings have sprung up, and new improvements are going on.
Its regular winter population, between forty and fifty
thousand inhabitants, is five times the amount which it had
when it came under the American government. The ex-
ternal form of the city on the river side is graduated in some
measure to the curve of the river. The street that passes
along the leveé, and conforms to the course of the river, is
called Leveé-street, and is the one in which the greatest and
most active business of the city is transacted. The upper
part of the city is principally built and inhabited by Ameri-
cans, and is called the 'Fauxbourg St. Mary.' The greater
number of the houses in this fauxbourg are of brick, and
built in the American style. In this quarter are the Pres-
byterian church and the new theatre. The ancient part of
the city, as you pass down Leveé-street towards the Cathe-
dral, has in one of the clear, bright January mornings, that
are so common at that season, an imposing and brilliant
aspect. There is something fantastic and unique in the ap-
pearance, I am told, far more resembling European cities,
than any other in the United States. The houses are stuc-
coed externally, and this stucco is white or yellow, and strikes
the eye more pleasantly than the dull and sombre red of
brick. There can be no question, but the American mode of
building is at once more commodius, and more solid and
durable, than the French and Spanish ; but I think the
latter have the preference in the general effect upon the eye.
Young as the city is, the effect of this humid climate, ope-
rating upon the mouldering materials, of which the buildings