XV.

On the seventh day morning we entered New-Orleans,
The joyous "Crescent City"—a Queen among the Queens-
And saw her pleasant harbor alive with tapering spars-
With "union jacks" from England, and flaunting "stripes
and stars;"

And all her swarming Levée, for miles upon the shore,
Buzzing, humming, surging, with Trade's incessant roar—
With negroes hoisting hogsheads, and casks of pork and oil,
Or rolling bales of cotton, and singing at their toil;

And downwards-widening downwards-the broad majestic
river,

Hasting not, nor lingering, but rolling on forever.

And here from travel resting, in soft ambrosial hours,

We plucked the growing orange, and gathered summer
flowers,

And thanked our trusty captain-our pilot-and our ship-
For bearing us in safety down the Mississip.

I shall not attempt to describe the majestic monotony of this mighty river-the sewer of a hundred cities—the grand alimentary canal of a continent. The vast valley through which it flows seems to me like a new creation; and its porous cottonwood forests, that line its banks for a thousand miles, look like the arboreal experiments of nature, preparatory to more useful and ornamental production. The cities we have passed-Cairo, Memphis, Vicksburg and Natchez-disappoint me in size and appearance, and the scattered and ragged-looking cotton plantations wear a dreary, lonely aspect. Our captain, a fine-looking man, six feet four, who is both gal-lant

and gal-lant, has done all he could to make the trip a pleasant one, and his name-sake and clerk has been most gentlemanly and attentive. The fare has been good; and Hannah, the chambermaid, with her low, soft, sympathetic voice, most assiduous in her attentions. The principal entertainments have been afforded us by the variety of cargo taken in at the numerous landings; and among other "goods” a drove of hogs, which it took an army of darkies a couple of hours to persuade on board, afforded infinite fun. It was pig vs. nig., and such a grotesque struggle I have never seen. The gentlemen in the forward cabin have also had their own fun by playing off a practical joke upon "Jo," the barkeeper. Jo is a good-looking wag, who is rather fond of playing good-natured" tricks upon travelers ;" and the clerk of the boat has been watching an opportunity to pay him in his own coin, and this is the way the thing was done :-Among the live-stock on board there is a flock of nine hundred sheep, penned up as closely as they can stand. The clerk, complaining that he was liable to be cheated in the fare by a mis-count, proposed that the sheep should all be marked and numbered. The job was a difficult and a disagree. able one. But the ever ready and obliging Jo, volunteered for the task, and with brush and marking

pot in hand, descended into the woolly mass, and proceeded to business. When he had got fairly at work, the captain tipped the wink to the passengers, and all went down to witness the performance. There stood Jo in the centre of the flock, with his coat-tails tucked up under his arms, his face at a red heat, and looking bewildered at the task before him, with a faint glimmering perception of the joke, that it would be just as difficult to count the sheep after they were marked as before. The party of spectators broke into a roar of laughter, and Jo looking a little "sheepish," but taking the joke very good-naturedly, hurried out of the pen with all possible haste.

We have taken on board two small droves of negroes, one of ten, boys and girls, mostly the latter, bought in Richmond for a plantation near Vicksburg. They cost the owner, all expenses included, about ten hundred and fifty dollars a head. I asked the best-looking girl of the lot her name. She said it was Cinderella, (slaves, like the early Christians, have but one name,) and that her master had bought them for his own use. I asked what that meant, and she said to work on his plantation, and not to sell again. They all seemed perfectly satisfied with their emigration to Louisiana. Another lot of twenty were

taken on board lower down the river, and were on their way to the New-Orleans market to be sold, all except one, a mulatto girl, who seemed to be the traveling companion of the owner, and would return with him. One fellow became obstreperous, and had to be put in irons.

Among the objects of interest on the river, none excites more attention than the lowly mansion of Gen. Taylor, at Baton Rouge. It is a mere cottage, and a very humble one at that; but as the home of a President of the United States, it gives a historical character to the place, and the traveler watches for it with eager curiosity. From Baton Rouge to NewOrleans, a distance of over a hundred and twenty miles, the sugar plantations line both sides of the river, and the green fields, green trees, with here and there clumps of orange groves, rich in fruits and blossoms, make one feel that the people of Louisiana, like the cuckoo, need have

"No sorrow in their song,
No winter in their year."

We are now approaching the Crescent City and civilization; so I'll put on a clean collar, a clean sh--, and get myself up generally for a presentable appearance at the St. Charles. Like the Irishman,

who wrote to his wife, and took it to her himself, in order to save postage, I shall hand you this without the intervention of any mail. Yours, and glad to be with you.

MY DEAR

LETTER No. XIV.

ST. CHARLES HOTEL, NEW-ORLEANS,
February 16, 1858.

THREE days of summer weather in the Crescent City, in the St. Charles Hotel, in a crowd of seven hundred and fifty strangers, representing every State, if not every city in the Union, and your "fair correspondent" finds herself "lost in wonder, love, and praise!" How shall I convince my Northern friends that while they are shivering over anthracite fires, we are walking the shady side of the streets in the thinnest shawls, or sitting at open windows inhaling the sweet and balmy breezes of the Gulf, redolent of roses and orange flowers! Verily

"We have cheated Father Winter
And sailed into the Spring."