CHAPTER XI.
_New Orleans_.
New Orleans is a surprising evidence of what men will endure, when cheered by the hopes of an ever-flowing tide of all-mighty dollars and cents.

It is situated on a marsh, and bounded by the river on one side, and on the other by a continuation of the marsh on which it is built, beyond which extends a forest swamp.

All sewerage and drainage is superficial--more generally covered in, but in very many places dragging its sluggish stream, under the broad light of day, along the edges of the footway.

The chief business is, of course, in those streets skirting the river; and at this season--December--when the cotton and sugar mania is at its height, the bustle and activity is marvellous.

Streets are piled in every direction with mounds of cotton, which rise as high as the roofs; storehouses are bursting with bales; steam and hydraulic presses hiss in your ear at every tenth step, and beneath their power the downy fibre is compressed into a substance as hard as Aberdeen granite, which semi-nude negroes bind, roll, and wheel in all directions, the exertion keeping them in perpetual self-supplying animal steam-baths.