The St.Louis is at present the largest; but the St.Charles, which is being rebuilt, was, and will again be, the hotel pride of New Orleans.[U] They are both enormous establishments, well arranged, and, with the locomotive propensities of the people, sure to be well filled during the winter months, at which period only they are open.

When I arrived at the St.Louis, it was so full that the only room I could get was like a large Newfoundland dog's kennel, with but little light and less air.

The hotel was originally built for an Exchange, and the rotundo in the centre is one of the finest pieces of architecture in the States.

It is a lofty, vaulted hall, eighty feet in diameter, with an aisle running all round, supported by a row of fine pillars fifty feet in height; the dome rises nearly as many-feet more, and has a large skylight in the centre; the sides thereof are ornamented by well-executed works in _chiaroscuro_, representing various successful actions gained during the struggle for independence, and several of the leading men who figured during that eventful period.

A great portion of the aisle is occupied by the all-important bar, where drinks flow as freely as the river outside; but there is another feature in the aisles which contrasts strangely with the pictorial ornaments round the dome above--a succession of platforms are to be seen, on which human flesh and blood is exposed to public auction, and the champions of the equal rights of man are thus made to endorse, as it were, the sale of their fellow-creatures.
I had only been in the hotel one day when a gentleman to whom I had a letter kindly offered me a room in his house.