118 TEUE BEAR STORIES. 



The little Frenchman shrugged his 

 shoulders, looked at the gallant officer a 

 moment and then said in a fit of enthusi- 

 astic admiration: 



"By gar, Monsieur Capitaine, you are 

 one mighty brave man ! I did try him free 

 times zat way, but he no stay." 



The captain threw up his arms and 

 his oyster ! so runs the story. 



The soil along the river bank is so rich 

 that weeds, woods, vines, trench close and 

 hard on the heels of the plowman. A 

 plantation will almost perish from the 

 earth, as it were, by a few years of aban- 

 donment. And so it is that you see miles 

 and miles on either side parishes on top 

 of parishes, in fact fast returning to bar- 

 barism, dragging the blacks by thousands 

 down to below the level of brutes with 

 them, as you descend from New Orleans 

 toward the mouth of the mighty river, 

 nearly one hundred miles from the beauti- 

 ful "Crescent City." And, ah, the super- 

 stition of these poor blacks! 



