NEW ORLEANS. 



hotel, which was burned down soon after we left, with the loss 

 of many lives. 



From this place we had a splendid steamer, doing twenty 

 miles an hour, as comfortable and with as good fare as an 

 hotel : the banks of the river, too, became more interesting ; 

 towns were frequent and, as we got near New Orleans, fine 

 plantations were very numerous. These we heard were much 

 more prosperous-looking from the boat than in reality, as 

 since the war so many of them had been deserted, and none 

 were kept up as they had been in the slave times. Since the 

 emancipation, the negroes, or " gentlemen of colour" as they 

 called themselves, had become most objectionable, as I had 

 many opportunities of seeing, and as was to be expected from 

 suddenly freed slaves. They put on great airs and took every 

 opportunity of taunting and lording it over their late masters. 

 In some cases they remained on the plantations, but worked or 

 not as it pleased them, and could not be punished in any 



way. 



We were much taken with New Orleans; it had a very 

 French look, and it was a relief to get away from towns where 

 the streets were always at right angles to one another. We 

 put up at the St. James' Hotel, and caused quite a commotion 

 in the streets as we walked to it, leading more than a dozen 

 dogs and the mare. 



The state fair was going on when we arrived, and I went 

 out to see it a day or two later with a very nice young fellow, 

 whose acquaintance I had made on the steamer. His father 

 had been a rich planter before the war, and my friend had 

 been educated at Heidelberg ; but while he was there the war 

 broke out, and his father and he were ruined, losing nearly 



