104 THE MARKET, NEW ORLEANS. [CHAP. XXVIII. 



thought the matter and manner of his discourse deserving of his 

 high reputation for pulpit eloquence. 



One morning we rose early to visit the market of the First 

 Municipality, and found the air on the bank of the Mississippi 

 filled with mist as dense as a London fog, hut of a pure white 

 instead of yellow color. Through this atmosphere the innumera 

 ble masts of the ships alongside the wharf, were dimly seen. 

 Among other fruits in the market we observed abundance of ba 

 nanas, and good pine-apples, for 25 cents (or a shilling) each, 

 from the West Indies. There were stalls where hot coffee was 

 selling in white china cups, reminding us of Paris. Among 

 other articles exposed for sale, were brooms made of palmetto 

 leaves, and wagon-loads of the dried Spanish moss, or Tillandma. 

 The quantity of this plant hanging from the trees in the swamps 

 surrounding New Orleans, and every where in the delta of the 

 Mississippi, might suffice to stuff all the mattresses in the world. 

 The Indians formerly used it for another purpose to give poros 

 ity or lightness to their building materials. When at Natchez, 

 Dr. Dickeson showed me some bricks dug out of an old Indian 

 mound, in which the tough woody fiber of the Tillandsia was 

 still preserved. When passing through the stalls, we were sur 

 rounded by a population of negroes, mulattoes, and quadroons, some 

 talking French, others a patois of Spanish and French, others a 

 mixture of French and English, or English translated from French, 

 and with the French accent. They seemed very merry, espe 

 cially those who were jet black. Some of the Creoles also, both 

 of French and Spanish extraction, like many natives of the south 

 of Europe, were very dark. 



Amid this motley group, sprung from so many races, we en 

 countered a young man and woman, arm-in-arm, of fair complex 

 ion, evidently Anglo-Saxon, and who looked as if they had recently 

 come from the north. The Indians, Spaniards, and French stand 

 ing round them, seemed as if placed there to remind us of the suc 

 cessive races whose power in Louisiana had passed away, while 

 this fair couple were the representatives of a people whose domin 

 ion carries the imagination far into the future. However much 

 the moralist may satirize the spirit of conquest, or the foreigner 



