122 SUGAR-MILL. [CHAP. XXIX, 



raised above the level of the sea, or when it is forming its bed, 

 as to the south of New Orleans, below the sea-level. 



Above the English Turn, and within a few miles of the me 

 tropolis, I landed on the famous battle-ground, where the English, 

 in 1815, were defeated, and saw the swamp through which the 

 weary soldiers were required to drag their boats, on emerging from 

 which, they were fired upon by the enemy, advantageously 

 placed on the higher ground, or river-bank. The blunder of the 

 British commander is sufficiently obvious even to one unskilled in 

 military affairs. They are now strengthening the levee at this 

 point, for the Mississippi is threatening to pour its resistless cur 

 rent through this battle-ground, as, in the delta of the Ganges, 

 the Hoogly is fast sweeping away the celebrated field of Plassy. 



At one of the landings on the left bank of the river, Dr. Car 

 penter went with me to see a large sugar-mill, in the management 

 of which an Anglo-American proprietor had introduced all the 

 latest improvements. There was machinery, worked by steam, 

 for pressing the j uice out of the sugar-canes, and large boilers and 

 coolers, with ducts for the juice to flow down into enormous vats. 



We heard much of the injury done to the sugar plantations 

 and gardens by the cocoa, or nut grass (Cyperus hydra), which 

 I had seen springing up even in the streets of New Orleans be 

 tween the pavement stones. It increases by suckers as well as 

 by seed ; but it is only of late years that it has ravaged Louisi 

 ana. If horses be brought from an estate where- this plant is 

 known to exist, their hoofs are carefully cleaned, lest the soil, ad 

 hering to them should introduce some fibers or tubers of this 

 scourge. 



Although impatient to return to the city, we could riot help 

 being amused when we learnt that our boat and all its passengers 

 were to be detained till some hogsheads of sugar were put on 

 board, some of the hoops of which had got loose. A cooper had 

 been sent for, who was to hammer them on. &quot; You may there 

 fore go over the sugar-mill at your leisure.&quot; I observed that all 

 whose native tongue was English, were indignant at the small 

 value which the captain seemed to set on their time ; but the 

 Creole majority, who spoke French, were in excellent humor. A 



