16 



new specimens I found there well compensated me for the long 

 walk I had to take in the heat of the mid-day's sun, for my attempt 

 of hiring a horse had failed from the fact that the few disposable 

 horses in town were all affected with the distemper. 



BRASHEAR CITY AND FRANKLIN ST. MARY PARISH. 



As soon as circumstances permitted, I set out for St. Mary parish, 

 for, being one of the richest of the gulf parishes, I supposed it 

 would offer a fine field for botanizing. To travel from New Orleans 

 to Brashear City it is necessary to cross the river in the Jackson 

 park ferryboat, and the railroad cars start at 8 o'clock in the morn- 

 ing from Algiers, and reach Brashear City at 12 o'clock, M. The 

 country through which Morgan's Texas Railroad passes is rich in 

 alluvial soil, and the sugar, cotton and corn plantations I saw were 

 generally in good condition; and if the crops had, in a few places, a 

 sickly appearance, it was not the fault of the soil, but was owing to 

 the want of steady labor to keep the fields clean from grass and 

 weeds. 



Brashear City is scattered over a considerable extent of ground, 

 but its appearance does not correspond with its high sounding title. 

 It is only a jumble of mean and insignificant looking one-story 

 houses, and has not a single regularly built up street. It is, how- 

 ever, of some importance in a commercial point of view, for here all 

 the cattle are landed from the Texas steamers. It is the terminus of 

 Morgan's New Orleans and Texas Railroad, and is the point of de- 

 parture of the Galveston and Rockport steamers by Berwick's Bay, 

 which, by the by, is not an arm of the sea, as might be supposed, 

 but a kind of inland fresh water bay interposed between the Atchafa- 

 laya river and its mouth. But notwithstanding that Brashear City 

 is an inland se port, and the terminus of a railroad well patronized, 

 it is nevertheless a nondescript place, and it has not a single 

 regularly laid out wagon road leading from there to any part of the 

 world. I suppose that its water and railroad communication renders 

 all other roads a superfluity. It has the Atchafalaya river and 

 Berwick's bay on the west, and Lake Palourde lies east of it, while 

 Bayou Bceuf empties below the town into Berwick's Bay, and thus 

 encloses a triangular strip of land which forms an island called 

 Tiger inland. 



