After leaving Natchez, we steamed away with renewed vigour towards that
centre of slavery and dissipation, New Orleans, and were in due course
moored to the levee, which extends the whole river-length of the city,
and is about a mile in extent. The first news I heard, and which alarmed
me not a little, was that the yellow fever was at this time raging in
the city. New Orleans is just fifty-four miles from the mouth of the
Mississippi, and being built at the time of the Orleans Regency,
contains many ancient structures. Its inhabitants, even to this day, are
to a great extent either French or of Gaelic origin. It lies exceedingly
flat, which causes the locality to be unhealthy and ill-suited to
European constitutions; the soil is, however, fertile and rich; this is,
perhaps, to be accounted for by the constant irrigation it undergoes
from the overflowing of the Mississippi, which, like another Nile,
periodically submerges the country around its banks. The town is
situated on the east side of the river.
The vast quantity of shipping of all classes in the harbour is a very
striking feature in this extensive and wealthy city.
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