The Nevada journal., 1853-10-07
Yellow Fever In New Orleans.
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

To verify the many horrible reports of
the doings among the dead. we the other
day visited the cemeteries. In every street
were long professions trampling to the
music Of funeral marches. In the coun-
tenances of plodding passengers were the
lines Of anxiety and grief, and many a
door was festoon' d with black and white
hangings, the voiccless witnesses of wailing
and of sorrow. On the one hand slowly
swept the long corteges of the wealthy,
nodding with plumes, and drawn by pranc-
ing horses, rejoicing in the funeral vanities !;
on another, the hearse of the citizen soldier
proceeded by measured music, enveloped
in warlike panoply, and followed by the
noisy tread of men under arms while
there again the pauper was trundled to his
long home on ricketty cart, with boy
for driver, who rhistled as he went, and
swore clreless oath as he urged his mule
or spawned horse to trot, making haste
with another morsel contributed to the
grand banquet Of death. Now among the
steeples was heard the Ginning Of the bells,
as of gheules up there, mingling their
hoarse voices as in chorus of graduation
over the ranks Of fallen mortality. Anon
from some lowly tenement trilled the low
wall of mother for the child of her af-
fections-while from the corner opposite
burst the song of some low bacchanal,
mingling ribaldry with sentiment, or swear.
ing a prayer or two, as the humor moved
him.
The skies wore delusive aspect. Above
was all cloudless sunshine, but little in
keeping with the black melancholy that
enveloped all below. Gu: along the high
ways that lead to the cities of the dead,
and still the tramp of funeral crowds knew
no cessation. Up rolled the volumes Of
dust from the busy roads, and the plumes
of the death carriages nodded in seeming
sympathy to the swaying expresses of the
swamp, enveloped in their dun apparelling
of weeping moss-ft garments for such a
scene.
At the gathering points carriages accu-
mulated, and vulgar teamsttrs, as they
iostled each other in the press, mingled the
course Jest with the ribald oath; no sound
but of profane malediction and of riotous
mirth, the clang of whip thongs and the
rattle of wheels. AT the gates, the winds
brought intimation of the corruption work
ing within. Not puff but was laden with
the rank atmosphere of rotton corpses.-
Inside they were'piled by ffties, exposed
10 the heat of the sun, swollen with cor
ruption, bursting their coffin lids, and SUM-
dering, as if by physical effort, the lig-
aments that bound their hands and feet,
and extending their rigid limbs in every
outre attitude. What feast of horrors
Inside, corpses piled in pyramids-and
without the gates, old and withered crones
and fat huckster women, fretting IN their
own grease, disposing ice cream and con-
fectionery, and brushing away with brooms
made of bushes, the green bottle-fies that
hovered on their merchandise, and that
anon buzSed away to drink dainty inhal-
ations from the green and fostering corpses,
Mammon, at the gates, was making thrift
outside by the hands OF bis black and
sweaty minions, that rendered sweet-meats
and cooling beverages to the throngs o
mourners or of idle spectators, who inhal
ing the fumes Of rotting bodies, already
|.'heayed the gorge )" while within th,