The southern enterprise. [volume] (Greenville, S.C.) 1854-1870, 1856-02-28

principal thing that ineets,AHd almost wcartes
the eye. Inthe shipping section II is scattered
about III comparatively small quantities
and ia small bales having gone through the
cotton presses. In the steamboat section, Il
verify looks as il all creation had been rails.
ing cotton. Whole acres ofcoiton, piled to
various attitudes, in some places over twenty
feet, loom upon the vision; here ranged svs-
tenaticaliy into regular Sehastopols, with
their Malakoffs and Redans, aud there reck.
lessly heaped into Alps--all sarmounted 10y
little psrticolored consignee-hsgs flu,,ering
in the breeze.
But, tremendous as is the accumulation Of
cotton, cotton is not all, by any meant. The
tobacco hogsheads end flour barrels, pork
barrels and whisky barrels Of the West, con
stitute o mighty army and the army is de-
fed in its might by the sugar liogsl.eads
anil inoasses barrels Of our own region, But
then the grain sacks Of the West give that
section the preponderance in bulk. The ar
tieles We have named constitute the great
bulk of the chaos Of produce that gorges the
steamboat landings; but there are thousand
other articles of produce or inanufi c,ure, from
the thousands Of farms and settlements in
tho Great Valley, that we could not begin
to enumerate, even If our readers would have
trbc patience torcad sho list Three million
dollars would not purchase the produce 10 be
taken in a one sweep of the vision.
Much Of this produce has been damaged
by the recent rairs. In ordinary seasons,
there are either enough drays to house the
goods, or enough tarpaulins to protect them
from the rain. But latterIv, under the un-
precedented outgushing ef the Western cor
nucopia, both drays and tsfpauiius lave f,l.
len Immensely short of the demand There
are thousands Of drays that work from early
dawn till night, hauling away produce but
no sooner is gap made on the platform,
than another mountain Of cotton is seen
coming down the river, with the chimneys
of asteamboat sticking out Of it, or some
lazy looking steamer wearing double-breas-
ted vest Of grain-sacks or lardkegs, and n
paunch so heavy that she locks as if ready
TO take dise---and in another hour the gap
is no more. s = a3s ~ > -
The tarpanlins, are mostly engaged all the
| time, by either the commission houses or
| the regular steamers, at fifty cents day for
each, whether there is freight TO come or
not, or whether it rains or shines. Each tar
pauin Is about the size Of an ordinary car.
pet. During the recent rains, the tarpaulins
of course, have been monopolized, either by
| those who own them, or at the standing
rates, by those who always have them engag
cd. On Wednesday, there was such an
amount of dry produce on the Ievec, when
the rain came up, that offers Of five dollars &
| piece for tarpaulins went begging. As the
tarpauiins could not be had at any price, pro
perty was damaged to the extent of thou
sands of dollars. 4,,s
We have so far touched only upon the in
animate or quiescent scenery Of the levee
To describe the hustle that prevails at al
times, would require dagueri eotypo apparat
us rather than pen. We will allow abou
fifty persons to each ofthe seventy steamboat
and steamship, and the two hundred an,
forty sail vessels that are moored along tb
leyee; nakinga a river popniation Of over fiji
Teen thousand souls; all Of whom are onth,
levee at some time or other during the day
Then there are several thousand draymen
several thousand longshoremcn, or laborers
negroes, aud Irish, who work in gangs, load
ing and unloading vessels by the job; ever,
man having n cotton hood in Ills belt; anS
indefinite thousands of travellers. Immigrants
merchants, clerks, weighers, inspectors, police
men, cabmen, loafers, pick-pockets aud scav
engers--a human menagerie, with speci
mems from every cline under the sun--thos,
of Ireland, Germany and Africa, furnishing
the larger proportion and each individua
pursues his paticuiar line Of duty, regardles
Of the multitudes around him. We ma,
! thus safely estimate that our Cosmopolitan
Exchanged is daily attended by at least fft,
thousand people.
| To make ones way along the levee-walk
ing, as 1t were, through vast human haleid
escope, in which every step presents nev
combination Of faces and costur,ies, with eos
responding changes Of sound aud languag
to tho ear-squeezing through the marrow
lanes in the freight, scaling the freight pile
when tue lanes are clioked, jumping eve
4 dray's tails, nndlf mules necks, and out G
the way Of tumbling bales and rolling bar
ls-noticing the currents Of commerce n
they minglc and intertwinc in every dire,
ton the boxes, barrels and crates Of foreig
countries clashing with the boxes, barrel
and bales Of our own country. and exchane
ing places ia store.houses, and on ships an
s,eamboats- constitutes a physical and mer
: tai exercise, the like of which cannot be ol
tanned elsewhere in the wide world, in Chri
tian land or Pagan. To the masses wh