New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1857-06-25
LAKE SHORE CORRESPONDENCE.
PASS CHRISTIAN, June


Eds. Crescent: If you had been tired and jaded
like myself enervated with long season of mental
toil-dizzy with vertgo-blinded with gaslightlabor
and sick in heart and limb-you would, like me, in
the last days of May have put such little convent
ences as compose your wardrobe into your ample
trunk and with an umbrella in hand and valise
in the other, been discovered cabling it on your way
towards Lake Pontchartrain whereat you step on
board the A No steamer Oregon, to be borne over
the lake-anywhere- from everything like care
and anxiety, with the hope beating up from your
soul that once more you might feel like yourself;
that the breath might once more come free from
your chest and that your shattered might, in
the pure air. be again stilled and quoted by soda
tive impalpably given by nature.
You will confess, like me, probably, as the steamer
surges through the Rigoets, that purer air fills
your lungs and that strength and health impreg-
nate in the breeze So you pick out the easiest chair
you can find, and drawing the Spirit of the Times
from your coat pocket, peruse, with selfsatsfed
feeling its broad columns, till dinner hour and then,
after cigar you resign yourself-the first time for
many day, in the afternoon--to a berth, and get
ftfu and homeopathic doses of sleep-nevertheless,
you are satisfied and complacent.
The day gradually closes, and night, upon her
silver wing, covers the waters with darkness and
as you gaze beyond you up into the sky and through
the black mist beneath it, you find your mind drifting
upon larger expanse-out upon sea unknown in
depth, beyond whose shore you day must pene-
trate-whose mystery shall be swept away, and
knowledge be to you as the +" handwriting upon the
wall y where you shall dwell perchance, within the
circle of the Maker Of the sars-where sin and death
enter not, and life shall be eternal In the darkness
around you, you feel your dependence and inslgnif
canoe. What feather you are upon the great wave
that rolls between time and eternity! and So invok
ing help and wiser knowledge, you seek your berth,
and amidst the rattle of the machinery sink to sleep
that balm of hurt minds-to awake in Mobile, re-
freshed, with new sensations and new hopes.
You may then, as | said, wend your way in the
early morning hour up to the Battle House, where
at the office you find Chamberlain, and his right
hand man, Hildreth. How pleasant they look! what
genial faces what a hearty shake of the hand
Come, you begin to feel better already. You know
the hotel we-you have been there before, often
you look upon it as the best house in the South not
| excepting your own st. Charles.
Mobile to you, is pleasant place at any season.
Step upon the street ali you begin to meet scores
| of frienGs-od amiliars. What cheerful look they
all have Come, they will not let you off; you must
drink with them dine with them; ride with them,
and what not. No excuse it will not avail it is
| the old thing-the same unaltered jovial set. But
\ you came for quiet-not dissipation. You are an
invalid, and need rest and reuvenation. Will they
| let you have it2 We shall see. You must call upon
some estimable friends of the softer SEX You do so
| and are confirmed in your old opinion: that you
scarcely ever met among females SO much intei
gence and refinement, coupled with such personal
attractions and among the males, such manly quail.
ties and hospitality, as in this place called Mobile
You know everybody, and everybody knows you
But you are on your way to Pensacola, and you are
hurried off to avoid the openheartedness and good
ness of the people,
| Like myself, or perhaps, unlike me, you will en-
/ gage passage upon the good schooner Eliza Jane
Capt. Lawrence, and embark her at night fall fol
/ your destination, and as she slips her cables and
glides slowly down the bay, the monotony only
broken by the distant rattle of carriages over the
plank road which skirts the bay shore, and which
you hear quite distnctly-you stretch yourself al
length upon the deck gazing up into the canopy
above you, your thoughts drifting like the vessel that
| bears you here and there, until Inconsistencies
overtakes you.
Out in the Gulf you awake the next morning the
pure sea air tanning your cheek. How beautiful
and fresh it seems! How you contrast it with the
| sickly breeze You have escaped from. You fancy il
will bring some color to your cheek, long since de
parted. and indeed it is much wanted. You contrast
/ your physique with that of sturdy Capt. Lawrence
and his fellows What glow is in their faces, and
the reflection is 'infavorable in your own behalf.
All, ha What's that A fish upon that trailing line
how it struggles unavailingly. 1t proves to be
Spanish mackerel. You almost begin to feel al
though you had caught it, that it had bit for you
especial benefit and breakfast You are right in The
latter conjecture, for presently skipper Lawrence like
the smack Captain in Robin Day, pipes all hand.
down below, with q" breakfast my hearties y and YOU
appetite rather places you in the category of one
the ''hearties of the broad burnt good-humoreG
mariner r
There is little swell on and the % good schooner
Eliza Jane' (as appears by her b. L,) rises and fall
| with not unpleasant motion to you. You are
sailors son. but some fellow passengers including thu
| Captains wife, grow less communicative and seek tn,
| lee rails. You smoke your cigar complacently, ant
chat with the steersman at the helm. But by-aud-by
begin to think that some one has eaten too much dui
and Spanish mackerel. Farther out 10 the gulf yol
are confirmed in the belief-the water is bluer thu
| swell heavier and longer. At dinner there is on,
at table but yourself, the jolly Captain and his sun
burnt ellows-the usual dinner my hearties y having
failed to invoke any other presence, and duff ant
Spanish mackerel are in greater abundance.
As the day advances and the SUI begins to fade il
the west, you weather the fort at the end OF SAINT,
Rosa Island and twilight finds you vending up tn