New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1861-03-30
A VISIT TO THE ALGERlNES.

| VISIT TO THE ALGERNEs.
Yesterday being destitute of items, of our usual
| threadbare kind, (the day being Good friday we
| rambled off from our tiresome old beat. The af-
ternoon was so bright, spring-ike, sweet, fresh,
| and generally glorious, that we wandered to the
"great levee," (as Talk on Change so truly calls
it) and took down. on our mental tablets, thoug-
and items, more or less. ~
We took philosophical view of the immense
panorama of cotton bales, boxes, barrels, and the
thousand other odds and ends that cumber the
great platform, which is the lap of the Mississippi
valley, and into which lap is poured the wealth of
that mighty and greatest of earth's cornucopias,
the Mississippi river.
We looked at the long line of steamers gigantic
floating palaces and little bob-tailed explorers of
the bayous, mingled promscuousy together, but
all nosing the levee with equal ambition and pride
all their mighty maws open, some gorging, others
disgorgng, and some smoking mp for new bat
tie with the mighty and muddy river.
We looked over the great multitude of humanity
which surged and boiled around amid the piled-up
wealth of the valley, and around the noses of the
hungry steamboats,. Hibernian and African Jehus,
the roar of whose wheeled vehicles came upon the
ear, sonorous and steady, like the rushing of many
waters the laborng gangs, improving their muscle
in healthy tussle with the bales and the barrels and
the boxes the discharging and receiving clerks,
the commission house clerks the merchants
brokers, captains, mates strangers of all nations,
vagrom boys, idlers of different degrees, and ped
dlers of many kinds grand potpourri of human
ity, such as may not be seen at any other port in
America.
We looked up and down the river, and saw the
two horns of the city crescent lined with fatook-
ing ships shining in the sunshine, and leaning
warmly to their wharves-speaking silently of the
many far-off countries, and quietly smiling the as
surance that so long as there are wharyes in New
Orleans, there will be ships from all parts of the
globe ever willing and glad to snug up to them
We looked next at the river, mighty, muddy and
rushing high up between banks, searching wick
edly for weak levees, and evidently hungry for its
usual spring feast, its crevasse-lu -lunch upon the
sugar plantations, and, if possible, taste of the
city by way Of dessert as it had in 1649. Wonder
full stream! Saturnne river! The same muddy
and ugly thing that it was when it sullenly swal-
lowed the corpse of the first white man, DeSoto
Now the commercial artery Of the greatest coun-
try Of the Occident with mighty cities ON its
banks; yet more proud, no less wicked, than
when the unbroken green lined its banks, and
when it knew other ripple than that of the wind
the red mans canoe, or the tail of the catfish |!
We feel like abusing tile old river, mighty and
useful as it is. 1t won't become civilized. It
has been praised in all sorts of ways. The
steamboats, have steadily putfed it up for the
last forty years; yet it swallows steamboat
whenever it gets the chance, and in its cavernous
bosom keeps the oaken bones entombcd forever.
Hungry with the taste of DeSoto, it now swallows
up legion of white men each year. Blown-up
and sunken men, murdered, drunken men, suicides,
it matters not whom, it swallows with equal appe-
tte-it doesn't care-t asks questions and it
tells no tales 1t spurns human sympathy and ad-
miration-it tells its secrets only to the fishes.
The great Calhoun once puffed it as an 4" inland
sea 4" yet it has never offered any better acknowl
edgment than that of trying to convert itself into
a sea- to drown out the plantations and homes of
those whom Calhoun loved best. Historians
have praised it; poets have embalmed it in
lasting verse; travellers of all countries have
paid their tribute to its majestic might this re-
porter and q thousand other newspaper men have
tried to say handsome things about it-and yet, if
it could, it would as greediy gulp down the body
of John G. Calhoun, Charles Gayarre, and this re-
porter, as it did that of DeSoto and the brilliant
steamboat crowds, and the hundreds of unknown
and uncaredfor wretches whom murder, alcohol
and suicide did throw upon its soft but dark and
treacherous bosom. Ungrateful, remorseless,
monstrous old river! The rest of our indignation
about the thankless old river we reserve for fu-
ture occasion.
We looked across the river and saw q spire or
two, a few tree-tops and other things indicating
that Algiers was in the old place. Agiers is
good place when you get into it; but, viewed
from this side of the river, it is standing oense
perpetual insult to New Orleans. 1t never looks
New Orleans fairly or openly in the face. 1t
always grins at like a Nlardigras mummer,
through q mask and domino composed of dry
docks, mountain high, ancient ships without bows
Or rudders, venerable STEAMBOATS, "going to seed'
with their sterns this way, and other aged floating
things, which make common cause with the other
things in defyng New Orleans.
Whilst our dandruff was elevated about this con-
duct of Algiers, and whilst we were debating
whether we should go over and see it or not, we
saw the ferry.bO coming, and
(To be continued,)