New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-08-04
The Environs Of New orleans.
NUMBER NINETY-EIGHT.


The EnvirOns of New Orleans.
i
NUMBER NINETY-EIGHT.
In olden times when ascending the Missis-
sippi from New Orleans in the long keel boats,
manned by the Canadian crews, and of which
we have already given a description, this sort
of navigation was carried on always as much
as possible near the river banks, and in the
waters called the eddies, or coUnter-cuTents,
so that the force of the descending stream
might thereby be avoided. In this manner the
boat would be nayigated from point to point
that is to say, when it became necessary, in
order to avoid the strong current Of the river,
to cross over to the other side, the crew would
set or hoist small sail, and drift leisurely
over to the other side, by rowing occasionally
when in the very middle Of the stream, SO as
to drop somewhat lower than from the cross
ing point at the opposite shore, where again
the eddy water or the commencement would
assist the vessel in making her forward move
ment, by the aid of the towing line This
mode of boat navigation, in keel barges, was
the most usual one we have, however known
long sorts of pirogues, manned by dozen of
athletic black boatmen, for the use of the
United States mail, for instance from the city
to the Balize, which used to start every twenty
four hours, for the service of the federal
revenue and who, by dint of strong rowing,
would glide through the Mississippi with the
swiftness of an arrow.
So also on board Of the Balize pilot-boats
! II.
boatmen slaves, no doubt, to the master
pilots, than whom there could be no smarter
sailors and oarsmen. But with all these crews,
black as well as white, the boat songs, when
rowing up or down the river, was then an in
dispensable accompaniment. AS to the black
crews, they We're generally composed of newly
arrived Africans, that is to say, they might
have been introduced into the country just
previous to the transfer of Louisiana in 1908,
or even somewhat later for many people pre-
tend that African slaves were smuggled into
the Mississippi waters, or by the way of
Barataria, or the Lafourche and other bayous,
nay, much later At all events we ourselves
can attest as mentioned in former number
that upon plantation belonging to the United
arrived negroes from the coast of Guinea, or
Africa, who had been carried into the Missis-
sippi in 1916 as captured prize by the United
States armed vessels, and who were afterwards
disposed Of by public sale under the United
States marshal's hammer to the highest bid
der, that being then the law for the disposal
of captured African slavers. Subsequently
10, low +1,a
Africans were carried to the free colonies
of Liberia, or some other place out of the
United States. As stated before, most of the
African laborers boatnen and others whom
we then had occasion to observe were new or
quite green hands among them they would
make use Of no other tongue than their own
Congo calabaSh of which, of course, stranger
good of ear, they generally would soon learn
some words of the creole language, then
spoken by everybody, white and colored, not
the pure French, which is now mostly in vogue
among the Franco-American population. of
the creole French there were then two differ
emit dialects-that of the Louisiana creole, and
that of the st. Domingo creole, Each of these
differently, and it was particularly observed of
the st. Domingo creole language that this had
to be spoken with a certain air and tone of
languishment, no doubt peculiar to the lati-
tude of the country from which it came whilst
the Louisiana creole had no such affected ac-
cent or style. Our readers will, of course,
excuse us from giving them any particular
Of
language, the more so that we have observed
vast alteration in the use of the present
creole patois, both modes of former pronun-
citation having been melted together, as it,
were, and, in fact, a much greater use of good
French being admixed at present in this
idiom.
Hence, we may conclude that even progress
has been made in the creole patois, and a
great many of the former servile class, that
would speak no other tongue, now pride them
selves upon using the most exquisite French
or Partisan terms of phrases. We had, how
ever in the ancient times, among the African
immigrants, both among the males as well as
among the females, certain select species, who
would shine as patterns or models among their
countrymen. These were generally styled
kings or princes, at least it was pretended
that they had been sons or children of such
high personages in the African wilds and had
been thence torn away by the slave catchers,
who had brought them over the sea. Whether
descendants from princes or not, We must ac-
knowledge that some of them, who We're
pointed out to US, as such, in the Congo
dances, or Sunday afternoons, certainly were