The New Orleans Democrat., 1876-07-16
OLD CROPS.
REV UONDERFUL pRODUCgfONs or
.INtfENT LOUISI1Nf
Thc Nipcrinc-sayoyannc, scnpcr vircns
Wan Plant aud Other botanical
CuriOsitics or the Last Century.

Oh. how this world Is given TO lying"
Our cotton, our sugar and our tobacco
plants are but strangers and carpet
baggers, that have come among us, O
very late years. The autochthons, the
children that sprang from our virgin
soil, are gone, uprooted TO make way
for some richer foreigner, cast aside anC
forgotten altogether. The pictures tha,
our early visitors paint of Louisiana
forests, fields and swamps, would now
be scarcely recognized, telling, as the,
do, of strange, wild, mysterious plants
with fairy powers, of forests, now ex.
tinct, OF magic trees, as old as the land
itself that once waved over our fertile
soil.
The plants OF ancient Louisiana
scarcely deserve this fate. Were they
able to perform now the wonders and
miracles they worked for travellers a
century ago, did they preserve their
virtues and powers, they would now be
our most profitable crops and dethrone
King Cotton and Queen Cane from their
dominion over us.
But alas The vegetable Indians, like
their red brethren, have faded alto
gether from our State, or, il they re-
main, like them have lost their wild
and savage virtues. Civilization has
changed even our botany, inside of n
century; these wonder-working plants
| have lost their cunning, and are now
but simple roots, altogether forgotten
or peddled around the market by dirty
Indian squaws. Civilization has at
tackled our natural history, dissipated
its wonders; soothed even the ferocous
crocodile, once the terror OF our visitors,
into the quiet, peaceful, sleeping all-
gator, never guilty of anything worse
than a small roasting pig.
Travellers, It Is true, have always
borne an ill name" for veracity. The
first Of them, Herodotus, disputes with
Satan, to this very day, the title of
father Of lies" This is hardly fair on
the traveller who is seldom the coiner Of
false news, generally the poor dupe
who passes the counterfeit, coin of
others.
An Englishman visits this country
with the intention of book, it is whis-
pered. We are prepared for him. he is
caught, taken in charge, carried around
hither and thither through the raging
sun, hurried up immense flights Of
Stail , anu JHGu uuIIleu uOWD again like
Mother Goose's King Of Spain, perse-
cuted by female autograph collectors
and poets, tortured by long winded or
ators, pump-handled by the mob, then,
tired and weary, carried off to some
eating house and stuffed with the vile,
lll-prepared, ungastronomic and indi-
gestlble dinners that our Western breth-
rem eat, during which he is feasted with
wonderful cock-and-bull, fish and sea
serpent stories, and hoaxed in thou
sand ways; and yet, after all that.
wearied, worn and with a ruined
stomach, we expect him. to go home, sift
the truth from the lies, and give us a
fair and complimentary account of his
American trip.
There ought, of course, to be some
little fiction in book of travels to give
it stock. We OF Louisiana can boast of
our full share. M. de Lahontan, priest. |
nobleman, etc., did enough ly-; well, |
was mendacious enough for dozen |
Radical newspapers III "a forlorn hope"
For half century after the |
birth OF his book on Louisiana, ener-
gctlc discoverers and royageltrs sought.
and sought in vain, for mis- famous Dead
River. the longest and greatest in the
world, and it was only after his death
discovered that the whole book was a
fable, the long list OF Indian tribes he
had met, conceived entirely from the re-