The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-02-22


is brimful of mud, mules and mulattoes.
In due time the towering and complicated
upper works of huge steamboat heave in sight
where the muddy river swirls around a sharp
bend. The slight curvature of the earth's sur
face in say three miles is sufficient to conceal
her hull proper, so deeply laden and low does
1t set. She is the st. Louis boat, bound for
New Orleans.
When she lands your correspondent hustles
on board. He has to cross the wharf boat, an
institution kept by a sort of local brigand or
robber baron, who taxes everything within his
narrow realm. Wharfage must be paid on his
trunk, which is then delivered plus large area
OF the State of Mississippi clinging to its Sides
And then, aboard the boat, for four DAYS we
rest, and muse and contribute to the mainte-
nance Of the bar.
All, Mississippi, thou grand "Father of
Waters" waters which to say the least must be
quadroons, since their father is such yellow
fellow, how has thy glory departed? I? Where
now are the poetry, the romance, the character
fstic Americanism of thine attributes to which
all ante-bellum literature testified?
Where are the gamblers, with cards in hand
and pistol in pocket, who thronged the cabins
of thy steamboats,, and alleviated the embarrass-
ment OF wealth in the days of yore and the
nights of the Eastern sucker?
Where are thine itinerant Methodist ex-
horters who held their meetings in the ladies'
cabin, and made the "social hall'' to ring again
with their suphurous prisons?
where are thy gangs of roustabouts, leaping
from boat to shore and from shore to boat with
the fat pine-knots for the ruddy, glaring fur
mace WHAT'S become of the furnace, too {?
Say, don't yer know it's more aesthetic to burn
pine-knots than it is to burn soft coal? What's
der matter wild yer, anyhow?
Gone, alas, all is gone, like last years flood
wood-swept down the river of progress to the
gulf of oblivion. Gone, alack-
'Great Scott what's that thing?"
A sprangling mass of prehensile legs climbs
slowly and hesitatingy down over the writer's
hat brim, pauses, gently brushes his face, and
retreats. He leaps from his chair in great agi-
tation to be greeted with guffaw of laughter.
1t is only little joke, in the shape of a toy
spider, constructed by an Arkansaw post
master
"All right, gentlemen. Laugh is on me.
Whatll you take?'
The evening of the fifth day. AS the twilight
deepens and obsoures the neatly whitewashed
domlciles, the towering chimneys of the sugar
houses, and the huge live oaks which ornament
the banks, the blue-white glare of the lights of
New Orleans is reflected from the sky on our
larboard bow. We approach speedily, and
amid an anticipatory silence, broken only by
the chin music of Northern man, who four
hours ago, saw oranges and sugar cane growing
for the first time, and who is now telling the
ladies all about them.
We creep along the levee until signaled to
land at certain spot. And then, the landing
stage being lowered, there is a break for the
shore and grand wallow in the mud of the
Mardi Gras.
Mardi Gras morning dawns cold, abominably
cold, and overcast. Your correspondent runs
ashore, is settled within the French quarter in
side OF two hours, and gives himself over to
sightseeing and to misgivlngs on the subject of
quinine.
Let no formal account of the festivities be set
down here. The professions are not only grand,
they are uncanny. There is something over
poweringly mystical in the sight of full-grown
man with waist like bull-calf standing on
huge ioat and personating the fairy of an Ori-
entail tale. Add to this impression the effect
produced by the man in question wearing full
suit of clothes under his tights, and having cut
the mouth out of his expressionless female mask
In order to comfortably smoke a big cigar, and
we realize that we stand in the presence of one
OF the most impressive pageants that ever elic-
tied the approving grunts from crowd or the
adjectives from bewildeled reporter
But the byways of theSFrench quarter with
their spontaneous appreciation of the mat
ter in hand and their seventy-ive cent com
plete masquerade costumes commend them
selves more strongly to the appreciatiye mind.
There is somewhat of decidedly Gallo iollity
IN the masked mingling of street boys, young
daughters of the bourgeoise, and street ne
crosses, all rowing about in aimless merriment
and apparently with no better nor worse in
tent1on than to show themselves and see all
that is going on. One old lady, negress of
about fifty, clad in red velvet turban, a blue
velvet gown reaching to her knees and pro-
1usion OF gllded necklaces, did indeed suggest
the propriety of some one buying beer for her,
but this was about the widest outbreak of
rampant and uncontrolled vice which could be
found without being hunted for.
Mardi Gras night sees the most brilliant of
the street professions. 1t is considered proper
for stranger, if he be an elderly gentleman, to
show his appreciation of this pageant by fixing
his eyes securely upon it and then stepping nom
chalently into one of the deep, stone-walled
cutters by which the streets are intersected.
thereby lacerating his vertebre and giving the
authorities at the Charity Hospital chance to
tunity to do this should not be neglected.
A discussion of the balls of Mardi Gras night.
which vary in price Of admission from three
dollars to ten cents, would lead to so long
lecture upon the amusements of this quaint
city that 1t must be postponed until the next
letter from FLEUR DE LYs SABLE