The morning call., 1892-11-06
A Wondrous Place That Is
Little Known.
BARRA TARA 1T is CALLED.
The Fertility Of Dozen States Dumped
Along It Annually Makes 1t Rich
Indeed.
Written for THE MORNING CALL.

the better half IL not the bigger half Of San
francisco was originally settled by people
who came 10 us through the mouth OF the
mighty river. To this day our b0otmakers
are the best this side OF Paris. / know sew
eral ladies and gentlemen of New York.
Old San FGanciscans, who still have their
footwear made here by our French creole
bootmakers. Our cooks are the best this
side of Paris; that is. so long as we employ
the original creole French cooks or their
descendants. our free-lunch li5erality-but
let's get along 1 only wanted TO say that
we owe lot TO New Orleans. And now
New Orleans is being dumped upon and
literally drowned year after year want
to turn on the lime-light once more
and lay the responsibility where it
belongs 1t is a big thing to make new
State. There is lot of noise and bang and
patriotism and politics about it: the new
Senators, the new seats of government and
all that; but it is bigger thing and a
better thing to save an old State than TO
make new one.
If were Louisiana l would send up the
Mississippi to the Worlds Fair at the other
end OF the river miniature plaster cast or,
at least. picture Of the fearful creyasse
which tore its way through plantations to
the gulf from above New Orleans and
sucked down its throat the very ship which
the Government sent TO inspect and report;
| would send map Of the broken levees,
dikes. drowning cities. deserted plantations,
all tie desolatiOn, indeed, that this destruc-
tlOn of forests and dumping of debris has
wrought. and | would send the bill of costs.
and send nothing else, say nothing else. l
think this appeal would go straight to the
good. honest American heart and help it 10
set things right in those drowning States
down the great river.
But enough OF this sad subject 1t Is not
my plaee to elaborate. l only wanted to set
down the idea; ii is the privilege of the
South 10 do as she pleases with il. And
now let MS go down to the mouth of the
river. to "Barra Land" or Barren Land. as
IL was called of old. the kingdom Of Ger
yantes' Sancho PanZa. Strange how little
the great men of the old world knew of this
In one of his plays Shakespeare speaks of
ships from Mexico. in another he means to
mention the Bermudas. Burns speaks of q
Newfoundland dog as
whelped in a country far abroad,
Where boatmen gang 10 FISH for cod
And Byron gets in a whole lot about Daniel
Boone. besides laying some nasty sins at
our doors; but as rule we have been ig-
nored.
Bsrra Tara. so called, is the very rich
est part of this globe. 1t must have been
But now. with the fertility of more than a
dozen States dumped along there annually
il Is rich as cream is rich.
The fish, fowl. oysters of Barra Tara
an, the oystersl No oysters Ia the world
like these for flavor. size and sweetness
They are so enormous in size that-but let
me Illustrate their size by an anecdote of
the war. A Yankee captain, hungry and
worn out with hewing his way with his
sword from Chicago to the sea, as General
Logan had put it. sat down in a French
restaurant in New Orleans, and while wait
ing for plate OF the famous Barra Tara
raw oysters. saw that French creole sit
ting az the same little sidetable was turning
over and over with his fork a solitary and
most tempting biyalve of enormous size and
eying it ruefuly.
''Wby don't you eat him?"
BY gar! l find him too big for me. You
Certainly. Not too big for me. See
this" and snatehiDg the fork from the
FrenchmRn the oyster was gone al a gulp.
The little Frenchman shrugged his snoul-
ders, looked at the gallant officer a moment
and then said in fiji of enthusiastic ad-
miraiion:
by gar Monsieur Capitaine, yoa are one
mighty brave man! / did try him three
times Eat way, but he no stay"
The captain threw up his arms and-hs
oysterI
The soil along the river bank is so rich
that weeds. woods, vines, trench close and
hard on tins heels of the plowman. A plan
tatlon W III almost perish from the earth, as
1t were. by few years of abandonment
And so u is that you see miles and miles on
either slde-paTishes on top of parishes in
fact-fast returning to barbarism, dragging
the blacks by thousands down TO below the
level Of brutes with them, as YOU descend
from New Orleans toward the m mouth of the
mighty river, nearly one hundred miles
from the once beautiful Crescent City"
Alb: the superstition OF these poor blacks!
You see hundreds of little white houses,
OLD quarters" and all tenantless now. save
one or two on each plantation. Cheap
sugar and high wages as compared with
old times OF slavery-but then the enormous
cost OF keeping up the levees, and above all,
tile continual peril to life and property ali
the time, with a mile of swift, muddy water
sweeping seaward high above your head
these things are making desert OF the rich
est lands on earth. We are gaining ground
IN the West. bat we are losing ground in the
South, the great silent South
vi course, the world, we, civilization will
turn back TO this wOndrous region some
day, when we have settled the West; for
the mouth of the mightiest river on
the globe Is fact; it is the mouth
by which this young nation was nourisEed
In its younger days. and we cannot ignore
II IN the end. however willing we may be to
do so now. Again. say to these drowning
States and cities. Send your broken dikes,
dams, levees. your drowning cities. the
cost, the increased cost of keeping the
rarest and richest part of this globe above
water-send the details of the damage and
the Dill Tor the damage to Chicago for the
Worlds Fair. You, the drowned-out
Latins, send these to the rich and large
hearted Saxons at the other end of the
mighty river, where they are to celebrate
the deeds OF the great Latin discoverer,
and send nothing else. Why, you are being
crowned ont almost in sight of Saint Kit.
Strange how wild beasts and all sorts of
queer creatures are overrunning the region
down there, too. growing like weeds, in
creaslng as man decreases. i found a sort
OF marsh bear here. He looks like the sloth
bear tUrsus lablatus) of the Ganges, India,
as you see him in the Zoo of London Only
he is not soth. by any means. The ne
groes. the only human creatures found on
these abandoned and now fever-strieken
plantations, are superstitiously afraid of
MN, ana their dogs, very numerous and
good coon dogs. too, will not touch him. His
ieet are large and fiat. to accommodate him
IN getting over the soft ground, while his
shaggy and misshapen body Is very thin
and light His color is as unloyely as his
shape-a sort OF faded dirty brown or pale
blue, with a rim of dirty white about the
eyes that makes him look as il he wore
spectacles when he stops and looks AT you.
AS he is not fit TO eat because he lives on
lsn ana oysters. sportsmen will not fire at
MIN; ana as the poor. superstitious voodo-
W0rsnlplnR negroes, and their dogs, too, run
away as soon as he Is seen, he has quite q
habit OF stopping and looking at you through
his queer spectacles as long as you are in
sight. de looks to be sort OF secondhand
bear, his shaggy, faded, dirty coat of hair
looking as IL he had been stuffed, like an old
sofa, Win the stulhng coming out-a very
secondhand appearance, to be sure.
Now. as have always had fondness for
sklns-having slept OH them and under them
all my life, making both bed and CARPET OF
Them, as any one can see who visits my
cabin in Washington or my cottages here
Il taH
skin Of this queer marsh bear which the
poor negroes both adore and dread as a sort
oil devil. But as no one liked him well
enough TO kill him, must do ii myself;
and with this object, along with my duty TO
describe the drowning plantations, Ileft New
OrlaanR with Iwn pnnd onna and ann,nIhinr