and importation; the French keep magazines and stores; and the Spaniards do all the small retail of grocers' shops, cabants, and lowest order of drinking-houses. People of colour, and free negroes, also keep inferior shops, and sell goods and fruits.

resort.

There is no exchange, nor any other general place of mercantile After sun-set, the inhabitants promenade on the Levée. The place is very favorable for the purpose, the shipping extending along the bank, and the captains and others employed within sight. Ships have race-boards to the bank, which gives them an access so easy, that they are often visited from the shore; and it is no uncommon thing to see the sprightly dance on the deck, or the bottle circulate under the awning, while the whole town promenade the Levée, or repose under the orange-trees which decorate it in partial spots.

The shipping at present extends the entire length of the Levée, and for the most part are moored three a-breast. It is composed of all nations. The merchandize for the Mississippi is exactly similar to that of the West-India trade the race of people being nearly the same, and the climate not essentially differing.

The prices are as high as in any of the English markets. Fruit and vegetables alone are cheaper.

The

There are no good taverns. custom among strangers is to live in boarding-houses, which charge from ten to fifteen dollars per week, for board and lodging, and an inferior kind of French claret for drink. Persons of good taste, and who respect their health, find their own wine. The table is excellent, being covered with fish, soup, fowls, roasted, boiled, and stewed meats, with vegetables. The dinner-hour is

three.

Coffee is served soon after dinner, after which it is customary to enjoy a siesto.

The instant the luminary sets, animation begins to rise, the public walks are crowded; the billiard-rooms resound; music strikes up, and life and activity resume their joyous career.

LETTER XLIII.

Farther particulars of New Orleans-its amuse

ments and inhabitants.

New Orleans,

November, 1806.

AS the amusements of the ladies and gentlemen of this city are generally distinct, I must give you a sketch of each under separate heads.

The Americans, since their arrival here, have been so occupied by politics and legislation, that their minds have never been sufficiently unbent to form a course of pleasures for themselves; therefore the indulgence of the table, cards and billiards, are the principal

This

fountain of the enjoyments of the men. It is not so with the French gentleinen: their pleasures are for ever varied, and of a nature to be participated by the most delicate of the female sex. casts over them a considerable degree of refinement, and the concert, dance, promenade, and petit souper, are conducted with as much attention as at Paris or Rome. At times, the limits of the French entertainments extend from a partial circle and pervade the whole

town.

Besides the French and American amusements of the men, I can still trace some old Spanish recreations. On returning to my lodging late at night, I have more than once heard the guitar under the windows of a sleeping beauty, or the harp delicately touched under a corridore over which some charming girl attentively reclined. Songs too are often heard in the silence of the night.