Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 4).djvu/373

 *ductors to be no novices. After baptising an infant in a closet near me, the sermon was introduced by singing, in which a number of boys and men were engaged, accompanied by the soft sound of an organ, after which, one of the priests, (there being three) delivered in the Spanish language a discourse on the sanctification of the Sabbath. The energetick manner in which this was done, gave me reason to believe he felt the force of his own arguments, and the necessity of a reformation of the Sabbath day in New Orleans. The service was, as is usual among the Romans, performed in Latin. It concluded with singing, reading, &c. and I returned to my lodgings.

At 3 o'clock, P. M. six or eight of the boarders with myself and the doctor took a walk about two miles from the city to view an Indian encampment of the Choctaw nation. We had a shade of full bearing orange trees, to the gate which we had to pass, near which marched a centinel to guard a fort a little below, detached from the palisadoes which surrounded the city. Outside of the gate we saw a large circular shade for drying and manufacturing bricks, under which were upwards of fifty Indians of both sexes, chiefly intoxicated, singing, drinking, rolling in the dirt, and upon the whole exhibiting a scene very disgustful. We soon came to another company of {336} ten men sitting in the middle of the road, all intoxicated, amongst them was one standing, with a bottle of rum in his hand, whose contents he alternately administered to the rest, first by shaking the bottle and then pouring part of its contents into their mouths. We proceeded, and in our way out, we met numbers of Indian women with large bundles of wood on their backs, first tied together and then held by a strap carried over their foreheads. Thus loaded, they proceed to the city, while their husbands, (if they may be allowed this appellation) are spending their time in indolence and intoxi