Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/127

 is not disgraceful, nay, it is not even unfashionable, to be poor in Louisiana.

The sound of approaching music now fell upon Philip's ear, and a pair of mounted officers galloped through the street crying, "Make room for Comus and his merry crew!" A stir of excitement quickens the fluttering of fans and feathers, and the world's people press forward in their anxiety to catch the first glimpse of the great procession. The boys who have been wrestling for money tossed from the tribunes, scramble up the supports, the lamp-posts, the gutters, whereever a foot-hold may be had, and the crowd surges with suppressed excitement. A band of music precedes the pageant. It is the same band that a few days before passed through this street to the strains of a funeral march accentuated by muffled drums. Dusky torch-bearers walk on either side of the vast floats, drawn by richly caparisoned horses, led by ebony grooms. On the cars scenes from the mythology of a great Oriental nation are represented. Here we have the Mongolian Olympus, with its gods and goddesses in superb array, reclining in luxurious attitudes before a superb banquet. A war-scene comes next, spirited and artistic in its grouping. An ice-hell where frosted devils sit among snow and icicles precedes the more familiar hell of fire, where the hoofed and horned demons prod one another