Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/69

Rh the novel are amusing and full of refreshment; so I feel it in this case, and I am delighted to be here.

I left New Orleans early in the morning of the 28th of January. It was a beautiful, sunshiny morning, and as warm as summer. My friends accompanied me on board “The Philadelphia.” Lerner H. came to take leave of me, and gave me a red camellia still in bud. His frank, cordial countenance, and that of Anne W., with its pure features, and the quiet fire in the dark eyes, were the last which I saw in the saloon below deck.

When I went on deck, the Crescent city stood bathed in morning sunlight, and the water of the harbour lay like a clear mirror in its light. I stood and enjoyed the delightful air and the expansive scene, but when the ladies came, with their “how do you like America?” &c., my morning joy was disturbed; but I placed them among the goats.

We proceeded on our way, and I seated myself with a book in my hand on the piazza aft, and contemplated the shores and lived—high life. For there I could be alone, and the scenery of the shores was like a beautiful, southern fairy scene. We advanced down the Mississippi upon that arm which falls into Atschafalaga Bay, and thence into the Mexican Gulf. One plantation after another shone out upon the shore with its white houses enclosed in thickets of orange and cedar trees, flowering oleanders, aloes, and palmettos. By degrees they were more scattered; the land descended more and more till it became one vast swamp, overgrown with grass and reeds, and without trees, shrubs, or human dwellings; yet still maintaining itself at a smooth level above the water, till finally it sunk below, but still forming within it that singular, uniform figure which is called the delta of the Mississippi, from its resemblance to the Greek letter of that name. Stems of grass still waved above the water, swayed to and fro by the waves and the wind. Then they too disappeared; the waves alone prevailed. And now