CHAPTER 44

City Sights

THE old French part of New Orleans--anciently the Spanish part--bears no

resemblance to the American end of the city: the American end which lies

beyond the intervening brick business-center. The houses are massed in

blocks; are austerely plain and dignified; uniform of pattern, with here

and there a departure from it with pleasant effect; all are plastered

on the outside, and nearly all have long, iron-railed verandas running

along the several stories. Their chief beauty is the deep, warm,

varicolored stain with which time and the weather have enriched the

plaster. It harmonizes with all the surroundings, and has as natural

a look of belonging there as has the flush upon sunset clouds. This

charming decoration cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to be

found elsewhere in America.

The iron railings are a specialty, also. The pattern is often

exceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful--with a large cipher

or monogram in the center, a delicate cobweb of baffling, intricate

forms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand-made, and are

now comparatively rare and proportionately valuable. They are become

_bric-a-brac_.

The party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter of

New Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of 'the

Grandissimes.' In him the South has found a masterly delineator of its

interior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience, that the

untrained eye and vacant mind can inspect it, and learn of it, and judge

of it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by personal contact

with it.

With Mr. Cable along to see for you, and describe and explain and

illuminate, a jog through that old quarter is a vivid pleasure. And you

have a vivid sense as of unseen or dimly seen things--vivid, and yet

fitful and darkling; you glimpse salient features, but lose the fine

shades or catch them imperfectly through the vision of the imagination:

a case, as it were, of ignorant near-sighted stranger traversing the

rim of wide vague horizons of Alps with an inspired and enlightened

long-sighted native.

We visited the old St. Louis Hotel, now occupied by municipal offices.

There is nothing strikingly remarkable about it; but one can say of it

as of the Academy of Music in New York, that if a broom or a shovel has

ever been used in it there is no circumstantial evidence to back up the

fact. It is curious that cabbages and hay and things do not grow in the

Academy of Music; but no doubt it is on account of the interruption

of the light by the benches, and the impossibility of hoeing the

crop except in the aisles. The fact that the ushers grow their

buttonhole-bouquets on the premises shows what might be done if they had

the right kind of an agricultural head to the establishment.

We visited also the venerable Cathedral, and the pretty square in front

of it; the one dim with religious light, the other brilliant with the

worldly sort, and lovely with orange-trees and blossomy shrubs; then we

drove in the hot sun through the wilderness of houses and out on to the

wide dead level beyond, where the villas are, and the water wheels to

drain the town, and the commons populous with cows and children; passing

by an old cemetery where we were told lie the ashes of an early pirate;

but we took him on trust, and did not visit him. He was a pirate with

a tremendous and sanguinary history; and as long as he preserved

unspotted, in retirement, the dignity of his name and the grandeur of

his ancient calling, homage and reverence were his from high and

low; but when at last he descended into politics and became a paltry

alderman, the public 'shook' him, and turned aside and wept. When he

died, they set up a monument over him; and little by little he has come

into respect again; but it is respect for the pirate, not the alderman.

To-day the loyal and generous remember only what he was, and charitably

forget what he became.

Thence, we drove a few miles across a swamp, along a raised shell road,

with a canal on one hand and a dense wood on the other; and here and

there, in the distance, a ragged and angular-limbed and moss-bearded

cypress, top standing out, clear cut against the sky, and as quaint of

form as the apple-trees in Japanese pictures--such was our course and

the surroundings of it. There was an occasional alligator swimming

comfortably along in the canal, and an occasional picturesque colored

person on the bank, flinging his statue-rigid reflection upon the still

water and watching for a bite.

And by-and-bye we reached the West End, a collection of hotels of the

usual light summer-resort pattern, with broad verandas all around,

and the waves of the wide and blue Lake Pontchartrain lapping the

thresholds. We had dinner on a ground-veranda over the water--the

chief dish the renowned fish called the pompano, delicious as the less

criminal forms of sin.

Thousands of people come by rail and carriage to West End and to Spanish

Fort every evening, and dine, listen to the bands, take strolls in

the open air under the electric lights, go sailing on the lake, and

entertain themselves in various and sundry other ways.

We had opportunities on other days and in other places to test the

pompano. Notably, at an editorial dinner at one of the clubs in the

city. He was in his last possible perfection there, and justified his

fame. In his suite was a tall pyramid of scarlet cray-fish--large ones;

as large as one's thumb--delicate, palatable, appetizing. Also deviled

whitebait; also shrimps of choice quality; and a platter of small

soft-shell crabs of a most superior breed. The other dishes were what

one might get at Delmonico's, or Buckingham Palace; those I have spoken

of can be had in similar perfection in New Orleans only, I suppose.

In the West and South they have a new institution--the Broom Brigade.

It is composed of young ladies who dress in a uniform costume, and go

through the infantry drill, with broom in place of musket. It is a

very pretty sight, on private view. When they perform on the stage of

a theater, in the blaze of colored fires, it must be a fine and

fascinating spectacle. I saw them go through their complex manual with

grace, spirit, and admirable precision. I saw them do everything which

a human being can possibly do with a broom, except sweep. I did not see

them sweep. But I know they could learn. What they have already learned

proves that. And if they ever should learn, and should go on the

war-path down Tchoupitoulas or some of those other streets around there,

those thoroughfares would bear a greatly improved aspect in a very few

minutes. But the girls themselves wouldn't; so nothing would be really

gained, after all.

The drill was in the Washington Artillery building. In this building

we saw many interesting relics of the war. Also a fine oil-painting

representing Stonewall Jackson's last interview with General Lee. Both

men are on horseback. Jackson has just ridden up, and is accosting Lee.

The picture is very valuable, on account of the portraits, which are

authentic. But, like many another historical picture, it means nothing

without its label. And one label will fit it as well as another--

First Interview between Lee and Jackson.

Last Interview between Lee and Jackson.

Jackson Introducing Himself to Lee.

Jackson Accepting Lee's Invitation to Dinner.

Jackson Declining Lee's Invitation to Dinner--with Thanks.

Jackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat.

Jackson Reporting a Great Victory.

Jackson Asking Lee for a Match.

It tells _one _story, and a sufficient one; for it says quite plainly

and satisfactorily, 'Here are Lee and Jackson together.' The artist

would have made it tell that this is Lee and Jackson's last interview if

he could have done it. But he couldn't, for there wasn't any way to do

it. A good legible label is usually worth, for information, a ton of

significant attitude and expression in a historical picture. In Rome,

people with fine sympathetic natures stand up and weep in front of the

celebrated 'Beatrice Cenci the Day before her Execution.' It shows what

a label can do. If they did not know the picture, they would inspect it

unmoved, and say, 'Young girl with hay fever; young girl with her head

in a bag.'

I found the half-forgotten Southern intonations and elisions as pleasing

to my ear as they had formerly been. A Southerner talks music. At

least it is music to me, but then I was born in the South. The educated

Southerner has no use for an r, except at the beginning of a word. He

says 'honah,' and 'dinnah,' and 'Gove'nuh,' and 'befo' the waw,' and so

on. The words may lack charm to the eye, in print, but they have it to

the ear. When did the r disappear from Southern speech, and how did it

come to disappear? The custom of dropping it was not borrowed from

the North, nor inherited from England. Many Southerners--most

Southerners--put a y into occasional words that begin with the k sound.

For instance, they say Mr. K'yahtah (Carter) and speak of playing

k'yahds or of riding in the k'yahs. And they have the pleasant

custom--long ago fallen into decay in the North--of frequently employing

the respectful 'Sir.' Instead of the curt Yes, and the abrupt No, they

say 'Yes, Suh', 'No, Suh.'

But there are some infelicities. Such as 'like' for 'as,' and the

addition of an 'at' where it isn't needed. I heard an educated gentleman

say, 'Like the flag-officer did.' His cook or his butler would have

said, 'Like the flag-officer done.' You hear gentlemen say, 'Where have

you been at?' And here is the aggravated form--heard a ragged street

Arab say it to a comrade: 'I was a-ask'n' Tom whah you was a-sett'n'

at.' The very elect carelessly say 'will' when they mean 'shall'; and

many of them say, 'I didn't go to do it,' meaning 'I didn't mean to do

it.' The Northern word 'guess'--imported from England, where it used

to be common, and now regarded by satirical Englishmen as a Yankee

original--is but little used among Southerners. They say 'reckon.' They

haven't any 'doesn't' in their language; they say 'don't' instead.

The unpolished often use 'went' for 'gone.' It is nearly as bad as

the Northern 'hadn't ought.' This reminds me that a remark of a very

peculiar nature was made here in my neighborhood (in the North) a few

days ago: 'He hadn't ought to have went.' How is that? Isn't that a good

deal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-breed's

architecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other Southern.

To-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?' This form is

so common--so nearly universal, in fact--that if she had used 'whither'

instead of 'where,' I think it would have sounded like an affectation.

We picked up one excellent word--a word worth traveling to New Orleans

to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word--'lagniappe.' They

pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish--so they said. We discovered it

at the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day;

heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the

third; adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a

restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when

they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's

dozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom

originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant

buys something in a shop--or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I

know--he finishes the operation by saying--

'Give me something for lagniappe.'

The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root,

gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the

governor--I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.

When you are invited to drink, and this does occur now and then in New

Orleans--and you say, 'What, again?--no, I've had enough;' the other

party says, 'But just this one time more--this is for lagniappe.' When

the beau perceives that he is stacking his compliments a trifle too

high, and sees by the young lady's countenance that the edifice would

have been better with the top compliment left off, he puts his 'I beg

pardon--no harm intended,' into the briefer form of 'Oh, that's for

lagniappe.' If the waiter in the restaurant stumbles and spills a gill

of coffee down the back of your neck, he says 'For lagniappe, sah,' and

gets you another cup without extra charge.