A great portion of the aisle is occupied by the all-important bar, where drinks flow as freely as the river outside; but there is another feature in the aisles which contrasts strangely with the pictorial ornaments round the dome above—­a succession of platforms are to be seen, on which human flesh and blood is exposed to public auction, and the champions of the equal rights of man are thus made to endorse, as it were, the sale of their fellow-creatures.

I had only been in the hotel one day when a gentleman to whom I had a letter kindly offered me a room in his house.  The offer was too tempting, so I left my kennel without delay, and in my new quarters found every comfort and a hearty welcome, rendered more acceptable from the agreeable society which it included, and the tender nursing I received at the hands of one of the young ladies during the week I was confined to the house by illness.  Among all the kind and hospitable friends I met with in my travels, none have a stronger claim on my grateful recollection than Mr. Egerton and his family.  When able to get out, I took a drive with mine host:  as you may easily imagine, there is not much scenery to be found in a marsh bounded by a forest swamp, but the effect is very curious; all the trees are covered with Spanish moss, a long, dark, fibrous substance which hangs gracefully down from every bough and twig; it is often used for stuffing beds, pillows, &e.  This most solemn drapery gave the forest the appearance of a legion of mute mourners attending the funeral of some beloved patriarch, and one felt disposed to admire the patience with which they stood, with their feet in the wet, their heads nodding to and fro as if distracted with grief, and their fibrous weeds quivering, as though convulsed with the intensity of agony.  The open space around is a kind of convalescent marsh; that is, canals and deep ditch drains have been opened all through it, and into these the waters of the marsh flow, as a token of gratitude for the delicate little attention; at the same time, the adjacent soil, freed from its liquid encumbrance, courts the attractive charms of the sun, and has already risen from two and a half to three and a half feet above its marshy level.

The extremity of this open space furthest from the town has been appropriately fixed upon as the site of various cemeteries.  The lugubrious forest is enough to give a man the blue devils, and the ditches and drains into which the sewers, &c., of the town are pumped, dragging their sluggish and all but stagnant course under a broiling summer gun, are sufficient to prepare most mortals for the calm repose towards which the cypress and the cenotaph beckon them with greedy welcome.  The open space I have been describing is the “Hyde Park” and “Rotten Row” of New Orleans, and the drive round it is one of the best roads I ever travelled; it is called the “Shell Road,” from the top-dressing thereof being entirely composed of small shells, which soon bind together