r of ancient New Orleans, beyond the sites of the old rampart,
a trio of Spanish forts, where the town has since sprung up and grown
old, green with all the luxuriance of the wild Creole summer, lay the
Congo Plains. Here stretched the canvas of the historic Cayetano, who
Sunday after Sunday sowed the sawdust for his circus-ring.

But to-day the great showman had fallen short of his printed promise.
The hurricane had come by night, and with one fell swash had made an
irretrievable sop of everything. The circus trailed away its bedraggled
magnificence, and the ring was cleared for the bull.

Then the sun seemed to come out and work for the people. "See," said the
Spaniards, looking up at the glorious sky with its great white fleets
drawn off upon the horizon, "see--heaven smiles upon the bull-fight!"

In the high upper seats of the rude amphitheatre sat the gayly decked
wives and daughters of the Gascons, from the _metairies_ along the
Ridge, and the chattering Spanish women of the Market, their shining
hair unbonneted to the sun. Next below were their husbands and lovers in
Sunday blouses, milkmen, butchers, bakers, black-bearded fishermen,
Sicilian fruiterers, swarthy Portuguese sailors in little woolen caps,
and strangers of the graver sort; mariners of England, Germany, and
Holland. The lowest seats were full of trappers, smugglers, Canadian
_voyageurs_, drinking and singing; _Americains_, too--more's the
shame--from the upper rivers--who will not keep their seats--who ply the
bottle, and who will get home by-and-by and tell how wicked Sodom is;
broad-brimmed, silver-braided Mexicans too, with their copper cheeks and
bat's eyes, and their tinkling spurred heels. Yonder in that quieter
section are the quadroon women in their black lace shawls--and there is
Baptiste; and below them are the turbaned black women, and there is--but
he vanishes--Colossus.

The afternoon is advancing, yet the sport, though loudly demanded, does
not begin. The _Americains_ grow derisive and find pastime in gibes and
raillery. They mock the various Latins with their national inflections,
and answer their scowls with laughter. Some of the more aggressive shout
pretty French greetings to the women of Gascony, and one bargeman, amid
peals of applause, stands on a seat and hurls a kiss to the quadroons.
The marines of England, Germany, and Holland, as spectators, like the
fun, while the Spaniards look black and cast defiant imprecations upon
t