hree months; and the slime
which it deposits on the adjacent lands, tends, in a very important
degree, to fertilize the soil. This river is navigable to a great
distance; but, at spring-tides, the navigation is difficult, on account
of the strength of the currents, and the innumerable islands, shoals,
and sand-banks, with which it is interspersed. Vessels of three hundred
tons burden can ascend it as high as Natchez, four hundred miles from
the sea; and those of lighter burden can pass upward, as far as the
Falls of St. Anthony, in latitude forty-four degrees fifty minutes.

_New Orleans_, the capital of the state of Louisiana, is situated on the
northern bank of the Mississippi, and is a place of great commercial
importance. It was founded in the year 1717, and now contains near
thirty thousand inhabitants. In 1787, it had eleven hundred houses; but,
nine hundred of these having been consumed by fire, it has since been
rebuilt on a regular plan, and a more enlarged scale. Most of the houses
are constructed with wooden frames, raised about eight feet from the
ground, and have galleries round them, and cellars under the floors:
almost every house has a garden.

Louisiana having, till lately, been a French colony, the French language
is still predominant at New Orleans. The appearance of the people too is
French; and even the negroes, by their antics and ludicrous gestures,
exhibit their previous connexion with that nation. Their general manners
and habits are very relaxed. Though New Orleans is now a city belonging
to the United States, the markets, shops, theatre, circus, and public
ball-rooms, are open on Sundays, in the same manner as they are in the
catholic countries of the old continent. Gambling-houses, too, are
numerous; and the coffee-houses and the Exchange are occupied, from
morning till night, by gamesters. The general stile of living is
luxurious. The houses are elegantly furnished; and the ladies dress in
an expensive manner.

Provisions are here of bad quality, and enormously dear. Hams and
cheese, from England; potatoes, butter, and beef from Ireland, are
common articles of import. The rents of houses, also, are very
extravagant.

The country around New Orleans is level, rich, and healthy, and has many
extensive sugar-plantations. And, for the space of five leagues below,
and ten above the town, the river has been embanked, to defend the
adjacent fields from those inundations of the Mississippi which