hither to a swamp from the sands of Biloxi many
years ago by the energetic Bienville, were not visited from time to time
by the scourge!

Again I saw the green villas on the outskirts, the verdure-dotted
expanse of roofs of the city behind the levee bank, the line of Kentucky
boats, keel boats and barges which brought our own resistless commerce
hither in the teeth of royal mandates. Farther out, and tugging
fretfully in the yellow current, were the aliens of the blue seas,
high-hulled, their tracery of masts and spars shimmering in the heat:
a full-rigged ocean packet from Spain, a barque and brigantine from
the West Indies, a rakish slaver from Africa with her water-line dry,
discharged but yesterday of a teeming horror of freight. I looked again
upon the familiar rows of trees which shaded the gravelled promenades
where Nick had first seen Antoinette. Then we were under it, for the
river was low, and the dingy-uniformed officer was bowing over our
passports beneath the awning. We walked ashore, Monsieur Vigo and I,
and we joined a staring group of keel boatmen and river-men under the
willows.

Below us, the white shell walks of the Place d'Armes were thronged with
gayly dressed people. Over their heads rose the fine new Cathedral,
built by the munificence of Don Andreas Almonaster, and beside that the
many-windowed, heavy-arched Cabildo, nearly finished, which will stand
for all time a monument to Spanish builders.

"It is Corpus Christi day," said Monsieur Vigo; "let us go and see the
procession."

Here once more were the bright-turbaned negresses, the gay Creole gowns
and scarfs, the linen-jacketed, broad-hatted merchants, with those of
soberer and more conventional dress, laughing and chatting, the children
playing despite the heat. Many of these people greeted Monsieur Vigo.
There were the saturnine, long-cloaked Spaniards, too, and a greater
number than I had believed of my own keen-faced countrymen lounging
about, mildly amused by the scene. We crossed the square, and with the
courtesy of their race the people made way for us in the press; and we
were no sooner placed ere the procession came out of the church. Flaming
soldiers of the Governor's guard, two by two; sober, sandalled friars
in brown, priests in their robes,--another batch of color; crosses
shimmering, tapers emerging from the cool darkness within to pale by the
light of day. Then down on their knees to Him who sits high above the
yellow haze f