about six feet long and of the proper
thickness for twenty dollar pieces are run through a machine which cuts
out the pieces, and when these are cut they can stamp out the pieces as
fast as one can count.

This was the most ingenious work I ever saw, and very wonderful and
astonishing to a backwoodsman like myself, for I supposed that money was
run in moulds like bullets.

As we could not wait we went to a bank and sold our dust, getting only
sixteen dollars per ounce, the same price they paid in California. We
now took the cars and rode out to Lake Ponchartrain--most of the way
over a trestle work. We found a wharf and warehouse at the lake, and a
steamer lay there all ready to go across to the other side. The country
all about looked low, with no hills in sight.

When we returned to the city we looked all about, and in the course of
our travels came to a slave market. Here there were all sorts of black
folks for sale; big and little, old and young and all sorts. They all
seemed good-natured, and were clean, and seemed to think they were worth
a good deal of money. Looking at them a few minutes sent my mind back to
St. Joseph, Missouri, where I saw a black sold at auction. From my
standpoint of education I did not approve of this way of trading in
colored people.

We continued our stroll about the city, coming to a cemetery, where I
looked into a newly dug grave to find it half full of water. On one side
were many brick vaults above ground. The ground here is very low and
wet, and seemed to be all swamp. The drainage was in surface gutters,
and in them the water stood nearly still. It seemed to me such water
must have yellow fever in it.

For a long way along the levee the steamboats lay thick and close
together, unloading cotton, hemp, sugar, hoop poles, bacon and other
products, mostly the product of negro labor.

Here our friend Evans was taken sick, and as he got no better after a
day or two, we called a doctor to examine him. He pronounced it a mild
case of yellow fever. His skin was yellow in places, and he looked very
badly. The doctor advised us to go on up the river, saying it was very
dangerous staying here with him. Evans gave me most of his money and all
of his gold specimens to take to his wife, and when he got well he would
follow us. We bade him good-bye, and with many wishes for his speedy
recovery, we took passage on a steamer for St. Louis. This steamer, the
Atlantic, proved to be a real floati