NEW ORLEANS AND GALVESTON.
New Orleans stands on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, one
hundred and ten miles from the Gulf of Mexico, and is called the
"Crescent City," because of the sublime and beautiful sweep of the
"Father of Waters" around the city in a perfect circle, striking in on
the north, thence circling to the west, then south, then east, then
gently north, on a bend enchanting to behold, coming up to the landing
at a point due east two or three miles only, from the river on the
west of the city, where it first heaves in sight to the traveler on
the deck of a steamer coming down, making a distance of ten to fifteen
miles in the circuit, and leaving the city stand on a grand dead level
peninsula, almost an island. The magnificent bosom of the waters heaves
and presses up the river sides in fresh beauty constantly, as if
"Old Neptune's" soul stood beneath in the river's mighty depths, and
throwing out broad shoulders and long arms spanning its breadth, were
intent on heaving the waters over its leveed banks to deluge and drown
out the inhabitants.
Water is taken from the river and conducted along either side of the
streets, just at the edge of the sidewalks, in stone ducts, built
up square a foot or so in depth and width. With such facilities for
irrigating the streets New Orleans may be, and is, one of the cleanest
and sweetest cities in the world. The spirit of the people seems broken
since the war, and doubtless many a year will pass ere the old romantic
gayeties and business pluck and prosperity will come back again. The
evil genius of the "peculiar institution" is gone never to return,
though its corporal presence remains, to man the live industries of the
olden times.
But to resume our narrative of travel. We staid in New Orleans during
the night of the 21st of January, but did not remain the next day to
witness the further movement of secession, but crossed the river ferry
at eight o'clock in the morning, and took the train at Algiers, on
the west side, for Berwick's Bay, seventy-five miles distant, and the
terminus west of the railroad. Most of the route may be characterized
as crocodile or alligator swamp. It was covered with water and heavy
timber, and a thick undergrowth of cane, Spanish daggers and dwarf
palm, such as is manufactured into palm-leaf hats, with other kinds of
water shrubbery. When cleared up and properly prepared these lands will
make splendid rice and sugar plantations. The alligator will migrate
before the hand and foot of civilization.
Thence we shipped by "Morgan Line" of steamers to Galveston, two
hundred and fifty miles, on the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing occurred to mar
the general pleasure of this part of the journey. Neptune was unusually
quiet, only showing his disposition in gentle undulations of the deep;
no heaving billows, with white caps breaking on their angry crests, and
dashing the iron-bound vessel up in the air, and dropping her again
in cradles of the deep; no qualms and retching to make one feel he
didn't care whether the vessel lived or went to the bottom, but rather
preferred the latter; and the sooner the better. No, a "norther'" was
blowing off mainland--now and then in sight--and laid the waters smooth
so that we took regular meals and kept them down, and were not thrown
from our berths by a bouncing boat.
On approaching Galveston at sea, twenty miles away, vision is
frequently cheated by the intervention of a mirage, the effect of
which is to give to the city the appearance of air-suspension--a
heavenward elongation, sitting on the lap of the ocean with no _terra
firma_ beneath. But on nearer approach the illusion disappears, and
there stands before you, on a small piece of nature's ground-work,
and as though painted by a fairy hand, in spiritual shadows, on the
low extended horizon beyond, Galveston, exciting the strange beholder
into the romantic feeling that it is a city of fairies. And though the
romance is toned down by the reality on landing, yet there she stands,
one of the finest and most beautiful cities in the South of her size.
She had before the war a population of twelve to fifteen thousand, and
in one year after the war she had twenty-five thousand souls, and three
thousand additional buildings.
Galveston stands on the east end of an island of the same name,
running northeast and southwest, thirty miles in length, and with a
varying width of two to four miles. Plausible tradition has it that
when the island was first occupied and settled by Anglo-Americans,
forty to fifty years ago, they found as its lone occupant a beautiful
Castillian woman in male attire, supposed to have been connected
with the notorious Captain Lafitte, who, with his band, committed
piratical depredations on the Gulf and in the West Indies, and who had
headquarters there and up the wilds of the Trinity River. Hence the
island was first facetiously called "Gal-with-a-vest-on," but afterward
it was reduced to the more elegant trisyllabic of Galveston.
The island is a huge long sandbank, the work of the Gulf waters for
ages in sand deposits. The indentation of the main shore where the
island lies was favorable for such deposits. But this alone does not
sufficiently account for the fact that the island is at that particular
place. The Gulf Stream, in its rebound and return movement from the
shore of Western Texas, a hundred and fifty miles to the southwest
of Galveston, after having been driven there by the "trade winds"
that come in from the direction of the Coast of Africa--from the
southeast, through the channel between Cuba and Yucatan--passes near
the island, en route to the channel between Florida and Cuba, and in
its passage throws off inshore the sand disturbed and gathered up in
its course from the bottom of the Gulf. Besides Trinity River comes
in at the head and east of the island, and passes out into the Gulf
Stream in a southeasterly direction, throwing to the right, toward the
island, deposits similar to those made to the left by the Gulf Stream.
Thus do we theorize as to the natural causes for the formation and
existence of the island. These two counter forces of water co-operate,
and between them have made it what it is. Besides this sandbar above
water there are lying between these two water forces, and a few feet
beneath the surface, sand reefs running from the head of the island
southeast, and circling south and west five or six miles, forming a
splendid outside harbor, with a depth of water ranging from a minimum
of ten to a maximum of seventy feet. The heaviest vessels can lie there
and ride at anchor in perfect safety, as they are protected from the
heavy "trade winds" from the southeast, and others from the south, by
these reefs. Nature has furnished the surface of the island with a few
inches of light sandy soil, warm and quick-producing, growing corn, the
largest and sweetest sweet potatoes, the largest and most delicious
melons of all kinds one ever saw or ate, with garden sauce of every
name and nature; even Irish potatoes, if grown from seed imported from
the north each year. The whole island from the city to the southwest
end thereof furnishes fine grazing for cattle and other stock, and the
butchers keep their beeves there a few days before they are slaughtered
and sold in the market, and the beef when marketed and on the table is
the sweetest and most savory the writer ever found in any country,
particularly that fattened on mesquite grass. The Gulf beach in low
tide furnishes the finest ride or drive imaginable, and at eventide
hundreds of vehicles and pedestrians may be seen enjoying themselves
there.
The commercial importance of Galveston may be judged of by the single
fact that of the four hundred thousand bales of cotton produced in
Texas in the year 1860 three hundred thousand bales were compressed
and exported at Galveston, worth at that time $15,000,000 in gold, but
would now be worth $25,000,000. The geographical location of Galveston
speaks also for its commercial importance. It is the New York of Texas,
and Galveston Island is the Long Island of Texas. The inside harbor
lies in the bay immediately in the rear of the city, between the island
and the mainland, where the bay is two miles wide. The entrance to the
harbor has ten feet of water over the bar in low tide, and fourteen to
sixteen feet in high tide.
Galveston lies in twenty-nine degrees north latitude, and midway
between the mouth of the Mississippi River on the east, and Mexico and
the Rio Grande on the west. If you draw an imaginary line commencing at
the mouth of the Columbia River, in Oregon, running southeast; another
line commencing at Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi,
running due south, and another commencing at Portland, Maine, running
due southwest; all these lines will intersect at Galveston. One of
the driving wheels of the great commercial wagon of the United States
stands at Galveston, and the steam of progress is driving the mighty
vehicle westward, keeping pace with the "star of empire."
When that network of railroads which but for secession would now have
been thrown over all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping the
wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lumber regions of Eastern Texas,
the stock regions of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar regions
of Southern Texas; we say, when this railroad system shall be achieved
for that great country, thus developing and bringing to the markets of
the world the productive resources of Texas, a country six to seven
hundred miles square, large enough to lay down on its surface the State
of Massachusetts more than thirty times, and not lap anywhere, the
result will be wonderful beyond all present calculations. Every variety
of soil is found in Texas, and all kinds of grain and fruit can be
produced there, with sugar, and cotton one to four bales to the acre.
Texas is a country of great extremes and contradictions. It is the
hottest and coldest; the driest and wettest; it has the most streams
and the least water, some wet and some dry, and mostly dry at that;
the best soil and the poorest, very little of the latter; the most
cattle and the least milk, and butter, and cheese, and beef; the most
salubrious climate and most sudden changes of weather; the least
rain and heaviest rain-storms; the sunniest sky and most terrific
thunder-storms; the most balmy Gulf breezes and most bitter biting
northers; long rivers and least navigation; the heaviest pine forests
and least pine lumber; the best types of society, and the meanest the
sun ever shone upon.
Portable saw-mills, located along projected railroads in those pine
forests lying in Eastern Texas, hundreds of miles in extent, taking
Brazos River as the dividing line between Eastern and Western Texas,
would coin money for the proprietors. And the prediction is safe
that the time is not far distant when the railroads will be built,
those forests felled and cut up into lumber, towns spring up, and the
"wilderness bud and blossom as the rose."
The wet and dry seasons come in pretty regular alternations, each in
a series of seven to ten years. And nature, ever faithful, with her
"canny hand" has recorded these meteorological histories in trees of
the forest, and the record may be traced back through a period of two
hundred years. The unmistakable record is traceable in the thick and
thin rings or grains of the trees, varying in thickness from that of a
wafer to a quarter of an inch, in grades from thin to thick, the former
representing the dry, and the latter the wet seasons.
Now some crops of the country are more successfully raised in the dry
seasons, and others in the wet. Cotton is produced in the greatest
abundance in a comparatively dry season; corn the reverse. So that, by
keeping and observing a critical meteorological record the planter can
calculate with a good degree of certainty what crops would promise best
from year to year. Thus, we believe, Providence has made it feasible,
through science and art, for man to live and prosper in any country
or climate under the sun. And further, the normal products of the
different countries and climates are most suitable for the industries,
health and happiness of the inhabitants thereof.
If the labor question of that country is ever properly settled and
harmonized--in regard to which we are more hopeful than doubtful from
recent data--the leading productive interest of Texas will continue to
be that of cotton, particularly in the southern-central section. But we
think the future will show that the strongest rival interest will be
grape culture and wine making.
It is now conceded and agreed by practical men in the business of
grape-growing there, that the soil and climate of Texas are admirably
adapted to grape culture; and though in the past cotton has engrossed
the attention of the people to the exclusion almost of every product
except corn, now the cultivation of grapes is assuming prominent and
tangible shape, and commanding the practical attention of the citizens
of the State. Besides, the next few years will probably bring into the
State thousands of vine-growers from the South of France and Germany,
who will make this their principal business. If we look at the progress
made with the vine in Ohio and other Northern States, with a less
favored soil and climate, increasing from four thousand acres, ten or
twelve years ago, to two millions of acres now devoted to wine-growing,
yielding large profits and immense fortunes for those engaged in the
business, how much greater success may be expected to accrue from an
equal outlay of money and effort in the warm loamy soils of Texas.
The change in the labor system, resulting from the late war, is
bringing the subject into more public notice. The system of forced
labor no longer overshadows and oppresses the spirit of progress and
improvement there. The inveterate slowness of the country must give way
before the advancing step of reform, and as increasing light breaks in,
bringing to public view the ponderous follies of the past industrial
history of the country, new ideas will be allowed and patronized;
new experiments made on scientific principles, and the present and
prospective resources of the country, heretofore undiscovered or
neglected, will be developed to a degree of profit and fortune that
will astound the people themselves. When the people see that, in the
matter of grape culture, a few acres cultivated in the vine will
yield as large a profit as a cotton plantation ten times as large,
and requiring ten times the labor, many more will be tempted to plant
vineyards and reap the easy reward; so that after they are well planted
and cared for, and by the third year have reached the profitable
bearing period, instead of fifty dollars per acre, at most, net profit,
as with cotton, for _wine_ only a _clear_ profit of five hundred to one
thousand dollars per acre may be realized from grapes, and equally so
for table use. Nor is there danger of overstocking the market with so
useful and healthful a delicacy. The greater the supply the greater
the demand. Our remarks on profits of grape culture are not imaginary
guesswork, but based on well ascertained _facts_ in the experience of
vine-growers in Texas, with whom we have a personal acquaintance. They
recommend the following varieties as doing well and being profitable
there: The Concord, Clinton, Diana, Delaware, Iowa, Ives' Seedling,
Herbemont, Creveling, Hartford Prolific, Perkins, Black July, Jacques,
and Rogers' Hybrids numbers 1, 3, 4, 9, 15, 19, 22; and they say the
beginner will do well to commence with the Clinton, Concord, etc.,
which will almost take care of themselves. The Diana is a fine grape
for either table or wine. The Delaware and Isabella are fine table
grapes, and the best native growers they have. But in Texas the trouble
is to choose, for they nearly all do well.
As an indication and natural justification of the most sanguine ideas
of grape culture in Texas, we will state that the indigenous Mustang
grape grows there spontaneously in great wasteful abundance, along
the water-courses, on the uplands and upland "dry runs." There are
cart-loads, car-loads, yes, steamboat loads of them growing wild over
the country, and in different varieties. From this kind of grape are
manufactured just those claret or sour wines most grateful to the
tastes of people in hot climates.
It is thought by many good people in Texas, and as a temperance
expedient too, that Providence hereby indicates what drinks, aside from
water, are needful for the health and temperate habits of the country.
The question is, why is the country so overstocked with this kind of
grape? not by accident, or for mere ornament, certainly, nor for the
use of bird or beast, for they touch them not, nor yet for table use,
as no human tongue or lips would last long coming in contact with the
powerful acid of the hull of this kind of grape. The pulp has a most
delicious flavor, but can not be sucked from its dark inclosure without
bringing with it the biting acid. There is no alternative; it was
intended for man's use after being transformed into wine.