Day by day I stood on the wharves, watching the steamers unload and
load, gazing over the busy mass of humanity back of which was labor,
black and white, slave and free! The great Mississippi, broad and foul,
waking from its sleep in the lowlands above, gathering speed here,
feeling the call of the sea, begins to move with increased life. Across
from the city are lowlands, sugar refineries, smoke stacks. The negroes
call to each other, laugh with spontaneous, childlike humor. The wharf
officers, the brokers, pass with intense faces. It is hot. Sweat drips
from black faces and from white. Whips crack. Mules trot and stumble
over the loose and resounding boards. Heavy wheels rumble. And the life
of gambling, drinking, pleasure, crawls about the French quarter, along
Canal Street, on Royal Street. The bell in the Cathedral rings. I catch
the whiff of flowers. Gulls fly over the muddy water.
I think of Douglas far away in Russia, of all my life in its early days,
now growing so misty. I am more than thirty-seven; and sometimes I feel
weary. I grieve for Dorothy. She has wound herself with tenderness
around my heart. But less and less can she share life with me.
I go to the Place d'Armes to see the equestrian statue of Jackson which
has been erected here since my last visit. It is now called Jackson
Square.
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