As we advanced, however, we were cheered, notwithstanding the
season, by the bright tints of southern vegetation. The banks
continue invariably flat, but a succession of planless villas,
sometimes merely a residence, and sometimes surrounded by their
sugar grounds and negro huts, varied the scene. At no one point
was there an inch of what painters call a second distance; and
for the length of one hundred and twenty miles, from the Balize
to New Orleans, and one hundred miles above the town, the land is
defended from the encroachments of the river by a high embankment
which is called the Levee; without which the dwellings would
speedily disappear, as the river is evidently higher than the
banks would be without it. When we arrived, there had been
constant rains, and of long continuance, and this appearance was,
therefore, unusually striking, giving to "this great natural
feature" the most unnatural appearance imaginable; and making
evident, not only that man had been busy there, but that even the
mightiest works of nature might be made to bear his impress; it
recalled, literally, Swift's mock heroic,
"Nature must give way to art;"
yet, she was looking so mighty, and so unsubdued all the time,
that I could not help fancying she would some day take the matter
into her own hands again, and if so, farewell to New Orleans.
It is easy to imagine the total want of beauty in such a
landscape; but yet the form and hue of the trees and plants, so
new to us, added to the long privation we had endured of all
sights and sounds of land, made even these swampy shores seem
beautiful.
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