£86

CHAPTER XLIY.
CITY SIGHTS,
THE old French part of New Orleans—anciently the Spanish part—
bears no resemblance to the American end of the city: the American
end which lies beyond the intervening brick business-centre* The
houses are massed in blocks; are austerely plain and dignified;
uniform of pattern, with here and there a departure from it with
pleasant effect; all are plastered on the outside, and nearly all have
long, iron-railed verandas running along the several storeys. Thedr
chief beauty is the deep, warm, vari-coloured stain with which time
and the weather have enriched the plaster. It harmonises with
all the surroundings, and has as natural a look of belonging there
as has the flush upon sunset cloads. This charming decoration
cannot be successfully imitated; neither is it to be found elsewhere
in America,
The iron railings are a speciality, also. The pattern is often
exceedingly light and dainty, and airy and graceful—with a large
cipher or monogram in the centre, a delicate cobweb of bafHing,
intricate forms, wrought in steel. The ancient railings are hand-
made, and are now comparatively rare and proportionately valuable.
They are become &rio-&-drae.
The party had the privilege of idling through this ancient quarter
of New Orleans with the South's finest literary genius, the author of
* the Grandissimee,' In *>™ the South has found a masterly delinea-
tor of its interior life and its history. In truth, I find by experience,
that the untrained eye and vacant mind caninspect it, and learn ofit,
and judge of it, more clearly and profitably in his books than by per-
sonal contact with it.