LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

CHAPTER XLTL
ENCHANTMENTS ANB ENCHANTERS.
TEE largest annual event in New Orleans is a something which
we arrived too late to sample—the Hardi-Gras festivities. I saw the
procession of the Mystic Crew of Comus there, twenty four-years ago
—with knights and nobles and so on, clothed in silken and golden
Paris-made gorgeousnesses, planned and bought for that single night's
use; and in their train all manner of giants, dwarfs, monstrosities,
and other diverting grotesquerie—a startling and wonderful sort of
show, as it filed solemnly and silently down the street in the light of
its smoking and flickering torches; but it is said that in these latter
days the spectacle is mightily augmented, as to cost, splendour, and
variety. There is a chief personage—* Rex;' and if I remember rightly,
neither thk king nor any of his great following of subordinates is
known to any outsider. AH these people are gentlemen of position
and consequence; and it is a proud thing to belong to the organisa-
tion ; so the mystery in which they hide their personality is merely
for romance's sake, and not on account of the police.
Mardi-Gras is of course a relic of the French and Spanish occupa-
tion ; but I judge that the religious feature has been pretty well
knocked out of it now. Sir Walter has got the advantage of tho
gentlemen of the cowl and rosary, and he will stay. His mediaeval
business, supplemented by the monsters and the oddities, and the
pleasant creatures from fairy-land, is finer to look at than the poor
fantastic inventions and performances of the revelling rabble of the
priest's day, and serves quite as well, perhaps, to emphasize the day
and admonish men that the grace-line between the worldly season
and t&e holy one is reached.