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How provoking it is to be mistaken for somebody
else besides one's self! Until a few days ago I was not
aware that the celebrated Miss Conyngham of England,
who traveled through Italy and Austria distributing
tracts, for which she was imprisoned, was thought to be
me! I really hoped that my thousand dear friends who
knew me through my pen, had a better opinion of Kate
than to suppose she could give herself up to such a
fanaticism as marked the wild career of the Miss Conyngham
who frightened Austria, and like to have set England
and its Emperor by the ears!

It is true, our party went to Europe after Isabel's
marriage, where my husband and I joined her, and we
were traveling at that time; but while Miss K. Conyngham
was in prison in Austria, Miss Kate Conyngham as
a bride, was climbing Ben Nevis in bonnie Scotland,
leaving none but her own tracks (French No. 2's) in the
heather. This I wish to be distinctly made known; for
though I have no objection to be a tract distributor, yet
I hope I have common sense enough not to court martyrdom
as my namesake seems to have had a fancy to do.

I do not know but that I shall be compelled, Mr.—,
to send you a full account of my travels, to show

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you I never was arrested by Austrian police, but in all
my journeyings behaved myself like a nice young wife,
who has no taste for dungeons, except in Mrs. Radcliffes
novels, and who has a perfect horror of a diet of dry
bread and water. If I should send you my travels, I
should write about the wonders of our voyage: the things
I saw in England, what I saw in France, the adventures
we met with in Spain; of our sojourn in Florence and
Naples; our yachting cruise over to Malta, and the
various escapes and marvelous incidents which gave zest
and romance to our tour; and I should be sure and not
forget to tell all about my marriage, and how I saw and
spoke with the Queen by an odd accident, with all sorts
of things besides.

But as I have promised to give you in this letter a
description of my dear home in the South, whence I
write these letters, I will here fulfill my promise, and
leave my “Tour to Europe” for subsequent “Needles.”

If you will take the map and find New Orleans, you
will soon learn where I am by following the noble Father
of Waters up as far as Donaldsonville, twenty-five leagues
north from the city. At this pretty French village,
which sleeps half buried in the foliage of China shade
trees and Acacias, is the mouth of the lovely stream
called Bayou La Fourche. A bayou is not, however,
exactly a stream, but a sort of natural canal going
laterally from one piece of water to another, uniting
both; as for instance, a stream flowing from the Delaware
straight across to the Schuylkill, would be a bayou. In this
part of the world, where the green land is as level as the
blue sea, these intersecting branches form a net-work of
internal navigation, as if the whole land were cut up into

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winding canals. This feature of the country makes it
very beautiful, as oaks, and elms, and laurels, fringe
their banks; and in their graceful curves they embrace
now on one side, and now on the other side, crescentshaped
meadows waving with sugar cane, and dotted with
majestic groves like islands of foliage resting on the
bosom of the pleasant land.

For thirty miles in the interior this lovely region is
level as the sea, and islanded by dark green groves of
oak, at intervals of a half mile or mile apart. The boat
passes villas inunmerable, whose gardens touch the water,
and old French villages half hid in shade, while in the
distance, for every half league, tower the turreted sugar-houses,
like so many castles.

It would require a highly poetical pen to picture justly
the beauty of such a thirty miles trip into the luxurious
heart of Louisiana. At length four hours after leaving
the Mississippi, appear, over the woodlands of a fine
estate belonging to an eminent judge, the spires of
Thibodeaux, an old French town, extremely quaint and
picturesque. Here the steamer stops to land its passengers,
who are mostly French, and will also land you,
Mr. —, if you are on a visit to see me.

Standing on the Levee, you will see the steamer move
on again further up the pretty bayou, and still for an
hour, when ten miles off, its black pillar of smoking
cloud can be discerned, ascending along the horizon like
the jet from a far-off volcano. If the steamer you have
left continues on her winding course west and south for
five hours, she will reach the Gulf of Mexico, and so
passing round the Gulf coast re-enter the Mississippi, at
its mouth, and so get back to New Orleans, thus

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compassing, by the aid of river, bayou, and gulf, a complete
circle around the city with a radius of a hundred miles.
Planters often make use of this mode of communication
to ship their sugar to schooners anchored at the Gulf
mouth of the bayou. If the English had been acquainted
with this inland water route they would have reached
New Orleans, surprising it by a descent from up river
upon it.

It was to Lafitte they made such magnificent offers to
pilot them through such a bayou, that of Barataria;
which, outlaw as he was, he nobly refused. Parties on
excursions from plantations frequently, in their pleasure
boats, go down to the Gulf and spend a week or two;
living a sort of wild and romantic gipsey life on the
green islands that gem the shore of the Gulf. One of
these parties I recently joined, and may some time give
you a description of its pleasures and famous adventures.

But I will not leave you standing any longer with
carpet-bag in hand on the Levee of Thibodeauville, Mr.—,
but direct you up the tree-bordered bayou bank to
another bayou, which comes into the larger one close by
the chief village street. It is a pleasant walk. You
will find little French negroes rather troublesome, asking
“mass, for tote he saddle-bag;” but you are an old
traveler, sir, and have escaped alive from the landing
place at Calais—a dreadful place, and which I shall
never forget.

The pretty walk along the water bank will, in five
minutes, bring you to the bayou, Terre Bonne. Its
course is at right angles with the bayou La Fourche.
Thibodeaux village stands right in the angle between

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the two, one being in front, the other on the west side.
When you come to this bayou you will see that it looks
like a canal, rather than a natural stream. A small
bridge crosses it, and leaning over its railing you will see
gray-headed old Frenchmen fishing, and boys catching
shrimps in nets. Trees bend over them, the water
sparkles below, brown creole laundresses are singing as
they wash their clothes in the water, and altogether it is
a pretty scene. Near the bridge you will see four or
five barges or market-boats, with brown lateen sails, and
laden with vegetables and fruit. They are manned by
two or three sable-skinned slaves, usually by an aged,
gray-headed African and an ivory-toothed urchin. They
have come that morning some five miles, some fifteen,
from their master's plantations, to sell marketing, and
make purchases for home. These boats are constantly
going up and down this narrow bayou, Teree Bonne,
for it flows through a rich and populous sugar region of
the finest sugar estates in the South, and forms their
only water communication with the villages and towns.

But you will be likely to see, moored about in the
shadows of the bridge, one or more pleasure yachts, in
which some members of the family have come up from
their plantations, situated where the sky and level horizon
meet. Perhaps one of them brought down a freight
of lovely girls and their noble dark-eyed mamma, and
good-looking aunts, to shop among the treasures of dry-goods,
jewelry, and millinery, of the fashionable stores
in Thibodeaux; or, perhaps, a plantation household of
merry children are come up to the village to see the circus,
and especially that wicked, good-for-nothing Dandy
Jack ride the pony; the boys of the party going home

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again, to turn the lawn into an arena, and all the shaggy
ponies into circus steeds, compelling some plantation
native Dan Rice, jr., to be clown.”

Or, perhaps, you will see there the elegant yacht of
the two rich brothers, M. Louis and M. Adolphe —,
who have come up from their estate, two hours' sail
down the bayou, to pass an afternoon, playing billiards,
and to meet the young girls that happen to be in town
shopping, from the neighboring estates, for on certain
days (usually Saturday, by general consent), everybody
goes to town, and anybody that wants to see anybody is
likely to find everybody on the street. Indeed, for the
surrounding planters, the village is an “Exchange” on
that day, not only for young fellows and maidens to exchange
glances, and, perhaps, hearts, but for their papas
to get money for their sugar, or see to its shipment, and
lay in their stores.

If it should be on Saturday that you arrive, Mr. —,
you would see many a cushioned barge lying in the bayou
waiting for its fair occupants to return to their homes.
Also, you would find no lack of handsome carriages and
caparisoned saddle-horses under the care of servants;
for along the bayou winds, at one with it in all its meanderings,
a summer road, level as a bowling-alley, bordered
by woodland oaks, orange groves, country-seats, flowering
gardens, fields of waving cane, bending with a billowy
motion to the overpassing wind, like the surface
of an emerald sea. If you wish to reach my home early
in the day, you had best take the road, for the land
route will bring you much sooner. But if you are at
leisure, and enjoy a moonlight sail, you will take one of
the boats. But as they are all private barges, you will be

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so kind as to step on board that one which you see is
painted green, with plum-colored cushions and a little
flag pendant over the stern, on which, when the wind
blows out its azure folds, you will read “The Isabel.”

That is my yacht, and I know your good taste will
admire it very much, and thank me very kindly, as you
suppose, for sending it for you. But I did not send it,
being ignorant wholly of your visit, Mr. —; nevertheless,
step into it, and tell “Zephyr,” which is the
name of the respectable-looking negro pilot you will see
in care of it, that you are Mr. —! That name will
be a talisman! You will see his eyes shine, and his lips
open wide, with a quiet laugh of internal satisfaction.
“Ah, bress my soul! Missy Kate mity proud to see
Mass' Editum. I berry grad to hab dat honor miself!”
and Zephyr will take off his straw hat and make you as
superb a bow as a king's, nothing less dignified, and he
will then look around upon the other boatmen with an
air of triumph, as much as to say, “Go 'way! Here's
Mass' in dis boat here! De greatest gemman in Phillamydellfum!
Back you oars, niggas! you got notin' to
do in dis bayou!”

Such would be Zephyr's probable salutation. But he
will not at once set off with you. He will tell you he
expects Massa and the ladies, and in a few minutes you
will see a gentleman and two lovely girls approaching, followed
by two servants laden with their purchases. The
gentleman has a very dark, handsome countenance, lighted
up by fine hazel eyes. His complexion is a rich, warm
brown. He wears whiskers, no mustache, but his coalblack
hair flows long and in very slight curl to his shoulders.
He wears a huge broad-brimmed sombrero, and a

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complete suit of white linen. He has the quiet, self-possessed
air and gentle bearing of a man of education
and taste. You will see that he is a “gentleman,” and
you will take a liking to him at sight; he has such a
frank smile and so handsomely shows his splendid teeth.
Guess who he is, Mr. —? You would not suppose
that he was more than seven and twenty, but his intellectual
and thoughtful brow gives the appearance of
three or four years more. Not to keep you in suspense,
as he and his beautiful companions are close upon you,
I will introduce you.

“My husband, Mr. —!”

I see you look surprised, and bow imperially, with a
little snip of jealousy, for I know you were never reconciled
to my getting married! Somehow you editors
fancy that your lady contributors are betrothed to you,
(editorially,) and that the Journal is their husbands!
Dear me! what an idea!

When Zephyr shouts out your name, my husband, who
has already known you by reputation, will give you a
right down hearty and hospitable welcome; and introduce
you to his sweet cousins, who will express their delight
at seeing you; and so they will take you prisoner into
the boat, and you will have one of the most charming
boat rides you ever enjoyed, for five hours at four miles
an hour. You will be rowed when the wind lulls, and go
under sail when there is any stirring. You will wind
round sugar fields, you will pass between gardens, you
can talk with the people as they sit on their piazzas, and
perhaps pacing along the bank road, will be two or three
cavaliers who ride by the side of the boat as it moves on,
as they would by a carriage, and chat with you. Night

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with its stars and silvery moon finds you still moving
along amid the bosom of the beautiful level land, which,
in the obscurity, with its groups of great trees, seems like
a dark sea studded with rounded isles.

Twenty miles from town you reach another bayou,
flowing westward. A league farther, mostly among the
gigantic trees of a Louisiana forest, and your boat comes
suddenly into an open lake, a mile wide and three miles
long, a gem of lakes buried in the green heart of this
lovely land. A few minutes afterwards you land at a
pier near a garden gate; and the next moment I grasp
your hand and welcome you to my home.

p613-435

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