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Louisiana's Glories

Louisiana's Glories image
Parent Issue
Day
3
Month
January
Year
1889
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

In New Orleans wc bury in ovens above ground to escape the waters on which our city floats; in St. Martinsville there are dungeons of underground cellars; and in one parish the snows are orange blossoms, and in another they fall from heaven itself. In the Acadian country, when a bal] is to be, a courier carries a flag and rides over all the country shouting out like a town crier in the olden days the summons to the fete. In Creoledom a young girl dead is borne to her grave by white veiled "death maidens," and in Acadia the very horses wear arnulets to charm away the "gri-gri." There are out of the way little inns in Louisiana where the cooking is as good as at Delmonico"s - nay, better. Vho would not go a-swamping if only the way was ehown him? How many tourists would be proof against a day at Spanish lake, or a night's alligator hunt on the Atchafalaya? What Floridian scenery can cqual our Tchefuncta? There is a street m Dublin only a few biocks long said to be the linest street in the world; and there is a river in Louisiana only navigable for a little way tliat for beauty, for color of environment, is more finely picturcsqiie and lovely than milos of the Thames, the Rhinë, the Arkansas or the Hudson. NATURE APPEALS TO THE ARTIST. Nature in Louisiana appeals to the artist, to the poet, to the photographer, to the tourist, who is none of these in practice, yct all and more in love with tho keautiful. There is an indesoribable charm in the softness of our lakes, the serene, deep beauty of our bayous, the splendor of our foreste, the gayety and graceand lively life of our plantations. Every village has its inn, its traditions, its accessible gossip, its peculiar local custorns, too pronounced to escape the interested looker on. Here you will find (the big plantation, the fine house over"ua with pickaninnies, the royal wel come, tho never failing hospitality. ..ïliere you will find the adobe hut, the ffequalid tamales maker. Here you will find ''the voudou witch workingcharms; there you will find ma belle creóle making a novena before her saint and praying for a husband. There you will meet a patiënt, farm laboring friar or hear the dirgelike chant of the entombed _i Carmellite nuns. One day you may stand under an orange tree freighted with 10,000 golden globes of fruit; an' other day you may climb up a ladder into the perch of the swamper or down a nhaft into a salt mine far below the surface. Ours is a pastoral country, as pastoral as Englaml. All is gentle and serene and matured and full of soft repose. The flowers and even fields, the still forests, the waveless bayous, the rich crops and the lowing kine all appeal to the home side of nature. The grass is green everywhere, innumerable flocks of geese waddie over the green Ie vees end nip grass in the orange orchards. THE ITINERANT SHOWSIAN. Out in the woods and by the river's brim, the cheap circus people, traveling in caravans or in gay painted barges drawn by tiny tugs, erect their tents; peddlers plod about in heavy blue hacks; a gypsy fortune teller, her baby pwung on her back, stealthily creeps tip and whispers a wish to have her hand crossed with silver; an evil Arab slinks by under the Cherokee rose hedge leatling a dancing bear. He gets out of the way for the gentleman planter trotting by in his dog cart. Under the pent i-oof in the Teche country, in the tiny hut made on the gulf islands of wrecked ship's timbers, in the fine old country mansión, a palace in tl-e old days, there burns the inextinguishable toreh of genial hospitality. Like the Spanish the house owner greets the new corner with that gracious warmth and gives him not only the best he has but ..11 he has. - Catharine Cole in New Orleans Picayune.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Ann Arbor Register