I Landed at New Orleans on the 22d of March. The day had been one of heavy rain, and the appearance of the city was by no means prepossessing. The streets, being generally unpaved, were full of mud, and a dense canopy of mist shed a gloom on every thing.

We had some difficulty in finding accommodation. The principal hotel is that of Madame Herries, but the house was already full. We tried three others with no better success, and the streets of New Orleans are perhaps the last in the world in which a gentleman would choose to take up his night's lodging. At length the keeper of a boarding-house took compassion on our forlorn condition. There was an uninhabited house, she said, in an adjoining street, in which she thought she could prevail on the proprietor to furnish us with apartments, and at meals we might join the party in her establishment.

And so it was arranged. The rooms were bad, and wretchedly furnished, but they were quiet, and we had an old and ugly female slave to wait on us. This woman was in character something like the withered hags who are so finely introduced in the Bride of Lammermoor. During my stay, I tried every means to extract a smile from her, but without success. I gave her money, but that would not do; and wine, of which on one occasion she drank two tumblers, with no better effect. By way of recommending the lodgings, she told me three gentlemen had died in them during the last autumn of yellow fever.

The wreather was warm and bright, and we found the guard of the boat, as they call the gallery that runs round the cabins, a very agreeable station; here we all sat as long as light lasted, and sometimes wrapped in our shawls, we enjoyed the clear bright beauty of American moonlight long after every passenger but ourselves had retired. We had a full complement of passengers on board. The deck, as is usual, was occupied by the Kentucky flat-boat men, returning from New Orleans, after having disposed of the boat and cargo which they had conveyed thither, with no other labour than that of steering her, the current bringing her down at the rate of four miles an hour. We had about two hundred of these men on board, but the part of the vessel occupied by them is so distinct from the cabins, that we never saw them, except when we stopped to take in wood; and then they ran, or rather sprung and vaulted over each other's heads to the shore, whence they all assisted in carrying wood to supply the steam engine; the performance of this duty being a stipulated part of the payment of their passage.

From the account given by a man servant we had on board, who shared their quarters, they are a most disorderly set of persons, constantly gambling and wrangling, very seldom sober, and never suffering a night to pass without giving practical proof of the respect in which they hold the doctrines of equality, and community of property.

Mohawk, as our little village was called, gave us an excellent opportunity of comparing the peasants of the United States with those of England, and of judging the average degree of comfort enjoyed by each. I believe Ohio gives as fair a specimen as any part of the Union; if they have the roughness and inconveniences of a new state to contend with, they have higher wages and cheaper provisions; if I err in supposing it a mean state in point of comfort, it certainly is not in taking too low a standard.

Mechanics, if good workmen, are certain of employment, and good wages, rather higher than with us; the average wages of a labourer throughout the Union is ten dollars a month, with lodging, boarding, washing, and mending; if he lives at his own expense he has a dollar a day. It appears to me that the necessaries of life, that is to say, meat, bread, butter, tea, and coffee, (not to mention whiskey), are within the reach of every sober, industrious, and healthy man who chooses to have them; and yet I think that an English peasant, with the same qualifications, would, in coming to the United States, change for the worse. He would find wages somewhat higher, and provisions in Western America considerably lower; but this statement, true as it is, can lead to nothing but delusion if taken apart from other facts, fully as certain, and not less important, but which require more detail in describing, and which perhaps cannot be fully comprehended, except by an eye-witness.