February 10.—­We began to feel the cold very keenly:  the thermometer was down at 46.  In the middle of the day, we had to stop at an estate to take in a large quantity of sugar and molasses.  The upper parts of the valley send down flour and provisions, getting from the lower sugar and molasses in return.  This stoppage affording an opportunity of going ashore, I went to see the estate buildings; and though such buildings as existing in Guiana were quite familiar to me, I was interested in observing the difference.  Those of Guiana are incomparably superior; but these are the result of a better policy.  Ours are too large and too expensive; these are rude, simple, and cheap, and yet answer the purpose.  Seeing slaves at work, I addressed several questions to one of them relative to the cultivation and manufacture of sugar, and received very sensible and even polite answers.

By this time we had received an impression of the character of our fellow-passengers.  The mass of the “gentlemen” were rude and filthy beyond expression.  The promenade or gallery outside, which might be very pleasant, was bespattered all over with vile expectoration.  No lady could venture there with safety.  The men will persist in spitting on the floor, when it would be quite as convenient to spit into the water.  Many of the names of places on the route ending in ville,—­as Donaldsonville, Francisville, Iberville, Nashville, &c.,—­I could not help asking if we had not many passengers from Spitville.  But this was not the worst feature in the character of our fellow-travellers, who comprised gamblers, fighters, swearers, drunkards, “soul drivers,” and everything base and bad.  Of these, we had about fifty as cabin passengers; but there were upwards of a hundred deck passengers below—­not above,—­and they were ten times worse.  Among men so much resembling demons I had never before been.  However, my wife being with me, I had the entree of the ladies’ cabin.  This was the abode of quiet and decency, there being but three other ladies besides.  Of these, one had her husband with her, a respectable farmer from Pennsylvania, who shipped all his last year’s produce in a flat boat, came down in it with his wife, sold his cargo in New Orleans, bought there what he might want during the year, and was now on his way home again by steam.  Another lady, who was from Philadelphia, had come all the way to New Orleans in the hope of having a last glance of her husband before he was ordered off to Mexico,—­was just too late,—­and was returning home alone, with a heavy heart and an anxious mind.  The third lady was a German girl from Baden, who had lived in New Orleans for three years, and was now on her way to Cincinnati to see her brother.  We had also the boat’s washer-woman, an old lady from New England, who sat in the ladies’ cabin with as much composure as if she thought herself quite as good as any of the rest.  Such is American society!  So terribly afraid are they of anything that looks like aristocracy, except towards the coloured people!