Some further leaves are added to the literary laurels of the city by
what Thomas Bailey Aldrich has written of it, and the wreath is made the
greater by the fact that in New Orleans was born "the only literary man
in New York," Professor Brander Matthews.
Another distinguished name in letters, connected with the place, is that
of Lafcadio Hearn, who was at one time a reporter on a New Orleans
newspaper, and who not only wrote about the French quarter, but
collected many proverbs of the Creoles in a book which he called "Gombo
Zebes." In his little volume, "Chita," Hearn described the land of
lakes, bayous, and _chenieres_, which forms a strip between the city and
the Gulf, and which, with its wild birds, wild scenery, and wild storms,
and its extraordinary population of hunters and fishermen--Cajuns,
Italians, Japanese, Spanish, Kanakas, Filipinos, French, and half-breed
Indians, all intermarrying--is the strangest, most outlandish section of
this country I have ever visited. The Filipinos, who introduced shrimp
fishing in this region, building villages on stilts, like those of their
own islands, were not there when Hearn wrote "Chita," nor was Ludwig
raising diamond-back terrapin on Grand Isle, but the live-oaks, draped
with sad Spanish moss, lined the bayous as they do to-day, and the
alligators, turtles and snakes were there, and the tall marsh grass, so
like bamboo, fringed the banks as it does now, and water hyacinth
carpeted the pools, and the savage tropical storms came sweeping in, now
and then, from the Gulf, flooding the entire country, tearing everything
up by the roots, then receding, carrying the floating debris back with
them to the salt sea.
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