I was
recommended to him for this service by a friend. I served the doctor in
this capacity every night for three months. I then went with him to
McComb, a village in southern Mississippi, which had been, in the days
of slavery, a somewhat famous resort, but which had lost its prestige,
and entered upon a general decline; the hotel and all its surroundings
presenting the appearance of general dilapidation. I remained here with
the doctor for two weeks--until they succeeded in getting another person
to care for him. I then took a run down to New Orleans.

* * * * *

A TRIP SOUTH.

On this southern trip I had the opportunity of observing the condition
of the country through which we passed. Many of the farms seemed
neglected, the houses dilapidated, or abandoned, the fields either
uncultivated and overgrown with bushes, or the crops struggling with
grass and weeds for the mastery, and presenting but little promise of a
paying harvest. In some places the bushes and other undergrowth were
fifteen feet high, and the landscape was peculiar and by no means
inviting. I could remember the appearance of the cotton farms in slavery
days; but how changed were things I now saw! They did not look at all
like those which I had been accustomed to see. Everything was dismal and
uninviting. The entire country passed through in Mississippi looked like
a wilderness. This deterioration was the natural result of the
devastating war which had swept the country, and to the industrial
revolution which followed and to which affairs had not been adjusted.

When I arrived at New Orleans I found the levee filled with fruit.
Oranges and bananas were piled in masses like coal, and the scenes in
this portion of the city were very different from anything one sees in
the north. Among the many places of interest in the city were the
cemeteries. Owing to the low level of the ground and its saturation with
water, burials are seldom made in graves, but instead in tombs built of
brick or marble or other stone, in which are constructed cells running
back from the front and of a size and shape sufficient to admit a
coffin. Then, as soon as filled, they are sealed up. These tombs contain
from two to six or eight, or even more of these cells, and their general
appearance from the front is not unlike that of a section of mail boxes
in a postoffice. Other places of interest were the old French market,
the public squares and garde