FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

[p 2] Madame Sain [Dai?] will entrust her daughter to you as soon as you arrive, and she
begs you expressly to bring a piano. I suggest that you bring one of the new makes, or a
small one, but in any case the price paid here should not exceed 250-300 piasters, that is,
50 to 60 guineas. 25 And you must figure in the shipping, also. A large piano would be
considered too expensive, so something which would cost you about 30 guineas in
London, or even less, would suit perfectly.
<strong>The</strong> manners of the inhabitants [here] greatly resemble those of our country gentlemen—
lots of hospitality, a table loaded with food, large apartments [rooms], but often neither
paneling nor carpets, nor wallpaper, nor doors which shut, nor windows. <strong>The</strong>y have
silver-plate, horses, carriages, and rowboats (“pirogues”), and they go to the city to attend
the Carnival. 26 <strong>The</strong>y have a ball in the country every Sunday, but the young ladies go all
week without stockings, and always wear pretty little embroidered slippers. But they
don’t even have shoe polish for their shoes. <strong>The</strong>ir houses are full of Negresses, mulatto
women, and little Negro boys to serve at the table and do the housework, yet their houses
are all dirty and you get served a la diable [in the worst way]. In a word, here, even more
than in France, they don’t know what it is to be “comfortable,” 27 but they enjoy
themselves whole-heartedly.
<strong>The</strong> land is too flat to be pretty, but it is rich. You breathe in only the perfume of orange
blossoms; the chimneys are covered with clusters of violets and roses, a strange
combination which is found hardly anywhere else but in this climate. You see
magnificent orchards of the most beautiful varieties of peaches, fig trees with white fruit,
excellent plums, some pears, a few apples but many pomegranates, and almost no apricot
trees. People go fishing in the canals where they catch shrimp [and crawfish?] by the
basketful. On the banks of a stream they cast a net a few times and in one “heave” [in
English] they fill a pirogue full of very nice fish.
I shall return this evening to the other bank [of the river] where I left my horse, and go in
small stages to Bayou Sara, where I shall see Mr. Kirkland. I shall return by Pointe
Coupee, & as I am supplied with a number of letters of recommendation, I shall see what
the attitude of the inhabitants is, and will be able to judge what is the most suitable place
to set up an educational establishment. If I can start one right away, I shall do it and try
to arrange that your place be on the same piece of land, otherwise I would start my own
25 50 guineas is 52.5 pounds (using decimal denomination instead of pounds, shillings and pence). Since
52.5 pounds equals about 250 piasters, then one pound equals about 4.76 piasters – or about 4.76 US
dollars. This is reasonably close to the 4.63dollars per pound (one dollar to 0.216 pounds) reported by a
financial website, discussed in an earlier footnote.
26 <strong>The</strong> biggest dispute on the Gulf Coast is “who had the earliest Mardi Gras /Carnival?” New Orleans
residents creatively put their date at 1699, before New Orleans was even founded, saying that it was
celebrated at Mardi Gras Island, south of the city, by an early explorer. Mobile claims its first Mardi Gras
in 1704, just after that city was founded. Of course, that was at OLD Mobile, 26 miles above the present
city, now an almost inaccessible industrial site and archaeological dig. I like ‘em both.
27 This word is in English in the original.
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