It then contained about forty thousand people, and my notes describe thirty-six good steamboats receiving and discharging cargo at the levee.
I took passage December 4th in the steamer John Aull for New Orleans.

As we passed Cairo the snow was falling, and the country was wintery and devoid of verdure.

Gradually, however, as we proceeded south, the green color came; grass and trees showed the change of latitude, and when in the course of a week we had reached New Orleans, the roses were in full bloom, the sugar-cane just ripe, and a tropical air prevalent.

We reached New Orleans December 11, 1843, where I spent about a week visiting the barracks, then occupied by the Seventh Infantry; the theatres, hotels, and all the usual places of interest of that day.
On the 16th of December I continued on to Mobile in the steamer Fashion by way of Lake Pontchartrain; saw there most of my personal friends, Mr.and Mrs.Bull, Judge Bragg and his brother Dunbar, Deshon, Taylor, and Myers, etc., and on the 19th of December took passage in the steamboat Bourbon for Montgomery, Alabama, by way of the Alabama River.

We reached Montgomery at noon, December 23d, and took cars at 1 p.m.for Franklin, forty miles, which we reached at 7 p.m., thence stages for Griffin, Georgia, via La Grange and Greenville.