Transcription: Like all foreigners who visit the great Louisiana city, I was seized with admiration on seeing the activity which rained on the docks, literally covered with bales of cotton, casks of sugar, barrels of flour, sacks of cereals, lumber, tobacco, salted meat, etc. It is a world of commission men, speculators and dealers who argue feverishly in the midst of this pile of merchandise. Horses, vagans, negroes, and why it's bustled about in an area 600 feet wide where half the business of the United States takes place. Henry Hertz, 1846.
