back of one of the water-casks a place where once in a long time a drop of
water fell from it. She placed there a small vial, and twice a day bore
it, filled with water-drops, to the sick man. It saved his life. Of the
three ship-loads only two families reached America whole, and one of these
was the Thomases. A younger sister told me in 1884 that though the child
lived to old age on the banks of the Mississippi River, she could never
see water wasted and hide her anger.

The vessels were not bound for Philadelphia, as the Russian ship had been.
Either from choice or of necessity the destination had been changed before
sailing, and they were on their way to New Orleans.

That city was just then--the war of 1812-15 being so lately over--coming
boldly into notice as commercially a strategic point of boundless
promise. Steam navigation had hardly two years before won its first
victory against the powerful current of the Mississippi, but it was
complete. The population was thirty-three thousand; exports, thirteen
million dollars. Capital and labor were crowding in, and legal, medical,
and commercial talent were hurrying to the new field.

Scarcely at any time since has the New Orleans bar, in proportion to its
numbers, had so many brilliant lights. Edward Livingston, of world-wide
fame, was there in his prime. John R. Grymes, who died a few years before
the opening of the late civil war, was the most successful man with juries
who ever plead in Louisiana courts. We must meet him in the court-room by
and by, and may as well make his acquaintance now. He was emphatically a
man of the world. Many anecdotes of him remain, illustrative rather of
intrepid shrewdness than of chivalry. He had been counsel for the pirate
brothers Lafitte in their entanglements with the custom-house and courts,
and was believed to have received a hundred thousand dollars from them as