The Camden Journal

From the Louisiana Advertiser.

THE
COMMENCEMENT OF THE
SEASON.

The circling months have sped rapidly away, and with the return of fine and bracing weather we hail the approach of days that are already ushering in another season of business, life, and activity.— The birds of flight, whom motives of prudent precaution led to a temporary absence from shores of which we may, perhaps, be permitted to say they stand but too much in dread, are seen dropping back one by one; from their close coverts, on the borders of bays and inlets, scarce less suspicious in point of health than the banks of the Mississippi, which they have been so sedulous to eschew; others; from the high and healthy precincts of Baton Rouge, and from the dry and wholesome ranges of the Pine wood country, and others again, and those by far the greater proportion, from the older lands of their immediate Saxon progenitors. In every direction are they seen pouring in; from over the Lake, up through the passes of the Mississippi, and wafted adown its stream. It may lead them somewhat to regret their absence, when they learn what excellent and uninterrupted health our city has enjoyed during that time, but they will not regret to see that even the intensity of a summer's sun has not interrupted either labors of more immediate utility, or works of taste and elegance. They will be gratified in seeing that our railroad to Nashville has been rapidly progressing; that it has penetrated through the swamp in the rear of Canal street; that it is making clearances on the borders of Pontchartrain, and driving piles for a passage over the neck of the Bayou Manchac. Nor, while this colossal work has been advancing, have the great contributors to the beauty and symmetry of our city been inactive. The two hotels and exchanges, —those great ornaments of the first and second municipalities, are approaching their completion; and that the Muses are preparing to take, not as heretofore, a transient and temporary, but a fixed and permanent station in the neatly completed edifice of the St. Charles' theatre. All these things our friends, who are hastening to return amongst us, will witness with no common feelings of delight and exultation. And next to this, they will be delighted to see our levees piled with the produce of the new, and, contrary to expectation, abundant crop of the season; nor will they be less delighted to count, even at these very early days of the young season, no less than forty ships, ten barques, fifteen brigs, and upwards of twenty schooners, already filling up the crescent that shapes its graceful curve in front of our city; not forgetting the long range of steam-boats that fill that crescent in front of the North American Hotel, and, carry it out to the second municipality. All this is no fiction: it is the plain unvarnished truth. Our city needs no exaggerating pencil to portray its rising greatness and prosperity. It needs no puffing: that of our steamboats is the only thing of the kind we will recognise. On whatever side we turn, wherever we take our walk, the faces of returning friends meet us, and to one and all we speak a cordial greeting, and extend the hand of welcome!