 Louisiana
never had a whaling industry,
but New Orleans was so important
a port, and was so popular
with mariners, that it remained
influential throughout the
Age of Sail, reaching even
into the quintessentially
Yankee milieux of the whaling
trade.
Images of Lake Ponchartrain,
African-American longshoremen
steeving cotton along the
wharves of the Big Easy,
and even of Austrian danseuse
Fanny Elssler's notorious
visit to New Orleans on
her 1838 American tour,
are indelibly engrained
in American nautical lore.
They thus touched two generations
of whalemen, even those
who never themselves visited
the South or sampled the
witchery of the bayou.
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