We are quite suffering from the heat of the weather here, and we are told it is unusual to be so oppressively warm at New Orleans in the month of December.

We are at a very splendid and comfortable hotel, called “the Verandah;” it reminds me much of a Parisian one. The St. Charles is the largest of all the hotels in New Orleans, but it is much crowded, and we were recommended to try this, as it is quieter, and thus pleasanter for ladies. The St. Charles looks a little like St. Peter's at a distance,–it is surmounted by an immense dome; it boasts, likewise, of a splendid Corinthian portico. It is said to be the largest in America. The attendance at this Verandah hotel is admirable, and all the arrangements excellent. But the charges are much higher than usual in the States.

We are waited upon by a little Swede almost fresh from Jenny-Lind land; and he asked me at dinner yesterday, in an anxious tone, whether I had ever heard his gifted countrywoman sing. I replied in the affirmative. “Then I come from two miles of her in Sweden –I am from two miles of her” (from where she lives in Sweden). – “Indeed!” – “Yes, and I have known her from a little child. She is very good and fine, oh, very fine; and I hear in England they much like her.”