A VISIT TO CHARLESTON.
All being ready, we steamed out of Nassau harbour, and were soon again in perilous waters. We had a distant chase now and then—a mere child's play to us after our experience—and on the third evening of our voyage we were pretty well placed for making a run through the blockading squadron as soon as it was dark. As the moon rose at twelve o'clock, it was very important that we should get into port before she threw a light upon the subject.
Unfortunately, we were obliged to alter our course or stop so often to avoid cruisers that we ran our time too close; for, as we were getting near to the line of blockade, a splendid three-quarter-size moon rose, making everything as clear as day. Trying to pass through the line of vessels ahead with such a bright light shining would have been madness; in fact, it was dangerous to be moving about at all in such clear weather, so we steamed towards the land on the extreme left of the line of cruisers, and having made it out, went quite close inshore and anchored.
By lying as close as we dare to the beach, we must have had the appearance of forming part of the low sand-hills, which were about the height and colour of the vessel; the wood on their tops forming a background which hid the small amount of funnel and mast that showed above the decks. We must have been nearly invisible, for we had scarcely been an hour at anchor when a gun-boat came steaming along the shore very near to the beach; and while we were breathlessly watching her, hoping that she would go past, she dropped anchor alongside of us, a little outside where we were lying—so close that we not only heard every order that was given on board, but could almost make out the purport of the ordinary conversation of the people on her decks. A pistol shot would have easily reached us. Our position was most unpleasant, to say the least of it. We could not stay where we were, as it only wanted two hours to daybreak. If we had attempted to weigh anchor, we must have been heard doing so. However, we had sufficient steam at command to make a run for it. So, after waiting a little to allow the cruiser's fires to get low, we knocked the pin out of the shackle of the chain on deck, and easing the cable down into the water, went ahead with one engine and astern with the other, to turn our vessel round head to seaward.
Imagine our consternation when, as she turned, she struck the shore before coming half round (she had been lying with her head inshore, so now it was pointed along the beach, luckily in the right direction, i.e. lying from the cruiser). There was nothing left to us but to put on full speed, and if possible force her from the obstruction, which after two or three hard bumps we succeeded in doing.
After steaming quite close to the beach for a little way, we stopped to watch the gun-boat, which, after resting for an hour or so, weighed anchor and steamed along the beach in the opposite direction to the way we had been steering, and was soon out of sight. So we steamed a short distance inshore and anchored again. It would have been certain capture to have gone out to sea just before daybreak, so we made the little craft as invisible as possible, and remained all the next day, trusting to our luck not to be seen. And our luck favoured us; for, although we saw several cruisers at a distance, none noticed us, which seems almost miraculous.
Thus passed Christmas Day, 1863, and an anxious day it was to all of us. We might have landed our cargo where we were lying, but it would have been landed in a dismal swamp, and we should have been obliged to go into Wilmington for our cargo of cotton.
When night closed in we weighed anchor and steamed to the entrance of the river, which, from our position being so well defined, we had no difficulty in making out. We received a broadside from a savage little gun-boat quite close inshore, her shot passing over us, and that was all. We got comfortably to the anchorage about half-past eleven o'clock, and so ended our second journey in.
I determined this time to have a look at Charleston, which was then undergoing a lengthened and destructive siege. So, after giving over my craft into the hands of the owner's representatives, who would unload and put her cargo of cotton on board, I took my place in the train and, after passing thirty-six of the most miserable hours in my life travelling the distance of one hundred and forty miles, I arrived at the capital of South Carolina, or rather near to that city—for the train, disgusted I suppose with itself, ran quietly off the line about two miles from the station into a meadow. The passengers seemed perfectly contented, and shouldering their baggage walked off into the town. I mechanically followed with my portmanteau, and in due course arrived at the only hotel, where I was informed I might have half a room.
Acting on a hint I received from a black waiter that food was being devoured in the coffee-room, and that if I did not look out for myself I should have to do without that essential article for the rest of the day, I hurried into the salle-à-manger, where two long tables were furnished with all the luxuries then to be obtained in Charleston, which luxuries consisted of lumps of meat supposed to be beef, boiled Indian corn, and I think there were the remains of a feathered biped or two, to partake of which I was evidently too late. All these washed down with water, or coffee without sugar, were not very tempting; but human nature must be supported, so to it I set, and having swallowed a sufficient quantity of animal food, I went off to my room to take a pull at a bottle of brandy which I had sagaciously stored in my carpet-bag. But, alas! for the morals of the beleaguered city. I found, on arriving there, a nigger extended at full length in happy oblivion on the floor, with the few clothes I had with me forming his pillow, and the brandy bottle rolling about alongside of him, empty.