"Did you have a pilot on board of your tug?" asked the captain.
"No, sir; I was my own pilot. I had the charts, and I studied out the bottom, so that I knew where I was in the darkest night."
"Then you are just the person we want if you are a pilot in these waters."
"What waters, sir? We are now off Cape St. Blas and Apalachicola Bay. I have been into the bay, but I am not a pilot in those waters, as you suggest."
"I have just opened my orders, and I find we are ordered to Cedar Keys," interposed the commander.
"That is quite another thing, sir; and there isn't a foot of bottom within five miles of the Keys to which I have not been personally introduced. When I was down here for my health I was on the water more than half of the time, and I learned all about the bay and coast; and I have been up the Suwanee River, which flows into the Gulf eighteen miles north of the Keys."
"I am exceedingly glad to find that we have such an excellent pilot on board. I am informed in my orders that schooners load with cotton at this place, and make an easy thing of getting to sea," added Captain Blowitt.
"I should say that it was a capital port for the Confederates to use for that sort of business. Small steamers can bring cotton down the Suwanee River, the railroad from Fernandina terminates at the Key, and this road connects with that to Jacksonville and the whole of western Florida as far as Tallahassee."
"We may find a steamer or two there."
"You may, though not one any larger than the Bronx, for there is only eleven feet of water on the bar. Probably no blockaders have yet been stationed off the port, and it is a good place to run out cotton."