At length, when I supposed the Tuscaloosa and the Sea-Bride had reached their destination, I filled away and followed them. As we were making this passage, it was reported to me that our fresh-water condenser had given out. Here was a predicament! The water was condensed once a week, and we had no more than about one week’s supply on hand. The joints of the piping had worked loose, and the machine had become nearly useless. It was now still more necessary to make a harbor, where we might get access to water, and see what could be done in the way of repairs. We worked our way along the African coast somewhat tediously, frequently encountering head-winds and adverse currents. On the morning of the 28th of August, we sighted the land, after having been delayed by a dense fog for twenty-four hours, and in the course of the afternoon we ran into the Bay of Angra Pequeña, and anchored. This was our point of rendezvous. I found the Tuscaloosa and the Sea-Bride both at anchor. I had at last found a port into which I could take a prize! I was now, in short, among the Hottentots; no civilized nation claiming jurisdiction over the waters in which I was anchored.
When at Cape Town, an English merchant had visited me, and made overtures for the purchase of the Sea-Bride and her cargo. He was willing to run the risk of non-condemnation by a prize-court, and I could put him in possession of the prize, he said, at some inlet on the coast of Africa, without the jurisdiction of any civilized power. I made the sale to him. He was to repair to the given rendezvous in his own vessel, and I found him here, according to his agreement, with the stipulated price—about one third the value of the ship and cargo—in good English sovereigns, which, upon being counted, were turned over to the paymaster, for the military chest. The purchaser was then put in possession of the prize. I had made an arrangement with other parties for the sale of the wool still remaining on board the Tuscaloosa. This wool was to be landed at Angra Pequeña, also, the purchaser agreeing to ship it to Europe, and credit the Confederate States with two thirds of the proceeds. The reader will see how easy it would have been for me, to make available many of my prizes in this way, but the great objection to the scheme, was the loss of time which it involved, and the risks I ran of not getting back my prize crews. If I had undertaken, whenever I captured a prize, to follow her to some out-of-the-way port, and spend some days there, in negotiating for her sale, and getting back my prize crew, I should not have accomplished half the work I did. The great object now was to destroy, as speedily as possible, the enemy’s commerce, and to this I devoted all my energies. I did not, therefore, repeat the experiment of the Sea-Bride.
I could not have chosen a better spot for my present purpose. At Angra Pequeña I was entirely out of the world. It was not visited at all, except by some straggling coaster in quest of shelter in bad weather. There was, indeed, no other inducement to visit it. It was in a desert part of Africa. The region was rainless, and there was not so much as a shrub, or even a blade of grass to be seen. The harbor was rock-bound, and for miles inland the country was a waste of burning sand. The harbor did not even afford fresh water, and we were obliged to supply ourselves from the vessel of my English friend, until our condenser could be repaired. The whole country was a waste, in which there was no life visible away from the coast. On the coast itself; there were the usual sea-birds—the gannet and the sea-gull—and fish in abundance. We hauled the seine, and caught a fine mess for the crews of all the ships. Three or four naked, emaciated Hottentots, having seen the ships from a distance, had made their way to the harbor, and came begging us for food. They remained during our stay, and had their emptiness filled. Some thirty or forty miles from the coast, they said, vegetation began to appear, and there were villages and cattle.
I ordered Lieutenant Low, the commander of the Tuscaloosa, as soon as he should land his cargo, to ballast his ship with the rock which abounded on every hand, and proceed on a cruise to the coast of Brazil. Sufficient time had now elapsed, I thought, for the ships of war of the enemy, which had been sent to that coast, in pursuit of me, to be coming in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope. Lieutenant Low would, therefore, in all probability, have a clear field before him. Having nothing further to detain me in the Alabama, I got under way, on my return to Simon’s Town, intending to fill up with coal, and proceed thence to the East Indies, in compliance with the suggestion of Mr. Secretary Mallory. The Tuscaloosa, after cruising the requisite time on the coast of Brazil, was to return to the Cape to meet me, on my own return from the East Indies.
When I reached the highway off the Cape again, I held myself there for several days, cruising off and on, and sighting the land occasionally, to see if perchance I could pick up an American ship. But we had no better success than before. The wary masters of these ships, if there were any passing, gave the Cape a wide berth, and sought their way home, by the most unfrequented paths, illustrating the old adage, that “the farthest way round is the shortest way home.” Impatient of further delay, without results, on Wednesday, the 16th of September, I got up steam, and ran into Simon’s Bay. I learned, upon anchoring, that the United States steamer Vanderbilt, late the flag-ship of Admiral Wilkes, and now under the command of Captain Baldwin, had left the anchorage, only the Friday before, and gone herself to cruise off the Cape, in the hope of falling in with the Alabama. She had taken her station, as it would appear, a little to the eastward of me, off Cape Agulhas and Point Danger. On the day the Vanderbilt went to sea, viz., Friday, the 11th of September, it happened that the Alabama was a little further off the land than usual, which accounts for the two ships missing each other. The following is the record on my journal, for that day: “Weather very fine, wind light from the south-west. At half-past six, showed the English colors to an English bark, after a short chase.” On the following Sunday, we were in plain sight of Table Mountain. The two ships were thus cruising almost in sight of each other’s smoke.
The Vanderbilt visited both Cape Town, and Simon’s Town, and lay several days at each. I did not object that she had been “painting ship,” and should have been sent to sea earlier. The more time Baldwin spent in port, the better I liked it. Indeed, it always puzzled me, that the gadflies should insist upon my being sent to sea so promptly, when nearly every day that the Alabama was at sea, cost them a ship.
I had scarcely come to anchor, before Captain Bickford, of the Narcissus, came on board of me, on the part of the Admiral, to have an “explanation.” The gadfly had continued its buzzing, I found, during my late absence from the Cape. A short distance to the northward of the Cape of Good Hope, in the direction of Angra Pequeña, there is an island called Ichaboe, a dependency of the Cape colony. It had been represented to the Admiral, by the Consul, that the transactions which have been related as taking place at Angra Pequeña, had taken place at this island, in violation of British neutrality. In what the evidence consisted I did not learn, but the Consul, in his distress and extremity, had probably had recourse to some more Yankee affidavits. It was this charge which Captain Bickford had come on board to ask an explanation of. The following letter from Sir Baldwin Walker, to the Secretary of the Admiralty in London, will show how easily I brushed off the gadfly, for the second time:—
“With reference to my letters, dated respectively the 19th and 31st ult., relative to the Confederate States ship-of-war Alabama, and the prizes captured by her, I beg to enclose, for their lordships information, the copy of a statement forwarded to me by the Collector of Customs at Cape Town, wherein it is represented, that the Tuscaloosa and Sea-Bride had visited Ichaboe, which is a dependency of this colony. Since the receipt of the above-mentioned document, the Alabama arrived at this anchorage, (the 16th instant,) and when Captain Semmes waited on me, I acquainted him with the report, requesting he would inform me if it was true. I was glad to learn from him that it was not so. He frankly explained that the prize Sea-Bride, in the first place, had put into Saldanha Bay, through stress of weather, and on being joined there, by the Tuscaloosa, both vessels proceeded to Angra Pequeña, on the west coast of Africa, where he subsequently joined them in the Alabama, and there sold the Sea-Bride and her cargo, to an English subject who resides at Cape Town. The Tuscaloosa had landed some wool at Angra Pequeña, and received ballast, but he states, is still in commission as a tender. It will, therefore, be seen, how erroneous is the accompanying report. I have no reason to doubt Captain Semmes’ explanation; and he seems to be fully alive to the instructions of her Majesty’s Government, and appears to be most anxious not to commit any breach of neutrality. The Alabama has returned to this port for coal, some provisions, and to repair her condensing apparatus. From conversation with Captain Semmes, I find he has been off this Cape for the last five days, and as the Vanderbilt left this, on the night of the 11th inst., it is surprising they did not meet each other.”
The Vanderbilt, I found, had exhausted the supply of coal at Simon’s Town, having taken in as much as eight or nine hundred tons. Commodore Vanderbilt, as he is called, had certainly presented a mammoth coal-consumer to the Federal Government, if nothing else. I was obliged, in consequence, to order coal for the Alabama, around from Cape Town. And as the operation of coaling and making the necessary repairs would detain me several days, and as I was, besides, bound on a long voyage, I yielded to the petitions of my crew, and permitted them to go on liberty again. The officers of the station were as courteous to us as before, and I renewed my very pleasant intercourse with the Admiral’s family. The owner of the famous Constantia vineyard, lying between Simon’s Town and Cape Town, sent me a pressing invitation to come and spend a few days with him, but I was too busy to accept his hospitality. He afterward sent me a cask of his world-renowned wine. This cask of wine, after making the voyage to India, was offered as a libation to the god of war. It went down in the Alabama off Cherbourg. We had another very pleasant dinner at the Admiral’s—the guests being composed, this time, exclusively of naval officers. After our return to the drawing-room, the ladies made their appearance, and gave us some delightful music. These were some of the oases in the desert of my life upon the ocean.
In the course of five or six days, by the exercise of great diligence, we were again ready for sea. But unfortunately all my crew were not yet on board. My rascals had behaved worse than usual, on this last visit to Cape Town. Some of them had been jugged by the authorities for offences against the peace, and others had yielded to the seductions of the ever vigilant Federal Consul, and been quartered upon his bounty. The Consul had made a haul. They would be capital fellows for “affidavits” against the Alabama. I need not say that they were of the cosmopolitan sailor class, none of them being citizens of the Southern States. I offered large rewards for the apprehension and delivery to me of these fellows; but the police were afraid to act—probably forbidden by their superiors, in deference to their supposed duty under the neutrality laws. That was a very one-sided neutrality, however, which permitted the Federal Consul to convert his quarters into a hostile camp, for the seduction of my sailors, and denied me access to the police for redress. My agent at Cape Town, having made every exertion in his power to secure the return of as many of my men as possible, finally telegraphed me, on the evening of the 24th of September, that it was useless to wait any longer. As many as fourteen had deserted; enough to cripple my crew, and that, too, with an enemy’s ship of superior force on the coast.