e aperture.

About ten o'clock we passed inside the first ship of the blockading
fleet, about five miles outside the bar; and four or five others
appeared in quick succession as the Giraffe was cutting rapidly through
the smooth water. We were going at full speed when, with a shock that
threw nearly every one on board off his feet, the steamer was brought up
"all standing" and hard and fast aground! The nearest blockader was
fearfully close to us, and all seemed lost. We had struck upon "the
Lump," a small sandy knoll two or three miles outside the bar with deep
water on both sides of it. That knoll was the "rock ahead" during the
whole war, of the blockade-runners, for it was impossible in the
obscurity of night to judge accurately of the distance to the coast,
and there were no landmarks or bearings which would enable them to steer
clear of it. Many a ton of valuable freight has been launched overboard
there; and, indeed, all the approaches to Wilmington are paved as
thickly with valuables as a certain place is said to be with good
intentions.

The first order was to lower the two quarter boats: in one of them were
packed the Scotch lithographers who were safely landed; and a kedge was
lowered into the other with orders to the officer in charge to pull off
shore and drop the kedge. The risk, though imminent, was much reduced
after our panic stricken passengers had got fairly away from the ship;
and the spirits of officers and crew rose to meet the emergency. The
glimmer of a light, or an incautiously loud order would bring a
broadside from that frowning battery crashing through our bulwarks. So
near the goal (I thought) and now to fail! but I did not despair. To
execute the order to drop the kedge, it was necessary to directly
approach one of the blockaders, and so near to her did they let it go,
that the officer of the boat was afraid to call out that it had been
dropped; and muffled the oars as he returned to make his report.
Fortunately, the tide was rising. After twenty or thirty minutes of
trying suspense, the order was given "to set taut on the hawser," and
our pulses beat high as the stern of the Giraffe slowly and steadily
turned seaward. In fact, she swung round upon her stem as upon a pivot.
As soon as the hawser "trended" right astern, the engineer was ordered
to "back hard," and in a very few revolutions of the wheels the ship
slid rapidly off into deep water. The hawser was instantly cut, and we
headed