yet unfinished ditch, half full of water,
and walked on to the gateway. A grinning, skipping negro drummer was
showing a new pair of shoes to the tobacco-chewing, jovial youth who
stood, or rather sat, sentinel.

"How'd you get hold of _them?_" asked the latter, surveying the articles
admiringly.

"Got a special order frum the Cap'm fur 'um. That ee way to do it. Won't
wet through, no matter how it rain. He, he! I'm all right now."

Here he showed ivory to his ears, cut a caper, and danced into the fort.

"D-a-m' nig-ger!" grinned the sentinel, approvingly, looking at us to
see if we also enjoyed the incident. Thus introduced to the temporary
guardian of the fort, we told him that we were from the Columbia, which
he was glad to bear of, wanting to know if she was damaged, how she went
ashore, whether she could get off, etc., etc. He was a fair specimen of
the average country Southerner, lounging, open to address, and fond of
talk.

"I've no authority to let you in," he said, when we asked that favor;
"but I'll call the corporal of the guard."

"If you please."

"Corporal of the guard!"

Appeared the corporal, who civilly heard us, and went for the lieutenant
of the guard. Presently a blonde young officer, with a pleasant face,
somewhat Irish in character, came out to us, raising his forefinger in
military salute.

"We should like to go into the fort, if it is proper," I said. "We ask
hospitality the more boldly, because we are shipwrecked people."

"It is against the regulations. However, I venture to take the
responsibility," was the obliging answer.

We passed in, and wandered unwatched for half an hour about the
irregular, many-angled fortress. One-third of the interior is occupied
by two brick barracks, covered with rusty stucco, and by other brick
buildings, as yet incomplete, which I took to be of the nature of
magazines. On the walls, gaping landward as well as seaward, are thirty
or thirty-five iron cannon, all _en barbette_, but protected toward the
harbor by heavy piles of sand-bags, fenced up either with barrels of
sand or palmetto-logs driven firmly into the rampart. Four eight-inch
columbiads, carrying sixty-four pound balls, pointed at Fort Sumter. Six
other heavy pieces, Paixhans, I believe, faced the neck of the harbor.
The remaining armament of lighter calibre, running, I should judge, from
forty-twos down to eighteens. Only one gun lay on the ground destitute
of a carriage. The place will