ed late in consequence.

_30th._--Coming out of the cabin this morning at an early hour, found we
were off the old fort, Point Comfort. Fort Calhoun, a work on which
enormous outlay has been made, is not yet completed: the great
difficulty appears to be the unstable nature of the bank on which the
works are placed: upon the elevation of the _terre-plain_ alone, nearly
four thousand cubic yards of sand have been employed; all of which is
shipped from the main, and deposited within the fort. It is computed
that, by the time this place is fitted to receive a garrison, one
hundred thousand tons of stone will have been expended on the works and
breakwater which are required as an exterior support to the pressure
from within.

The completion of this truly great military work must, in a great
measure, depend upon the decrease of the subsidence to which the soil is
liable, and for which it is necessary to pause after every year's
addition of pressure, in order to proportion such a resistance as may
restore the equilibrium and secure the foundation. When I was here, one
of these pauses in the engineering department had place; but it was
said, the President had intimated his design of passing the hot season
upon this spot, when the works would be vigorously resumed under his
inspection.

Sailing up the Elizabeth river, so famous in the gallant Raleigh's
story, we reached Norfolk at eight o'clock A.M., when a portion of our
living freight was quickly transferred to the Virginia steamer for
Charleston; another portion, to which I was attached, being, with
similar promptitude, handed over to the Pocahontas ditto, bound for
Richmond, the capital of Virginia. In less than an hour we were sailing
back through the well-closed harbour of Norfolk; whence, crossing the
Elizabeth river, we entered, in a couple of hours, the noble stream now
rightly called, after its legitimate sovereign, the Powhatan, but better
known as the James's river,--"a great sinking in the poetry of the
thing," though Jamie also was a king, "but no more like his brother,"
&c.

Upon the southern banks rise a constant series of fine bold bluffs,
mostly crowned with forest trees of great beauty, now dressed in that
rich-coloured foliage so often lauded by poet and painter, but as yet,
I fancy, never done full justice to. Scott and Turner, those inspired
illustrators of nature, might have done this: as it is, I hope America
will, before many years are past, find, a