llowed upon them like thunderbolts
along the mountain-tops, are gone now, and only straggling, meddling
fellows pass them at all. The highest of these works commands both ends
of the Dutch Gap canal, and while our lads were digging they often hid
themselves in caves which they dug in the cliff-sides.

We reach the first torpedo at length; a little red flag marks it, by
which the boat slips tremulously, though another and another are before,
at the sight of which our nervous folks are agitated. Here is a monitor
with a drag behind it, which has just fished up one; and the sequel is
told by a bloody and motionless figure upon the deck. These torpedoes
are the true dragon teeth of Cadmus, which spring up armed men.

Happily for us, the Rebels have sown but few of them, and the position
of these was pointed out by one of their captains who deserted to our
side. In the midst of these lie the obstructions. Great hulks of vessels
and chained spars, and tree-tops which reach quite across the river,
except where our pioneers have hewn a little gap to let the steamer
through. Upon these obstructions a hundred cannon bear from the cliffs
before us, and as we go further we see the whole river-bed sprinkled
with strange contrivances to keep back our thunder-bearers. We think it
absolutely impossible, under any circumstances, that our fleet could
have got to Richmond so long as the Rebels contested the passage; each
step forward finds new and greater obstacles. The channel is as narrow
as Harlem River and as crooked as a walk in the ramble of Central Park.
Each elbow of the stream is muscular with snag and snare wherever the
swift stream swoops around abruptly. Jagged abatis, driven piles, and
artificial lumber, bar the way before us. To the right of us, to the
left of us, behind us, stand up the bare parapets, crowned with airy
lookout towers, where, at the coming of a nautilus, the whole horizon
and foreground would rain crossfires of shell and iron bolts, to sweep
into annihilation the tiniest or the staunchest opposition from the
earth's surface, and under the earth and above the earth death waited to
leap up and draw the daring to its bosom. Not one, nor two, nor three
lines of defences frowned down as we cautiously steamed along, but every
precipice was bristling with defiance, as if the deep subterranean fires
underlying our race had burst here fitfully and frequently, heaving up
the swells of the hills till they lay hard and