ust before daylight, people came to
remove my peculiar though far from uncomfortable couch. I felt its loss
the more, for in its place they put a poor fellow wounded nearly to
death, whose moans and cries were, beyond anything, distressing. We were
a long time getting to Wilmington, as it was necessary to stop and
repair most of the bridges on the line before the train could venture
over them, an operation at which all passengers sound in wind and limb
had to assist.

On arriving there we found all the world in a state of great excitement,
on account of there having been a terrible fire among the cotton lying
on the quays ready for embarkation, supposed to have been the work of an
incendiary.

The recollections of my last proceedings in the blockade-running are far
from pleasant, and I shall pass them over as briefly as possible.

When we had only the American Government cruisers to fear, we enjoyed
the excitement in the same way as a man enjoys fox-hunting (only, by the
way, we were the fox instead of the huntsmen), but when dire disease, in
the worst form that Yellow Jack could take, stalked in amongst us, and
reduced our numbers almost hourly, things became too serious to be
pleasant.

However, before the fever showed itself we made one successful round
trip in the new vessel (in and out) in capital form, having some
exciting chases and little adventures, all very similar to what I have
described before, the vessel doing credit to her designers on all
occasions. We landed one thousand one hundred and forty bales of cotton
at Bermuda, and it was after we had started from Wilmington on our
second trip that the horrid yellow fever broke out among us. I believe
that every precaution was taken by the Government of the island to
prevent the disease from spreading, but increased by the drunkenness,
dissipation, and dirty habits of the crews of the blockade-runners, and
the wretchedly bad drainage of the town of St. George, it had lately
broken out with great violence, and had spread like wildfire, both on
the shore and among the shipping. It must have been brought on board our
ship by some of the men, who had been spending much time on shore; we
had not been twenty-four hours at sea before the fever had got deadly
hold on our crew.

We went to Halifax, where we landed our sick and inhaled some purer air;
but it was of no avail. The fever was in the vessel and we could not
shake it off. The poor fellows as soon as we w