f the Union forces in the South, was unpleasantly near,
and the gulf blockade was maintained with more rigor than that on the
Atlantic coast. Matamoras was peculiarly well situated for a
blockade-running point. It is on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande
River, about forty miles above its mouth. Goods once landed could be
shipped in barges and lighters across the river in absolute safety,
since heavy batteries prevented the cruisers of the gulf-squadron from
entering the river. As a result of this trade, Matamoras became a
thriving place. Hundreds of vessels lay in its harbor, where now it is
unusual to see five at a time. For four years its streets were crowded
with heavy freight vans, while stores and hotels reaped a rich harvest
from the sailors of the vessels engaged in the contraband traffic. Now
it is as quiet and sleepy a little town as can be found in all the
drowsy land of Mexico.

But the true paradise of the blockade-runners was Nassau, the chief
port of the Bahama Islands, and a colony of Great Britain. Here all
the conditions necessary to successfully evade the blockade were to be
found. The flag that waved over the island was that of a nation
powerful enough to protect its citizens, and to enforce the laws
relative to neutrality. Furthermore, Great Britain was undoubtedly in
sympathy with the Confederates; and so far from prohibiting the
efforts of her citizens to keep up trade with the blockaded ports, she
encouraged and aided them in every way in her power. And aside from
her mere sympathy with the struggles of the young Confederacy, England
had a most powerful incentive to break down the blockade. In
Manchester the huge cotton-mills, employing thousands of hands, were
shut down for lack of cotton, and the mill-hands were starving for
lack of work; while shut up in the blockaded ports of the South were
tons upon tons of the fleecy staple, that, once in England, would be
worth its weight in gold. It was small wonder that the merchants of
England set to work deliberately to fit out blockade-runners, that
they might again get their mills running, and their people fed.

[Illustration: Cotton Ships at Nassau.]

The years of the war were lively times for the little town of Nassau.
Hardly had the proclamation of President Lincoln announcing the
blockade of all Confederate ports been issued, when at a bound Nassau
became prominent as the point of all most suitable for a
blockade-runners' rendezvous. Its harbo