enemy. The Brooklyn, as we cleared the bar, was about three and a half, or four miles distant; we were therefore just out of reach of her guns, with nothing to spare. Thick volumes of smoke could be seen pouring from the chimneys of both ships; the firemen, and engineers of each evidently doing their best. I called a lieutenant, and directed him to heave the log. He reported our speed to be nine, and a half knots. Loth to believe that we could be making so little way, through the yet turbid waters, which were rushing past us with great apparent velocity, I directed the officer to repeat the experiment; but the same result followed, though he had paid out the line with a free hand. I now sent for the engineer, and, upon inquiry, found that he was doing his very best "though," said he, "there is a little drawback, just now, in the 'foaming' of our boilers, arising from the suddenness with which we got up steam; when this subsides, we may be able to add half a knot more."

The Brooklyn soon loosed, and set her sails, bracing them sharp up on the starboard tack. I loosed and set mine, also. The enemy's ship was a little on my weather quarter, say a couple of points, and had thus slightly the weather-gauge of me. As I knew I could lay nearer the wind than she, being able to brace my yards sharper, and had besides, the advantage of larger fore-and-aft sails, comparatively, stay-sails, trysails, and a very large spanker, I resolved at once to hold my wind, so closely, as to compel her to furl her sails, though this would carry me a little athwart her bows, and bring me perhaps a little nearer to her, for the next half hour, or so. A rain squall now came up, and enveloped the two ships, hiding each from the other. As the rain blew off to leeward, and the Brooklyn reappeared, she seemed fearfully near to us, and I began to fear I should realize the foreboding of my lieutenant. I could not but admire the majesty of her appearance, with her broad flaring bows, and clean, and beautiful run, and her masts, and yards, as taunt and square, as those of an old time sailing frigate. The stars and stripes of a large ensign flew out from time to time, from under the lee of her spanker, and we could see an apparently anxious crowd of officers on her quarter-deck, many of them with telescopes directed toward us. She had, evidently, I thought, gained upon us, and I ex

pected every moment to hear the whiz of a shot; but still she did not fire.

I now ordered my paymaster to get his public chest, and papers ready for throwing overboard, if it should become necessary. At this crisis the engineer came up from below, bringing the welcome intelligence that the "foaming" of his boilers had ceased, and that his engine was "working beauti fully," giving the propeller several additional turns per minute. The breeze, too, favored me, for it had freshened considerably; and what was still more to the purpose, I began to perceive that I was "eating" the Brooklyn “out of the wind"; in other words, that she was falling more and more to leeward. I knew, of course, that as soon as she fell into my wake, she would be compelled to furl her sails. This she did in half an hour or so afterward, and I at once began to breathe more freely, for I could still hold on to my own canvas. I have witnessed many beautiful sights at sea, but the most beautiful of them all was when the Brooklyn let fly all her sheets, and halliards, at once, and clewed up, and furled, in man-of-war style, all her sails, from courses to royals. We now began to gain quite perceptibly on our pursuer, and at half-past three, the chase was abandoned, the baffled Brooklyn retracing her steps to Pass à l'Outre, and the Sumter bounding away on her course seaward.

We fired no gun of triumph in the face of the enemy - my powder was too precious for that—but I sent the crew aloft, to man the rigging, and three such cheers were given for the Confederate flag, "that little bit of striped bunting," that had waved from the Sumter's peak during the exciting chase, as could proceed only from the throats of American seamen, in the act of defying a tyrant-those cheers were but a repetition of many such cheers that had been given, by our ancestors, to that other bit of "striped bunting" which had defied the power of England in that olden war, of which our war was but the logi cal sequence. The reader must not suppose that our anxiety was wholly allayed, as soon as we saw the Brooklyn turn away from us.

We were, as yet, only a few miles from the land, and our coast was swarming with the enemy's cruisers. Ship Island

TIGRATE

OF THE

NIVERSITY

was not a great way off, and there was a constant passing to and fro, of ships-of-war between that island and the passes of the Mississippi, and we might stumble upon one of these at any moment. "Sail ho!" was now shouted from the mast head. "Where away!" cried the officer of thedeck. "Right ahead," said the look-out. A few minutes only elapsed, and a second sail was descried, "broad on the starboard bow." But nothing came of these spectres; we passed on, seaward, without so much as raising either of them from the deck, and finally, the friendly robes of night enveloped us. When we at length realized that we had gained an offing; when we began to feel the welcome heave of the sea; when we looked upon the changing aspect of its waters, now darkening into the deepest blue, and breathed the pure air, fresh from the Gulf, untainted of malaria, and untouched of mosquito's wing. we felt like so many prisoners who had been turned loose from a long and painful confinement; and when I reflected upon my mission, to strike for the right! to endeavor to sweep from the seas the commerce of a treacherous friend, who had become a cruel and relentless foe, I felt, in full force, the inspiration of the poet :

"Ours the wild life in tumult still to range,
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell? Not thou, luxurious slave,
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;

Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease,
Whom slumber soothes not pleasures cannot please;
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,

And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,

Let him who crawls, enamored of decay,

Cling to his couch, and sicken years away;

Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;

Ours! the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed;

While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours, with one pang - one bound escapes control.

His corpse may boast its wan and narrow cave,
And they who loathed his life, may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead."