crew,

cargo, for Shanghai. There was no claim of neutral cargo among her and as soon as we could remove the papers, and some necessary articles, we consigned her also, to that torch which Yankee malice had kept burning so brightly in our hands.

The rebellion of the Taepings was still going on in China, and we found a nice little "speculation" in connection with it, embarked on board the Talisman. The speculators had put on board four very pretty rifled 12-pounder brass guns, and steam boilers and machinery for a gun-boat; the design being to build, and equip one of this class of vessels in the East, and take part in the Chinese war. I am afraid I spoiled a "good thing." With a Yankee Mandarin on board, and a good supply of opium, and tracts, what a smashing business this little cruiser might have done? We took a couple of these brass pieces on board the Alabama, and in due time, sent them afloat after the Yankee commerce, as the reader will see.

The next vessel that we overhauled was a "converted" ship —that is, a Yankee turned into an Englishman. I desired very much to burn her, but was prevented by the regularity of her papers and the circumstances surrounding her. She was a Maine-built ship, but had evidently been bona fide transferred, as her master and crew were all Englishmen, and she was then on a voyage from London to Calcutta. She received on board from us, a couple of the passengers-an Irishman and his wife-captured on board of the Talisman, who were anxious to go to Calcutta. For the next two or three days, we had a series of blows, amounting almost to gales of wind. We had arrived off the Abrolhos Shoals-a sort of Brazilian Cape Hatteras, for bad weather. On the 9th and 10th of June, we were reduced to close reefs; and, which was remarkable, we had a high barometer all the time. We had, for some days, experienced a northerly current. The whole coast of Brazil is coral-bound, and it is, for this reason, very dangerous. The coral shoals rise abruptly, from great depths, and are some times found in very small patches, with deep water all around them. Many of these patches have been missed by the surveyor, and are not laid down on any charts, in consequence. Hence it behooves the prudent mariner, to give the banks that fringe the coasts of Brazil, a pretty wide berth.

CHAPTER XLV.

THE ALABAMA CONTINUES HER CRUISE ON THE COAST OF BRAZIL- · AMERICAN SHIPS UNDER ENGLISH COLORS THE ENEMY'S CARRYING-TRADE IN NEUTRAL BOTTOMS THE CAPTURE OF THE CONRAD SHE IS COMMISSIONED AS A CONFEDERATE STATES CRUISER THE HIGHWAYS OF THE SEA, AND THE TACTICS OF THE FEDERAL SECRETARY OF THE NAVY· THE PHENOMENON OF THE WINDS IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE-ARRIVAL AT SALDANHA BAY, ON THE COAST OF AFRICA.

W

E captured our last ship off the Abrolhos, as related in the last chapter. We have since worked our way as far south, as latitude 22° 38', and it is the middle of Juneequivalent in the southern hemisphere, to the middle of December, in the northern. Hence the blows, and other bad weather we are beginning to meet with. On the 16th of June, we overhauled two more American ships, under English colors. One of these was the Azzapadi of Port Louis, in the Mauritius. She was formerly the Joseph Hale, and was built at Portland, Maine. Having put into Port Louis, in distress, she had been sold for the benefit of "whom it might concern," and purchased by English parties, two years before. the Queen of Beauty, formerly the Challenger. colors and nationality, she was now running tween London, and Melbourne in Australia. These were both bona fide transfers, and were evidence of the straits to which Yankee commerce was being put. Many more ships disappeared from under the "flaunting lie" by sale, than by capture, their owners not being able to employ them.

The other was Under her new as a packet be

The day after we overhauled these ships, we boarded a Bremen bark, from Buenos Ayres, for New York, with hides and tal

low, on Yankee account. The correspondents of the New York merchants were taking the advice of the latter, and shipping in neutral bottoms to avoid paying the premium on the war risk.

On the 20th of June, we observed in latitude 25° 48', and found the weather so cool, as to compel us to put on our thick coats. On that day we made another capture. It was the Conrad, of Philadelphia, from Buenos Ayres, for New York, with part of a cargo of wool. There were certificates found on board claiming the property as British, but as there were abundant circumstances in the res gestæ, pointing to American ownership, I disregarded the certificates, and condemned both ship and cargo as good prize. The Conrad being a tidy little bark, of about three hundred and fifty tons, with good sailing qualities, I resolved to commission her as a cruiser. Three or four officers, and ten or a dozen men would be a sufficient crew for her, and this small number I could spare from the Alabama, without putting myself to material inconvenience. Never, perhaps, was a ship of war fitted out so promptly before. The Conrad was a commissioned ship, with armament, crew, and provisions on board, flying her pennant, and with sailing orders signed, sealed, and delivered, before sunset on the day of her capture. I sent Acting-Lieutenant Low on board to command her, and gave him Midshipman George T. Sinclair, as his first lieutenant; and promoted a couple of active and intelligent young seamen, as master's mates, to serve with Mr. Sinclair, as watch officers. Her armament consisted of the two 12-pounder brass rifled guns, which we had captured from the Yankee mandarin, who was going out, as the reader has seen, on board of the Talisman, to join the Taepings; twenty rifles, and half a dozen revolvers. I called the new cruiser, the Tuscaloosa, after the pretty little town of that name, on the Black Warrior River in the State of Alabama. It was meet that a child of the Alabama should be named after one of the towns of the State. The baptismal ceremony was not very elaborate. When all was ready—it being now about five P. M.—at a concerted signal, the Tuscaloosa ran up the Confederate colors, and the crew of the Alabama leaped into the rigging, and taking off their hats, gave three hearty cheers! The cheers were answered by the small crew of the newly commissioned ship,

and the ceremony was over. Captain Low had now only to fill away, and make sail, on his cruise. Our first meeting was to be at the Cape of Good Hope. My bantling was thus born upon the high seas, in the South Atlantic Ocean, and no power could gainsay the legitimacy of its birth. As the reader will see, England was afterward compelled to acknowledge it, though an ill-informed cabinet minister-the Duke of Newcastle-at first objected to it.

On the same evening that we parted with the Tuscaloosa, we boarded the English bark, Mary Kendall, from Cardiff for Point de Galle, but which having met with heavy weather, and sprung a leak, was putting back to Rio Janeiro for repairs. At the request of her master I sent my surgeon on board to visit a seaman who had been badly injured by a fall, As we were within a few days' sail of Rio, I prevailed upon the master of this ship to receive my prisoners on board, to be landed. There were thirty-one of them, and among the rest, a woman from the Conrad, who claimed to be a passenger.

The time had now arrived for me to stretch over to the Cape of Good Hope. I had been three months near the equator, and on the coast of Brazil, and it was about time that some of Mr. Welles' ships of war, in pursuance of the tactics of that slow old gentleman, should be making their appearance on the coast in pursuit of me. I was more than ever astonished at the culpable neglect or want of sagacity of the head of the Federal Navy Department, when I arrived on the coast of Brazil, and found no Federal ship of war there. Ever since I had left the island of Jamaica, early in January, I had been working my way, gradually, to my present cruising ground. My ship had been constantly reported, and any one of his clerks could have plotted my track, from these reports, so as to show him, past all peradventure, where I was bound. But even independently of any positive evidence, he might have been sure, that sooner or later I would make my way to that great thoroughfare.

As has been frequently remarked in the course of these pages, the sea has its highways and byways, as well as the land. Every seaman, now, knows where these highways are, and when he is about to make a voyage, can plot his track in advance. None of these highways are better defined, or per

haps so well defined, as the great public road that leads along the coast of Brazil. All the commerce of Europe and America, bound to the Far East or the Far West, takes this road. The reader has seen a constant stream of ships passing the toll-gate we established at the crossing of the thirtieth parallel, north, all bound in this direction. And he has seen how this stream sweeps along by the island of Fernando de Noronha, on its way to the great highway on the coast of Brazil. The road thus far is wide-the ships having a large discretion. But when the road has crossed the equator, and struck into the region of the south-east trades, its limits become much circumscribed. It is as much as a ship can do now, to stretch by the coast of Brazil without tacking. The south-east trades push her so close down upon the coast, that it is touch and go with her. The road, in consequence, becomes very narrow. The more narrow the road, the more the stream of ships is condensed. A cruiser, under easy sail, stretching backward and forward across this road, must necessarily get sight of nearly everything that passes. If Mr. Welles had stationed a heavier and faster ship than the Alabama-and he had a number of both heavier and faster ships--at the crossing of the 30th parallel; another at or near the equator, a little to the eastward of Fernando de Noronha, and a third off Bahia, he must have driven me off, or greatly crippled me in my movements. A few more ships in the other chief highways, and his commerce would have been pretty well protected. But the old gentleman does not seem once to have thought of so simple a policy as stationing a ship anywhere.

The reader who has followed the Alabama in her career thus far, has seen how many vital points he left unguarded. His plan seemed to be, first to wait until he heard of the Alabama being somewhere, and then to send off a number of cruisers, post-haste, in pursuit of her, as though he expected her to stand still, and wait for her pursuers! This method of his left the game entirely in my own hands. My safety depended upon a simple calculation of times and distances. For instance, when I arrived off the coast of Brazil, I would take up my pencil, and make some such an estimate as this: I discharged my prisoners from the first ship captured, on such a