bet, but that was all. Their slavery appeared to be of a mitigated form, the slaves being on easy and even familiar terms with their masters. The houries who fanned me could have been bought for twenty dollars each. The price of a slave fresh from the coast, is not more than half that sum. I gave my sailors a run on shore, but this sort of "liberty" was awful hard work for Jack. There was no such thing as a glass of grog to be found in the whole town, and as for a fiddle, and Sal for a partner-all of which would have been a matter of course in civilized countries—there were no such luxuries to be thought of. They found it a difficult matter to get through with the day, and were all down at the beach long before sunset-the hour appointed for their coming offwaiting for the approach of the welcome boat. I told Kell to let them go on shore as often as they pleased, but no one made a second application. On the 15th of February, having received on board a supply of half a dozen live bullocks, and some fruits and vegetables, we got under way, and again turned our head to the southwest. The winds were light, but we were much assisted by the currents; for we were now approaching the Mozambique Channel, and the south-west current, of which I spoke when we left the Cape of Good Hope for our run before the "brave west winds," to the eastward, was hurrying us forward, sometimes at the rate of forty or fifty miles a day. As we progressed, the wind freshened, and by the time we had entered the narrowest part of the channel between Madagascar and the African coast, which lies in about 15° south latitude, we lost the fine weather and clear skies, which we had brought all the way across the Arabian Sea. We now took several gales of wind. Rain-squalls were of frequent occurrence. As we approached the south-west end of Madagascar, which lies just without the Tropic of Capricorn, we encountered one of the most sublime storms of thunder and lightning I ever witnessed. It occurred at night. Black rain-clouds mustered from every quarter of the compass, and the heavens were soon so densely and darkly overcast, that it was impossible to see across the ship's deck. Sometimes the most terrific squalls of wind ac company these storms, and we furled most of the sails, and awaited in silence the denouement. The thunder rolled and crashed, as if the skies were falling in pieces; and the lightning-sheet lightning, streaked lightning, forked lightningkept the firmament almost constantly ablaze. And the rain! I thought I had seen it rain before, but for an hour, Madagascar beat the Ghaut Mountains. It came down almost literally by the bucketfull. Almost a continual stream of lightning ran down our conductors, and hissed as it leaped into the sea. There was not much wind, but all the other meteorological elements were there in perfection. Madagascar is, perhaps, above all other countries, the bantling and the plaything of the storm, and thunder and lightning. Its plains, heated to nearly furnace-heat, by a tropical sun, its ranges of lofty mountains, the currents that sweep along its coasts, and its proximity to equatorial Africa, all point it out as being in a region fertile of meteorological phenomena. Cyclones of small diameter are of frequent occurrence in the Mozambique Channel. They travel usually from south-east to north-west, or straight across the channel. We took one of these short gales, which lasted us the greater part of a day. Leaving the channel, and pursuing our way toward the Cape of Good Hope, we sounded on the Agulhas Bank on the 7th of March our latitude being 35° 10', and longitude 24° 08′. This bank is sometimes the scene of terrible conflicts of the elements in the winter season. Stout ships are literally swamped here, by the huge, wall-like seas; and the frames of others so much shaken and loosened in every knee and joint, as to render them unseaworthy. The cause of these terrible, short, racking seas, is the meeting of the winds and currents. Whilst the awful, wintry gale is howling from the west and north-west, the Mozambique, or Agulhas current, as it is now called, is setting in its teeth, sometimes at the rate of two or three knots per hour. A struggle ensues between the billows lashed into fury by the winds, and the angry current which is opposing them. The ground-swell contributes to the turmoil of the elements, and the stoutest mariner sometimes stands appalled at the spectacle of seas with nearly perpendicular walls, battering his ship like so many battering-rams, and threatening her with instant destruction. Hence the name of the "stormy cape," applied to the Cape of Good Hope. Arriving on our old cruising ground off the pitch of the Cape, we held ourselves here a few days, overhauling the various ships that passed. But American commerce, which, as the reader has seen, had fled this beaten track before we left for the East Indies, had not returned to it. The few ships of the enemy that passed, still gave the Cape a wide berth, and winged their flight homeward over the by-ways, instead of the highways of the ocean. We found the coast clear again of the enemy's cruisers. That huge old coal-box, the Vanderbilt, having thought it useless to pursue us farther, had turned back, and was now probably doing a more profitable business, by picking up bockade-runners on the American coast. operation paid-the captain might grow rich upon it. Chasing the Alabama did not. Finding that it was useless for us to cruise longer off the Cape, we ran into Cape Town, and came to anchor at half-past four, on the afternoon of the 20th of March. We had gone to sea from Simon's Town, on our way to the East Indies, on the 24th of the preceding September,our cruise had thus lasted within a day or two of six months. This CHAPTER LII. ALABAMA AGAIN IN CAPE TOWN-THE SEIZURE OF THE TUSCALOOSA, AND THE DISCUSSION WHICH GREW OUT OF IT ·CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN THE AUTHOR AND ADMIRAL WALKER FINAL ACTION OF THE HOME GOV ERNMENT, AND RELEASE OF THE TUSCALOOSA. A FTER our long absence in the East Indies, we felt like returning home when we ran into Table Bay. Familiar faces greeted us, and the same welcome was extended to us as upon our first visit. An unpleasant surprise awaited me, however, in the course the British Government had recently pursued in regard to my tender, the Tuscaloosa. The reader will recollect, that I had dispatched this vessel from Angra Pequeña, back to the coast of Brazil, to make a cruise on that coast. Having made her cruise, she returned to Simon's Town, in the latter part of December, in want of repairs and supplies. Much to the astonishment of her commander, she was seized, a few days afterward, by Admiral Sir Baldwin Walker, under orders from the Home Government. Since I had left the Cape, a correspondence had ensued between the Governor, Sir Philip Wodehouse, and the Secretary for the Colonies, the Duke of Newcastle; the latter disapproving of the conduct of the former, in the matter of the reception of the Tuscaloosa. It was insisted by the Duke, that inasmuch as the Tuscaloosa was an uncondemned prize, she was not entitled to be regarded as a ship of war; but that, on the contrary, having been brought into British waters, in violation of the Queen's orders of neutrality, she should have been detained, and handed over to her original owners. Under these instructions, the Tuscaloosa was seized upon her return to the Cape. This correspondence between the Governor and the Duke had not yet been made pub lic, and it was supposed that the seizure had been made by order of Lord John Russell. Under this impression I sat down, and addressed the following letter to Sir Balwin Walker, the Admiral, on the subject: - CONFEDERATE STATES STEAMER ALABAMA, } SIR: I was surprised to learn, upon my arrival at this port, of the detention, by your order, of the Confederate States bark Tuscaloosa, a tender to this ship. I take it for granted that you detained her by order of the Home Government, as no other supposition is consistent with my knowledge of the candor of your character- the Tuscaloosa having been formerly received by you as a regularly commissioned tender, and no new facts appearing in the case to change your decision. Under these circumstances, I shall not demand of you the restoration of that vessel, with which demand you would not have the power to comply, but will content myself with putting this, my protest, on record, for the future consideration of our respective Governments. Earl Russell, in reaching the decision which he has communicated to you, must surely have misapprehended the facts; for if he had correctly understood them, he could not have been capable of so grossly misapplying the law. The facts are briefly these: First, The Tuscaloosa was formerly the enemy's ship Conrad, lawfully captured by me on the high seas, in my recognized character of a belligerent. 2dly, She was duly commissioned by me, as a tender to the Confederate States steamer Alabama, then, as now, under my command. 3dly, In this character she entered British waters, was received with the courtesy and hospitality due to a ship of war of a friendly. power, and was permitted to repair and refit, and depart on a cruise. These were the facts up to the time of Earl Russell's issuing to you the order in the premises. Let us consider them for a moment, and see if they afford his lordship any ground for the extraordinary conclusion at which he has arrived. My right to capture, and the legality of the capture, will not be denied. Nor will you deny, in your experience as a naval officer, my right to commission this, or any other ship lawfully in my possession, as a tender to my principal ship. British Admirals do this every day, on distant stations; and the tender, from the time of her being put in commission, wears a pennant, and is entitled to all the immunities and privileges of a ship of war, the right of capturing enemy's ships included. Numerous decisions are to be found in your own prize law to this effect. In other words, this is one of the recognized modes of commissioning a ship of war, which has grown out of the convenience of the thing, and become a sort of naval common law of the sea, as indisputable as the written law itself. The only difference between the commission of such a ship, and that of a ship commissioned by the |