We might have landed our cargo where we were lying, but it would have been landed in a dismal swamp, and we should have been obliged to go into Wilmington for our cargo of cotton.
When night closed in we weighed anchor and steamed to the entrance of the river, which, from our position being so well defined, we had no difficulty in making out.

We received a broadside from a savage little gun-boat quite close inshore, her shot passing over us, and that was all.

We got comfortably to the anchorage about half-past eleven o'clock, and so ended our second journey in.
I determined this time to have a look at Charleston, which was then undergoing a lengthened and destructive siege.

So, after giving over my craft into the hands of the owner's representatives, who would unload and put her cargo of cotton on board, I took my place in the train and, after passing thirty-six of the most miserable hours in my life travelling the distance of one hundred and forty miles, I arrived at the capital of South Carolina, or rather near to that city--for the train, disgusted I suppose with itself, ran quietly off the line about two miles from the station into a meadow.

The passengers seemed perfectly contented, and shouldering their baggage walked off into the town.