Very soon afterwards he left us, before we again quitted port. He was dissatisfied with the _Pocahontas_, partly on account of her coal supply; and the captain of the _Pawnee_ then going home, he obtained command of her. The _Pawnee_ was _sui generis_; in this like the _Pocahontas_, only a good deal more so, representing somebody's fad. I cannot vouch for the details of her construction; but, as I heard, she was not only extremely broad in the beam, giving great battery space,--which was plain to see,--but the bilge on each side was reported to come lower than the keel, making, as it were, two hulls, side by side, so that a sarcastic critic remarked, "One good point about her is, that if she takes the ground, her keel at least is protected." Like all our vessels at that time, she was of wood. Owing to her build, she had for her tonnage very light draught and heavy battery, and so was a capital fighting-ship in still, shoal waters; but in a seaway she rolled so rapidly as to be a wretched gun platform. Her first lieutenant assured me that in heavy weather a glass of water could not get off the table. "Before it has begun to slide on one roll, she is back on the other, and catches it before it can start." This description was perhaps somewhat picturesque--impressionist, as we now say; but it successfully conveyed the idea, the object of all speech and impressions. However satisfactory for glasses--not too full--it may be imagined that under such conditions it would be difficult to draw sight on a target between rolls. Whatever her defects, the _Pawnee_ was admirably adapted for the inland work of which there was much in those parts, behind the sea islands; and she continued so employed throughout the war. I met her there as late as the last six months of it. But she was not reproduced, and remains to memory only; an incident of the speculative views and doubting progresses of the decade before the War of Secession.