Havana was a great blockade-running centre to and from the Gulf ports, but until Wilmington was closed I did not attempt to utilise it, for many reasons preferring Nassau and the last named port. I went over there, however, several times, partly on business, and partly on pleasure, and a lovely city it was. Cuba was then in the heyday of success, and no one who had not visited its capital could have imagined that such a gay and beautiful city existed in the West Indies. Money seemed no object. And fortunately there was plenty, for everything was extravagantly dear, and I should think that at that time it was one of the most if not the most expensive city in the world to live in. To us blockade-runners, accustomed to the hard life in the South and the contracted surroundings of Nassau, Havana appeared like Paradise; good hotels and casinos, a capital theatre, magnificent equipages, military bands, handsome women, and, last but not least, the lavish and genial hospitality dispensed by our Consul-General, Mr. Crawford, and his charming daughters at their house, "Buenos Ayres," made a residence in Havana like a rest in an oasis to the weary traveller of the desert. But it was not all pleasure, as far as I was concerned. I had my business with its anxieties to attend to, and on one of my visits I had a rather adventurous trip to Nassau in a small schooner which I had chartered to convey some boiler tubes there. Being very anxious to reach Nassau quickly, I decided to go in her instead of waiting for the mail steamer which left a few days later. I made a start in the small craft (her size can be imagined when I state that she was a man-of-war's pinnace raised upon) manned by nine niggers. The first day out we encountered a furious gale in the Gulf-stream, and it is a marvel our little craft lived through it, for a fearful sea was running. However, she proved an excellent sea-boat, and when the gale subsided we found ourselves on the Bahama banks becalmed; for nine days we drifted helplessly over them, suffering agonies from the heat, hunger, and thirst, as we had only laid in provisions for about four days, and to make matters worse the bung had been left out of our freshwater cask and in the gale the water was rendered undrinkable by the salt water washing over it. Fortunately I had laid in a supply of a dozen of claret and a dozen of beer, and this was all we had to divide between us; however, everything has an end, and on the ninth day we had a spanking breeze which carried us in to Nassau, but not until we had been passed about twenty miles outside by the mail steamer in which I could have come, and whose captain, recognising me on board the schooner, jeered at me from his bridge.