There was nothing interesting in Wilmington, which is a large straggling town built on sand-hills. At the time I write of the respectable inhabitants were nearly all away from their homes, and the town was full of adventurers of all descriptions; some who came to sell cotton, others to buy at enormous prices European goods brought in by blockade-runners. These goods they took with them into the interior, and, adding a heavy percentage to the price, people who were forced to buy them paid most ruinous prices for the commonest necessaries of life. On this occasion we spent a very short time at Wilmington, and having taken our cargo of cotton, we went down the river to the old waiting place under the friendly batteries of Fort Fisher. We had scarcely anchored when a heavy fog came on; as the tide for going over the bar did not suit till three o'clock in the morning, which I considered an awkward time, inasmuch as we should only have two hours of darkness left in which to get our offing from the land, I determined to go out in the fog and take my chance of the thick weather lasting. I calculated that if we had met with any cruisers, they would not have been expecting us, and so would have been under low steam. I was told by every one that I was mad to venture out, and all sorts of prognostications were made that I should come to grief, in spite of which omens of disaster, however, I went over the bar at four o'clock in the afternoon in a fog, through which I could hardly see from one end of the ship to the other, and took my chance. As we went on the fog seemed to get if possible still thicker, and through the night it was impossible for us to see anything or anything to see us. In the morning we had an offing of at least a hundred and twenty miles, and nothing was in sight. We made a most prosperous voyage, and arrived at Nassau safely in seventy-two hours, thus completing our third round trip. CHAPTER XIV. LAST DAYS ON THE 'D----N.' As no vessel had succeeded since the blockade was established in getting into Savannah (a large and flourishing town in Georgia, situated a few miles up a navigable river of the same name), where there was a famous market for all sorts of goods, and where plenty of the finest sea-island cotton was stored ready for embarkation, and as the southern port pilots were of opinion that all that was required to ensure success was an effort to obtain it, I undertook to try if we could manage to get the 'D----n' in. The principal difficulty we had to contend with was that the Northerners had possession of a large fortification called Pulaski, which, being situated at the entrance of the river, commanded the passage up to the town.