it was expected an American vessel or two would be on her track, and she left Port Phillip on February 8, 1865. Three months later she began her destructive work among the whalers in the Okhotsk and Behring Seas and the Arctic Ocean. Three months after General Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court-house, the _Shenandoah_ continued her activity, and it was not until the British barque _Barracouta_ was spoken that Waddell learnt that the war was ended. Waddell then sailed the _Shenandoah_ to Liverpool and surrendered her to the British Government, by whom she was handed over in November 1865 to the United States Consul. During her career under Waddell’s command she captured thirty-eight vessels, of which six were released on bond and thirty-two were sunk or burnt. She afterwards passed into the possession of the Sultan of Zanzibar, and some years later was lost with all hands in a gale. Waddell returned to America in due time and commanded the _San Francisco_, of the Pacific Mail Line, until she struck a rock and went to the bottom. All the passengers were saved and Waddell was the last to leave the ship.[69] [69] Appleton’s “Cyclopædia of American Biography.” The other most notorious blockade-runner and commerce-harrier was the Liverpool-built _Alabama_, a wooden three-masted screw steamer, rigged as a barque; she was of 1040 tons register and 220 feet in length and had horizontal engines of 300 nominal horse-power, operating one propeller and giving her a speed, under steam, of nearly 13 knots, while with steam and sail together she could cover 15 knots. The story of her exploits and of her destruction by the United States wooden cruiser _Kearsarge_ off Cherbourg in June 1864, and of the “_Alabama_ claims,” is too well known to need repetition here.[70] [70] A good account may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopædia.” The mail route between England and India via the Cape was admittedly slow; and it seemed possible to carry the mails by way of Suez in a much shorter time. The eastern half of this service was maintained in a very inefficient manner by the East India Company. The British Government had inaugurated in February 1830 its mail steam-packet service from Falmouth to the Mediterranean. Up to this date the mails had been carried in sailing brigs, although steam navigation with the Mediterranean had already been established and the steamers beat the sailing brigs by many days. The first of these Government steam packets was the _Meteor_, and the others employed included the _African_, _Messenger_, _Firebrand_, _Echo_, _Hermes_, _Colombia_, _Confiance_, and _Carron_.