"Got a special order frum the Cap'm fur 'um. That ee way to do it. Won't wet through, no matter how it rain. He, he! I'm all right now." Here he showed ivory to his ears, cut a caper, and danced into the fort. "D-a-m' nig-ger!" grinned the sentinel, approvingly, looking at us to see if we also enjoyed the incident. Thus introduced to the temporary guardian of the fort, we told him that we were from the Columbia, which he was glad to bear of, wanting to know if she was damaged, how she went ashore, whether she could get off, etc., etc. He was a fair specimen of the average country Southerner, lounging, open to address, and fond of talk. "I've no authority to let you in," he said, when we asked that favor; "but I'll call the corporal of the guard." "If you please." "Corporal of the guard!" Appeared the corporal, who civilly heard us, and went for the lieutenant of the guard. Presently a blonde young officer, with a pleasant face, somewhat Irish in character, came out to us, raising his forefinger in military salute. "We should like to go into the fort, if it is proper," I said. "We ask hospitality the more boldly, because we are shipwrecked people." "It is against the regulations. However, I venture to take the responsibility," was the obliging answer. We passed in, and wandered unwatched for half an hour about the irregular, many-angled fortress. One-third of the interior is occupied by two brick barracks, covered with rusty stucco, and by other brick buildings, as yet incomplete, which I took to be of the nature of magazines. On the walls, gaping landward as well as seaward, are thirty or thirty-five iron cannon, all _en barbette_, but protected toward the harbor by heavy piles of sand-bags, fenced up either with barrels of sand or palmetto-logs driven firmly into the rampart. Four eight-inch columbiads, carrying sixty-four pound balls, pointed at Fort Sumter. Six other heavy pieces, Paixhans, I believe, faced the neck of the harbor. The remaining armament of lighter calibre, running, I should judge, from forty-twos down to eighteens. Only one gun lay on the ground destitute of a carriage. The place will stand a great deal of battering; for the walls are nearly bidden by the sand-covered _glacis_, which would catch and smother four point-blank shots out of five, if discharged from a distance. Against shells, however, it has no resource; and one mortar would make it a most unwholesome residence. "What's this?" asked a volunteer, in homespun gray uniform, who, like ourselves, had come in by courtesy. "That's the butt of the old flag-staff," answered a comrade. "Cap'n Foster cut it down before he left the fort, damn him I It was a dam' sneaking trick. I've a great mind to shave off a sliver and send it to Lincoln." The idea of getting a bit of the famous staff as a memento struck me, and I attempted to put it in practice; but the exceedingly tough pitch-pine defied my slender pocket-knife.