The next day was Saturday, and it was announced that the "Oceanus" would sail at five in the afternoon. The hour of departure was afterwards postponed to Sunday morning at nine o'clock, by advice of the pilot. We visited various points of interest on Saturday, including the office of the Charleston _Mercury_, where we secured some interesting papers, which are referred to in the Appendix. We also saw the slave-marts, where families had so long been bought and sold like cattle. I secured a bill of sale of a slave who was described as "a negro fellow called Simon." The seller's name was Mordecai, and the buyer of "the sole use of Simon forever," was a Mr. Lazarus. [Illustration] During the morning, one of our lady passengers was accosted by an aged black woman with a hen and a bag of eggs, as follows: "Missus, I want to gib de northern ladies sumthin', but I have nuthin' but this yer hen, and these yer eggs. Won't you take 'em?" This was too much for the sympathetic nature of Mrs. B----, but what to do with the hen and her products so far from home, was the question. Finally the eggs were taken and the hen left. The woman was rewarded and departed in much delight. On the homeward voyage a gentleman proposed to take them up to his country seat in New York State, and put them under the care of the most motherly hen of his large flock. This was done with the following result: "JUNE 10, 1865. "I am happy to inform you that the Charleston hen has done her duty as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The eggs were evidently the product of secession times, and stoutly resisted all northern influences. But the mother hen determined, '_a la_ General Grant,' to set it out on this nest 'if it took all summer!' A great destruction of capital has been the result, but 'victory at last' has rewarded her efforts, and she is now followed by a train of four bipeds, one black, one white, and two octoroons. I have neglected to tell you that the mother hen is black, and struts with pompous pride above her white and octoroon subjects. 'Let us have peace.'" My record would be incomplete without a brief description of the freedmen's meetings on Saturday. We found Citadel square almost impassable with the dense crowds of negroes, while hundreds of children were marching through the streets singing "John Brown." The principal gathering was in Zion's Church, where more than three thousand colored people were crowded together. One of the speakers from the north, William Lloyd Garrison, the veteran abolitionist, was surrounded by the freedmen as he entered the church, and borne on their shoulders amid great enthusiasm to the platform. Then the surging multitude sang, with thrilling power and effect: "Roll, Jordan, roll, the year of Jubilee;" and another song, beginning: "Blow, blow your trumpet, Gabriel!"