I remember a man coming to Oxford when I was an undergraduate with a letter of introduction from a friend. He was running into Charleston, and had brought from that port a store of watches and jewellery, which he persuaded us to take in exchange for a quantity of discarded clothing. The lady’s gold watch which I got is, I hear, still going strong, and belies the suspicion with which I took it. At this time there were no mills, and almost no manufactories in the Southern States, so that they soon began to feel the want of clothes, buttons, boots, socks, medicines, and chemicals. Nassau, a little island in the Bahamas, was the chief base for the steamers that were running the blockade. It is about 560 miles from Charleston and 640 from Wilmington. The Bahama group afforded neutral water to within fifty miles of the American coast, but it required a very fast vessel to succeed in evading the chain of cruisers which soon patrolled the coast. These fast vessels were being built in England and elsewhere. Let us follow the fortunes of one of them--the _Banshee_. She arrived safely across the Atlantic and put into Nassau. There she was stripped for the work that lay before her. Everything aloft was taken down, and nothing was left standing but the two lower masts, with cross-trees for a look-out man. The ship was painted a dull white, and the crew wore a grey uniform. As the success of a blockade-runner depends much on her speed, the qualities of the engineer are important. The _Banshee_ possessed a model chief engineer in Mr. Erskine, a man cool in danger and full of resource. In her pilot, Tom Burroughs, she had a man who knew the waters thoroughly, and was a genius in smelling out a blockader on the darkest night. A good pilot received about £800 for the trip there and back, for there was some risk in the service, and if they were captured they went to prison. The pay of the seamen was from £50 to £60 for the trip. So the _Banshee_ stole out of Nassau Harbour on a dark night, laden with arms, gunpowder, boots, and clothing, on her way to Wilmington. Wilmington lies to the north of Charleston, some sixteen miles up the Cape Fear River. Off the mouth of this river lies Smith’s Island, which divides the approach to the port into two widely different channels.