directly for the bar channel. We were soon out of danger from the
blockading fleet; but as we drew in toward Fort Caswell, one of the
look-outs on the wheel-house (who, like the thief in Shakespeare,
"feared each bush an officer") would every now and then say to the
pilot, "that looks like a boat on the star-board bow, Mr. D." "There are
breakers on the port-bow, Mr. D." And at last "There is a rock right
ahead, Mr. D;" at which last remark, D., losing all patience, exclaimed,
"G----d A----y, man, there isn't a rock as big as my hat in the whole
d----d State of North Carolina." A too sweeping assertion, but quite true
as applied to the coast. We passed safely over the bar; and steaming up
the river, anchored off Smithville a little before midnight of the 29th
of December, 1862.

The Scotch lithographers found abundant employment in Richmond, as the
Government "paper mills" were running busily during the whole war; but
the style of their work was not altogether faultless, for it was said
that the counterfeit notes, made at the North, and extensively
circulated through the South, could be easily detected by the superior
execution of the engraving upon them!

The natural advantages of Wilmington for blockade-running were very
great, chiefly owing to the fact, that there are two separate and
distinct approaches to Cape Fear River, i. e., either by "New Inlet" to
the north of Smith's Island, or by the "western bar" to the south of it.
This island is ten or eleven miles in length; but the Frying Pan Shoals
extend ten or twelve miles further south, making the distance by sea
between the two bars thirty miles or more, although the direct distance
between them is only six or seven miles. From Smithville, a little
village nearly equi-distant from either bar, both blockading fleets
could be distinctly seen, and the outward bound blockade-runners could
take their choice through which of them to run the gauntlet. The inward
bound blockade-runners, too, were guided by circumstances of wind and
weather; selecting that bar over which they would cross, after they had
passed the Gulf Stream; and shaping their course accordingly. The
approaches to both bars were clear of danger, with the single exception
of the "Lump" before mentioned; and so regular are the soundings that
the shore can be coasted for miles within a stone's throw of the
breakers.

These facts explain why the United States fleet were unable wholly to
stop blockade-runni