emancipation in that island
is by no means encouraging. They say that that magnificent colony,
formerly so wealthy and prosperous, is now nearly valueless--the land
going out of cultivation--the Whites ruined--the Blacks idle, slothful,
and supposed to be in a great measure relapsing into their primitive
barbarism.

At 12 o'clock I called by appointment on Captain Tucker, on board the
Chicora.[48] The accommodation below is good, considering the nature and
peculiar shape of the vessel; but in hot weather the quarters are very
close and unhealthy, for which reason she is moored alongside a wharf on
which her crew live. Captain Tucker expressed great confidence in his
vessel during calm weather, and when not exposed to a plunging fire. He
said he should not hesitate to attack even the present blockading
squadron, if it were not for certain reasons which he explained to me.

Captain Tucker expects great results from certain newly-invented
submarine inventions, which he thinks are sure to succeed. He told me
that, in the April attack, these two gunboats were placed in rear of
Fort Sumter, and if, as was anticipated, the Monitors had managed to
force their way past Sumter, they would have been received from
different directions by the powerful battery Bee on Sullivan's Island,
by this island, Forts Pinckney and Ripley, by the two gunboats, and by
Fort Johnson on James Island--a nest of hornets from which they would
perhaps never have returned.

At 1 P.M. I called on General Beauregard, who is a man of middle
height, about forty-seven years of age. He would be very youthful in
appearance were it not for the colour of his hair, which is much greyer
than his earlier photographs represent. Some persons account for the
sudden manner in which his hair turned grey by allusions to his cares
and anxieties during the last two years; but the real and less romantic
reason is to be found in the rigidity of the Yankee blockade, which
interrupts the arrival of articles of toilette. He has a long straight
nose, handsome brown eyes, and a dark mustache without whiskers, and his
manners are extremely polite. He is a New Orleans creole, and French is
his native language.

[Illustration: GENERAL G. T. BEAUREGARD.]

He was extremely civil to me, and arranged that I should see some of
the land fortifications to-morrow. He spoke to me of the inevitable
necessity, sooner or later, of a war between the Northern States and
Great Britain; and h