ot to be kept down; and for some days the harassed
officer hardly dared to show himself upon deck.

The place of final detention for most of the prisoners taken in the
war with America was Dartmoor Prison; a rambling collection of huge
frame buildings, surrounded by double walls of wood. The number of
prisoners confined there, and the length of time which many of them
had spent within its walls, gave this place many of the
characteristics of a small State, with rulers and officials of its
own. One of the strangest characters of the prison was King Dick, a
gigantic negro, who ruled over the five or six hundred negro
prisoners. "He is six feet five inches in height," says one of the
prisoners, "and proportionally large. This black Hercules commands
respect, and his subjects tremble in his presence. He goes the rounds
every day, and visits every berth, to see if they all are kept clean.
When he goes the rounds, he puts on a large bear-skin cap, and carries
in his hand a huge club. If any of his men are dirty, drunken, or
grossly negligent, he threatens them with a beating; and if they are
saucy they are sure to receive one. They have several times conspired
against him, and attempted to dethrone him; but he has always
conquered the rebels. One night several attacked him while asleep in
his hammock: he sprang up, and seized the smallest by his feet, and
thumped another with him. The poor negro, who had thus been made a
beetle of, was carried the next day to the hospital, sadly bruised,
and provokingly laughed at." King Dick, to further uphold his dignity
as a monarch, had his private chaplain, who followed his royal master
about, and on Sundays preached rude but vigorous sermons to His
Majesty's court. On weekdays the court was far from being a dignified
gathering. King Dick was a famous athlete, and in the cock-loft, over
which he reigned, was to be seen fine boxing and fencing. Gambling,
too, was not ruled out of the royal list of amusements; and the cries
of the players, mingled with the singing of the negroes, and the
sounds of the musical instruments upon which they played, made that
section of the prison a veritable pandemonium.

[Illustration: The last Volley of the War.]

But although some few incidents occurred to brighten momentarily the
dull monotony of the prisoners' lot, the life of these unfortunate
men, while thus imprisoned, was miserable and hateful to them. Months
passed, and even years, but there seeme