taken out and placed in water will regain their freshness in a very little while.
At the hotel where I stopped in Cape Town I found that eight or ten captains and mates of ships recently destroyed by the Alabama were guests. I was in uniform, and being in neutral territory I had no idea that they would attempt to molest me. But I was mistaken. I passed them in the lobby and on the piazzas without their taking any notice of me, but when I entered the dining-room where they were already seated, and where there were many other people, they arose en masse and swore worse than did the "army in Flanders," damning pirates in general and myself in particular. They were advancing on me in a most threatening manner when the proprietor of the place rushed into the room and commanded the peace. He begged me to go with him into his private dining-room, but I protested that it was the disturbers of the peace who should be made to leave. I was finally persuaded to accompany my host at his private table found the company much more congenial society in the company of his charming wife, two lovely daughters, and two grown sons, as they told me that their sympathies were all with the South. They also gave me a glass of the sweet Constancia wine for which the colony is famous. The only thing that marred the pleasure of the meal happened at the end when my host unfortunately asked me what I would have done if the Yankee skippers had assaulted me. I naively answered that I was perfectly able to take care of myself, as I had a Colt's revolver strapped to me and very handy. I shall never forget the look of horror that passed over the faces of those English people. I could not understand it—coming as I did from a country where almost every man carried a weapon, and where it was considered the proper thing to resent an assault with a shot.
When I returned to my ship I found the caulkers still at work and the din they made interfered with our com-
