CHAPTER IV.

THE morning of the ever memorable Friday, April 14th, dawned at length. It is surmised that more of the passengers of the Oceanus witnessed its rising sun than are wont to behold that matin spectacle. For, when the writer, in the pale grey twilight, first stepped forth upon Southern soil, the wharf was alive with the members of our party, and numerous gentlemen were returning from moonlight strolls through the city, their hands and arms laden with flowers and sprays of exquisite fragrance and verdure. A slight shower during the night had laid the dust and lent a delicious coolness to the air.

Breakfast was ordered promptly at six o'clock. This preliminary business being disposed of, we were requested by our enterprising fellow-citizen, Mr. W. E. James, to bestow ourselves as eligibly as possible upon the decks of the steamer, to be instantaneously photographed. Some of our first reflections in Charleston, were made at this moment.

It had been announced that we should have until ten o'clock for rambling about the city, at which hour, precisely, the transports would leave for Fort Sumter. The

majority of the company were now waiting for the conveyances so kindly promised by Capt. Hunt, the evening previous. He had stated that the authorities had impressed all the carriages in the city for the convenience of their Northern friends. About eight o'clock, an army ambulance, drawn by a span of sorry animals, by courtesy yclept horses, was discovered approaching upon the wharf. A passenger Jocularly remarked, "Here come the carriages!" whereupon a pleasant laugh went round. Soon a line of similar vehicles was drawn up alongside the Oceanus, flanked by sundry dilapidated carriages, carts, omnibusses, fish-wagons or whatever goeth upon four wheels or two, and drawn by mules, jacks and donkeys, or whatsoever goeth upon four legs or three. This was the livery of Charleston. And, surely enough, these were our carriages. With no little merriment these equipages were received, but the alacrity with which the ladies and gentlemen stowed themselves within them, showed conclusively how little they stood upon the ceremony or "order of their going."

Not from any contempt for these vehicles, but from the conviction that sight-seeing could be better accomplished in the primitive way of traveling, we set out on foot, accompanied by a few friends, and turned our footsteps into the avenue known as the Battery, when we first began to realize what war had done for the infamous city of Charleston.

The Battery is a fine and straight promenade, about a quarter of a mile in length, built directly upon the

and

waters of the harbor. A wall of masonry rises six or seven feet to the broad esplanade or pavement of stone, commanding a magnificent prospect of the Bay, and all the fortifications therein. The street is without pavement, the stones having been used for fortifications. Upon the opposite side of the street, stand the once elegant mansions of the "aristocracy." This Battery, and these residences, four years ago were teeming with thousands of surging, frantic Charlestonians, as they witnessed the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Every foot of space in the street and upon the promenade, was occupied; every window, doorway, balcony and housetop was crowded with huzzaing Secessionists, men women, glorying over the chivalry which pitted 10,000 armed men, under cover of strong ramparts, against seventy heroes, true to their country's flag; shut up in the narrow enclosure of a Fort and cut off by the sea from all possibility of retreat. Every shot from the doomed Sumter and from the surrounding batteries, as it went screaming to its work of demolition, or fell hissing into the sea, could be distinctly seen by the excited spectators on land; and as the fiery hail was poured without intermission for two days and a night, into that enclosure of about four acres, setting fire to the barracks and officer's quarters, and as the black smoke rose gloomily up to the heavens, or at night, was lit up by the flash of guns and the reflection of firelight, it must have seemed to one, who could read God's providences in the light of a prescient faith, as the pillar of fire

and cloud which was destined to go before a race desdespised and enslaved, till it should lead them out into the promised land of liberty and peace.

And throughout those two terrible days, as long as they could serve a gun, the faithful fellows under the command of the heroic Anderson, poured forth their defiant volleys, until reason and humanity combined to dictate a surrender.

were battered into

How changed now the scene! At the entrance of the Battery lies a rusty, dismounted gun upon the débris of an old earthwork. The crowd has fled-God only knows whither. Desolation and ruin sit monarchs of the place. Here we began to see the effect of Gen. Gilmore's shells, thrown from a distance of five and a quarter miles from the city. The splendid houses were all deserted, the glass in the windows broken, the walls dilapidated, the columns toppled over. Some had escaped with scarcely a scratch, while others shapeless ruin. Holes have been made entirely through them, from two to six feet in diameter, roofs have been broken in, sleepers uptorn and scattered, arches demolished, mantels shattered, while fragments great and small, of every description strew the floors. These were the mansions of the "Aristocracy." The style of architecture is somewhat peculiar. Of many of the edifices, the main body is from three to four stories in height, with rooms very large and high. Upon one side, immense verandahs or piazzas with heavy columns-a verandah for each story--and all having treselated floors, must have formed the most

breezy, sightly and delightful resorts for the enervate occupants. In one of these houses, a flight of eighty marble steps conducts to the upper stories. All these residences are surrounded by broad gardens, abounding yet with the most luxuriant growth of trees and shrubsthe orange, the mock orange, the magnolia, the lilac, the hawthorn, the jasmine, roses and vines of every variety. The gates were flung wide open by order of the military authorities, and we availed ourselves of the permission to pluck and carry away whatever floral trophies we desired.

Many of these gardens give evidence yet of the greatest horticultural skill and taste, though at present, of course, sadly neglected. In some parts, the growth of vegetation, trees, shrubs, vines and rose bushes was so dense and tangled that we could not force our way through by the former paths. Here and there, romantic bowers of box and hawthorn appear. Some of the rose trees grow to an astonishing height, and fairly bend with their wealth of blossoms. One rises from eight to twelve feet from the ground, bearing a rose of delicate golden tint, and of size surpassing our largest cabbage roses. And as the magnificent flowers, in their rank profusion, touch each other, and seem to melt together all over the top of the tree, they fully justify the name by which they are called "the cloth of gold." It was not yet the season for the orange and magnolia, and though we missed their spicy fragrance, we were nearly compensated by the lush and glossy greenness of their