224 CONFEDERATE PORTRAITS
amply bear him out. The Alabama was built by stealth in England, sailed from Liverpool under the British flag, and was commissioned practically on the high seas. Her crew were largely ruffians, sharked up from the worst corners of British seaports, requiring at all times a watch- ful eye and a heavy hand. The voyage was everywhere, now in Atlantic fog, now in Indian sunshine, battles with tropic storms, owl-flittings in murky twilight. Some- times there would come a few days' repose in dubiously neutral ports. The captain would slip on shore for a touch of firm land, the sound of a woman's voice, per- haps a long ride over snowy mountains or through strange forests. On his return he would find half his crew drunk, the United States consul stirring up all sorts of trouble, and an order to depart at once, half- coaled and half-provisioned. Or, as at Cape Town, among the friendly English, he would be nearly suffocated with intrusive popularity.
Then it was up anchor and away, long months at sea, incessant watchfulness. But the monotony was broken almost daily by fierce swoops upon Northern merchant- men, which were stopped, examined, seized, their crews taken aboard the Alabama, the vessels themselves — since there were no Confederate ports to send them to — usually burned with all their cargo, serving sometimes as a decoy to lure yet other victims within the reach of the greedy aggressor. Any passengers on board the prizes were treated as were the crews, detained on the Alabama
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