rarely on time, but as they were sailing vessels there was some excuse for them. The Castor was under contract to deliver us the coal and the coal was our property, paid for by the Confederate agent in England; on the protest of the United States Consul, however, the governor refused to allow us to coal from her. We then made a "sale" of part of the cargo to a native merchant, had it put ashore, and then "bought" it from him. Of course the native was well paid for his trouble, and the probability is that the officials got their rake-off from the transaction.
Brazil was a slave-owning country at that time, but the natives seemed to fear and avoid us, and as we would pass through the streets we could hear the negro nurses threaten crying children that they would be carried off by the "corsairos" if they were not good. An English engineer who was building a railroad into the interior was the only person in Bahia who showed us any attention or hospitality. He invited the officers of the Alabama and Georgia to go on an excursion on his unfinished railroad. The country through which it passed was rich and beautiful, and at the end of the finished line our officers were regaled with all sorts of good things to eat and drink. On returning to Bahia he invited us to a dance to be given at his residence that night, and naturally as many of the officers as could be spared from duty accepted. The ball was quite a swell affair; all the British colony were there, of course, and many Brazilian ladies; they came from curiosity, but nothing could induce them to risk dancing with the "corsairos." This, of course, made us youngsters imagine that we looked rather formidable.
Shortly after midnight we said good-night to our host and hostess and such of the guests as were not afraid to speak to us, and proceeded to the quay where Captain Semmes's gig was waiting for him. The cutters from the Alabama and Georgia, which were to take the officers to their respective ships, had not yet come for us, and we
