rally strong; but it was mild as candle-light compared with the fierce furnace-heat of hatred which I found kindled in many a Southern breast.

The passage of the river was delightful, in the fading sunset light. On a bluff opposite Belle Island was Hollywood, the fashionable cemetery of Richmond, green-wooded, and beautiful at that hour in its cool and tranquil tints. As we glided down the river, and I took my last view of the Island, I thought how often our sick and weary soldiers there must have cast longing eyes across at that lovely hill, and wished themselves quietly laid away in its still shades. Nor could I help thinking of the good people of Richmond, the Christian citizens of Richmond, taking their pleasant walks and drives to that verdant height, and looking down on the camp of prisoners dying from exposure and starvation under their very eyes. How did these good people, these Christian citizens, feel about it, I wonder?

Avoiding the currents sweeping towards the Falls, my man pushed into the smooth waters of a dam that fed a race, and landed me close under the walls of his own house.

"This yer is Brown's Island," he told me. "You've heerd of the laboratory, whar they made ammunition fo' the army?" He showed me the deserted buildings, and described an explosion which took place there, blowing up the works, and killing, scalding, and maiming many of the operatives.

Passing over a bridge to the main land, and crossing the canal which winds along the river-bank, I was hastening towards the city, when I met, emerging from the sombre ruins of the burnt district, a man who resembled more a wild creature than a human being. His hands, arms, and face were blackened with cinders, his clothes hung upon him in tatters, and the expression of his countenance was fierce and haggard. He looked so much like a brigand that I was not a little startled when, with a sweeping gesture of his long lean arm and claw-like fingers, he clutched my shoulder.

"Come back with me," said he, " and I'll tell ye all about it; I'll tell ye all about it, stranger."

"BLOWED ALL TO PIECES."

"About what?"

159

"The explosion, the explosion of the laboratory thar!" Dragging me towards Brown's Island with one hand, and gesticulating violently with the other, he proceeded to jabber incoherently about that dire event.

"Wait, wait," said he, "till I tell you!"-like the Ancient Mariner with skinny hand holding his unwilling auditor. "My daughter was work'n' thar at the time; and she was blowed all to pieces! all to pieces! My God, my God, it was horrible! Come to my house, and you shall see her; if you don't believe me, you shall see her! Blowed all to pieces, all to pieces, my God!"

His house was close by, and the daughter, who was "blowed all to pieces," was to be seen standing miraculously at the door, in a remarkable state of preservation, considering the circumstances. She seemed to be looking anxiously at the old man and the stranger he was bringing home with him. She came to the wicket to meet us; and then I saw that her hands and face were covered with cruel scars.

“Look!" said he, clutching her with one hand, while he still held me with the other. "All to pieces, as I told you!" "Don't, don't, pa!" said the girl, coaxingly. "You must n't mind him," she whispered to me. "He is a little out of his head. Oh, pa! don't act so!"

"He has been telling me how you were blown up in the laboratory. You must have suffered fearfully from those wounds!"

"Oh, yes; there was five weeks nobody thought I would live. But I did n't mind it," she added with a smile, "for it was in a good cause."

"A good cause!" almost shrieked the old man; and he burst forth with a stream of execrations against the Confederate government which made my blood chill.

But the daughter smilingly repeated, "It was a good cause, and I don't regret it. You must n't mind what he says."

I helped her get him inside the wicket, and made my escape, wondering, as I left them, which was the more insane of the

two.

never. events.

But she was not insane; she was a woman. A man may be reasoned and beaten out of a false opinion, but a woman She will not yield to logic, not even to the logic of Thus it happens that, while the male secessionists at the South have frankly given up their cause, the female secessionists still cling to it with provoking tenacity. To appeal to their intelligence is idle; but they are vulnerable on the side of the sentiments; and many a one has been authentically converted from the heresy of state rights by some handsome Federal officer, who judiciously mingled love with loyalty in his speech, and pleaded for the union of hands as well as the union of States.