The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-18 00:00:00

THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY.

(From the limes' Special Correspondent.)
CHARLESTON, San. 18.
The traveller who at this moment pursues his
slow and toilsome journey through the Confederate
States and endeavours to chronicle his impressions
is very liable to lay himself open to the same satire
which Smollett's last book of " Travels" provoked
from Sterne. Smollett, shortly before his death at
Leghorn, and being at the time in wretched health,
published, under the title of " Travels in Italy," a
narrative of a tour in that country. In reference to
this book Sterne remarked "that the learned Smell-

fungus did not so much describe the objects he saw
as his own miserable feelings." Great is my temp-
tation at this moment to descant upon the hardships
of a long journey in Secessia—the extreme difficulty
orobtaining a seat in the crowded railway cars,
the weariness of thus travelling night and day for

hundreds of miles at the rate of 12 miles an hour—
the occasional privilege of riding in the baggage

car in company with at least one, and someames
with two or three coffins ; the indifference with
which the occupants of these coffins are assessed at
the ordinary rate and pay, through their represen-
tatives, the ordinary fare of living passengers; the
miseries to which, when a link in the railroad is
missing, you are subjected in " the stage," of which,
assuming that the distance to be surmounted is 40
miles, my experience has been that you pay 8 dols.
for the privilege of walking up to your knees in
North Carolina mud 30 out of the 40, The hunger,
thirst, filth, sleeplessness, and fatigue, not to men-
tion the sights and smells inseparable from the pas-
sage by railroad of dense messes of soldiers, and
with which every traveller in America during these
last 20 months has become abundantly acquainted.

But if the difficulties and hardships of passing from
Richmond to Charleston are great and oppressive,
all is forgotten so soon as Charleston is reached.
One of the cleanest, most decorous, and orderly of
towns meets your view, containing none of that pee-
cant foreign element, male and female, with which
the streets of Richmond are thronged; exhi-
biting but few soldiers in the streets, abundant as
the garrison which defends the city is represented as '
being ; offering plenty of clean anti cheap food and
excellent hotels, which are largely appreciated by
every sojourner who has been compelled to pass
some weeks in Richmond. The more opportunities
a stranger possesses of seeing the other States of the
Confederacy the more hopeless does the effort to sub-
jugate such a mighty area as that of the 10 States
now in open rebellion appear, and the more intelli-
gent is his appreciation of the unparalleled sacrifices
which have been imposed upon Virginia. On the
night of my arrival here a large ball was given by
the members of General Beauregard's Staff, and it
would have been difficult for a stranger suddenly in-
troduced into the ballroom to credit the assertion
that the country which could exhibit its daughters
in such gay and brilliant dresses had been for nearly
two years shut out by blockade from Paris and
Europe. It is scarcely an extravagant statement to
assert that, even in their present so-called destitute
condition, such States as South Carolina and
Georgia possess all the necessaries and many of the
luxuries of life to an extent unsurpassed in the
richest countries of the Old World.
To assert that Charleston, in its present attitude,
is impregnable would obviously be a ludicrous fal-
lacy ; but it is none the less true that it could not
be taken without an enormous force attacking
simultaneously by sea and land, and that the
attack, even in that case, would have to be
conducted with desperate valour before it could
be successful. At the entrance of the harbour
Fort Sumter, thoroughly repaired and mount'
ing enormous guns en barbette, frown at the
blockaders,while the neighbouring points, on Morris
Island and Suilivan's Island, from which the
memorable attack upon the fort on the 13th of
April, 1861, was conducted, are in possession of
the Confederates and are 'not likely to pass out
of their hands. Behind Fort Sumter a new fort,
which takes the name from Gen. Ripley, and is
built almost entirely of palmetto wood, enhances
the difficulty to which ships are exposed in ap-
proaching the town. In reference to the palmetto
tree—the peculiar emblem of the State of South
Carolina—it should he noticed that it possesses far
more valuable properties than strangers would be
apt to imagine. Palmetto wood is much used for
facing wharves and other works under water, as it
is never injured by the teredo. It affords excellent
material for the construction of forts, inasmuch as
cannon balls soon lose their force in its spongy sub-
stance, and while they penetrate but little they
make no extended fractures, nor do they detach any
dangerous splinters. The top of the tree yields a
substance resembling cabbage, which makes an ex-
cellent vegetable, tasting much like the heart of the
artichoke or like vegetable marrow. The large
thick, fan-like leaves are converted into lighlantt
durable hats. The palmetto grows only
adjacent to the sea, and the attemyttoLinedgouceatiutrteo,
grow at Columbia, the seat of the State
has hitherto been a failure.
But to return to Charlestfo
l at liberty to enter into
, although for obvious
reasons I do not feel my
details with regard ttow'tosse fortifications, it may be
of the most accomplished
stated that all thetthe
Confederacy—Generals Lee
engineer officers of
ard—could suggest or devise has been
and Beaureg
done to strengthen the town on its land side. Gen.
Lee, before he was moved to Virginia and assumed
his present high position, was for some time in com-
mand of Charleston, and by him the first line of
defences was planned and executed. This line has
grown and expanded at the inspiration of General
Beauregard into a perfect network of earthworks
and redoubts, reaching from the Cooper River on
the north to the Ashley River on the south. It is
not likely that so scientific an engineer as General
Beauregard would be fully satisfied with his system
of defences until he spent four or five years in per-
fecting them. Suffice it to say that in the opinion
of competent judges they are sufficiently strong to
defy a force lli times stronger than is ever likely to
be brought against them. In addition to this, a
very slight acquaintance with the country in the
neighbourhood of Charleston satisfies the spectator
how impossible it is for an invading army to gene-
, trate such lagoons and swamps and forests as lie be-
tween the frequent rivers which intersect the surface