The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-07 00:00:00

TILE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA:

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
FROM MONTGOMERY TO MOBILE.
MOBILE, ALABAMA, MAY 11.

The wayfarer who confides in the maps of a
strange country, or who should rely upon even the
guide-books of the United States, which still lack a
Murray or a Bradshaw, may beat timesembarrassed
by insuperable hills and innavigable rivers. When,
however, I saw the three towering stories of the
high pressure steamer Southern Republic, on board
of which we tumbled down the steep bank of the
Alabama river at Montgemery, any such misgivings
vanished from my mind. So colossal an ark could
have ascended no mythical stream, and the exist-
ence and capabilities of the Alabama were demon-
strated by its presence.
Punctuality is reputed a rare virtue in the river
steamers of the West and South, which seldom leave
their wharfs until they have bagged a fair comple-
ment of passengers,although steaming up and ring-
ing gongs and bells every afternoon for a week or
more before their departure, as if travellers were to
be swarmed like bees. Whether stimulated by the
infectious activity of these " war times," or con-
vinced that the " politeness of kings" is the best
' steamboat policy, the grandson of Erin who owns
and commands the Southern Republic casts off his
fastenings but half-an-hour after his promised start
and the short puff of the engine is enlivened by the
wild strains of a steam-organ called a " calliope,"
which gladdens us with the assurance that we are
' in the incomparable " land of Dixie."
Reserving for a cooler hour the attractions of the
lower floor, a Hades consecrated to machinery,
freight, and Negroes, we betake ourselves to the
second landing, where we find a long dining-hall
surrounded by two tiers of State rooms, the upper
one accessible by a stairway leading to a gallery,
which divides the " saloon" between floor and roof.
We are shown our quarters, which leave much to
be desired and nothing to spare, and rush from
their suffocating atmosphere to the outer balcony,
where a faint breeze stirs the air. There is a roofed
balcony above us that corresponds to the second
tier of State rooms, from which a party of excited
Secessionists are discharging revolvers at the dip-
pers on the surface and the cranes on the banks of
the river.
After we have dropped down five or six miles
from Montgomery, the steam whistle announces our
approach to a landing, and, as there is no wharf in
view, we watch curiously the process by which our
top-heavy craft, under the sway
.of a four-knot cur-
rent, is to swing round to her invisible moorings.
As we draw nigh to a waggon-worn indenture in the
bank, the "scream" softens into the dulcet pipes of
the " calliope," and the steamer doubles upon her
track, like an elephant turning at bay, her two
engines being as independent of each other as seced-
ing States, and, slowly stemming the stream, lays
her nose upon the bank, and holds it there with the
judicious aid of her paddles until a long plank is
run ashore .from her bow, over which three pas-
sengers with valises make way for a planter and
his family who come on board. The gang plank is
hauled in, the steamer turns her head down stream
with the expertness of a whale in a canal, and we
resume our voyage. We renew these stoppages
various times before dark, landing here a barrel
and there a box, and occasionally picking up a pas-
senger.
After supper, which is served on a series of
parallel tables running athwart the saloon, we re-
turn to enjoy from the balcony the cool obscurity
of the evening in this climate, where light meanp
heat. As we cleave the glassy surface of the black
water the timber-clad banks seem to hem us in more
closely and to shut up in the vista before us, and
while we glide down with a rapidity which would
need but the roar of rapids to prefigure a cataract
comparisons between the dark perspective ahead
yield to the caprice of fancy, instituting
baneydotilad'elnweystery of the future.
Again a scream and ruddy light flashes from our
prow and deepens the shades around us. This
rwe The
pro-
ceeds from the burning of " light wood"—a highly
resinous pine—in a wire basket hung on gimbals
and held like a landfez net below the bow of the
steamer, so as to guide without blinding the pilot,
hoof. is
ensconcedtorchlikea
bearer
r Ransomraises hiesa cabman
eut paosn its
we
steam up to the bank, and
plants it in a socket,
when a hawser is seized round tree, and the crew
turn ashore to "wood no-n There is s tee) high
bank above us, andare nithog
to and fro with food for our furnaces,
while dusky for.-
we survey