It extended about twelve miles, to where a gap in the woods seemed to indicate a fort, which we imagined to be Fort Darling, at that time the principal fortification defending the passage of the James.
Between that point and where we were lay the river, in a long, broad mirror-like expanse, like a pretty little inland lake.

Occasionally a busy little tug would bustle up or down, a gunboat move along with noiseless dignity, suggestive of a reserved power, or a schooner beat lazily from one side to the other.

But these were so few as to make even more pronounced the customary idleness that hung over the scene.

The tug's activity seemed spasmodic and forced--a sort of protest against the gradually increasing lethargy that reigned upon the bosom of the waters -- the gunboat floated along as if performing a perfunctory duty, and the schooners sailed about as if tired of remaining in one place.

That little stretch of water was all that was left for a cruising ground.
Beyond Fort Darling the Union gunboats lay, and the only vessel that passed the barrier was the occasional flag-of-truce steamer.
The basement of the building was occupied as a store-house for the taxes-in-kind which the Confederate Government collected.