Despite the service rendered by this once brilliant light, there were many wrecks which had been strown upon the beach, victims of the most formidable of the Southern river-bars.

As I stood with my foot on the half-buried ribs of one of these vessels,--so distinctly traced that one might almost fancy them human,--the old pilot, my companion, told me the story of the wreck.

The vessel had formerly been in the Cuba trade; and her owner, an American merchant residing in Havana, had christened her for his young daughter.

I asked the name, and was startled to recognize that of a favorite young cousin of mine, besides the bones of whose representative I was thus strangely standing, upon this lonely shore.
It was well to have something to relieve the anxiety naturally felt at the delay of the John Adams,--anxiety both for her safety and for the success of our enterprise, The Rebels had repeatedly threatened to burn the whole of Jacksonville, in case of another attack, as they had previously burned its mills and its great hotel.

It seemed as if the news of our arrival must surely have travelled thirty miles by this time.