CHAPTER V.
_Leave Paramaribo--Across the equator--A day of misfortunes--On a sandbank--A narrow escape--Maranham--A Yankee protest--Bold assertions--A visit to the President--News--False alarms--Paying bills--A patriot--Off again--A prize--The Joseph Park--News of Bull Run--A sad birthday._ A whole month had thus been lost through the failure of the Sumter's coal off the mouth of the Amazon.

News, too, had been received at Paramaribo that six or seven large fast steamers were in hot pursuit; and as it was not likely that all of these--the larger, perhaps, more especially--would adopt the tactics of the Keystone State, it was an object with the solitary little object of their vengeance to make the best of her way to some safer cruising ground.
On the 31st August, then, she took her final leave of Paramaribo, and running some eight or nine miles off the coast in a northerly direction as a blind, altered her course to east half-south, with the intention of avoiding the current by which she had on the former occasion been so baffled, by keeping along the coast in soundings where its strength would be less felt.
The 4th September found her well past the mouth of the Amazon, bowling along under all fore-and-aft sails, with bright, clear weather, and a fresh trade-wind from about east by south.

This was about her best point of sailing, and there being no longer any current against her, her log showed a run of 175 miles in the twenty-four hours.

On the same day a strange sail was seen, but time and coal were now too valuable to be risked, and the temptation to chase was resisted.

In the evening the equator was crossed, and the little Sumter bade farewell to the North Atlantic, and entered on a new sphere of operations.
The 5th September was a day of misfortunes.