108 FIRE AT MOBILE. [CHAP. XXVI. 



died. All the clergy remained faithful to their 

 duties, and many of them perished. 



The yellow fever is not the only scourge which 

 has frequently devastated Mobile. I found it slowly 

 recovering, like so many other American cities, from 

 the ravages of a great fire, which, in 1839, laid the 

 greater part of it in ashes. The fire broke out in so 

 many places at once, as to give too much reason to 

 suspect that it was the work of incendiaries seeking 

 plunder. 



Feb. 23. The distance from Mobile to New Or 

 leans is 175 miles by what is called the inland pas 

 sage, or the channel between the islands and the 

 main land. We paid five dollars, or one guinea each, 

 for berths in the &quot; James L. Day &quot; steamer, which 

 made about nine miles an hour. Being on the low- 

 pressure principle, she was so free from noise and 

 vibration, that we could scarcely believe we were 

 not in a sailing vessel. The stunning sounds and 

 tremulous motions of the boats on the Southern 

 rivers are at first so distracting, that I often won 

 dered we could sleep soundly in them. The &quot; James 

 L. Day&quot; is 185 feet long, drawing now 5-J- feet 

 water, and only seven feet when fully freighted. We 

 sailed out of the beautiful Bay of Mobile in the 

 evening, in the coldest month of the year, yet the air 

 was warm, and there was a haze like that of a sum 

 mer s evening in England. Many gulls followed our 

 ship, enticed by pieces of bread thrown out to them by 

 the passengers, some of whom were displaying their 

 skill in shooting the birds in mere wantonness. The 

 stars were brilliant as the night came on, and we 



