LETTERS FROM ALABAMA. 
0 
Chesapeake. In the canal a man was taking her- 
ring with a dip-net, which he readily sold on the 
bank at fifty cents per hundred. At length we 
entered on the widening bay of Delaware. It was 
so cold that ice a quarter of an inch thick was 
formed on deck, and this on the 20th of April, in 
the latitude of Lisbon. 
The number of white-sailed craft spotting the 
river made a lively scene ; and the banks being very 
low and flat caused the land to have a singular ap- 
pearance, being visible only at a very short distance, 
and beginning to come into view in small isolated 
patches, which if one jumped on the taffrail were 
seen to be connected, and the trees often appearing 
at first as if growing out of the water. Numerous 
large fires had been lighted on the shores for the 
purpose of consuming the old dead grass of the 
marshes, to afford room for the growth of a new 
crop, and the smoke and flame being visible both 
before and after the land was apparent, it seemed 
as if some smart” Yankee had realized the achieve- 
ment of setting the Delaware on fire. But all in- 
dications of land soon faded from view, the twink- 
ling lights on Cape May and Henlopen glimmered 
for a moment through the deepening shadows of 
night, and long before morning we 'were on the 
heaving bosom of the grim Atlantic. 
A miserable episode in life is the commencement 
of a voyage, under such circumstances as those 
which greeted my returning consciousness on the 
next morning. The wind was as dead on end as 
possible, blowing a strong gale, and so cold that it 
pierced through bone and marrow ; a heavy swell 
with a'breaking sea was running, that continually 
washed the decks from stem to stern ; the little 
