Meanwhile we are drawing nearer and nearer to the low, sandy island that is the goal of our excursion. We wonder, as we look on that barren sand-heap scorching in the yellow sand-glare, was that, once upon a time, the lofty fort of Sumter? Could ever those fragments of battered wall have towered up towards these blue skies in proud defiance? In fancy, we see the pall of smoke wrap Sumter round again, hear the thunder of the cannonade, and above the "burning battlehell" of fire and smoke, we see streaming to the wind the ghost of the "Stars and Bars!"

We land on the little pier, and pick our way along narrow planks laid across the heavy sand, amongst heaps of cannon balls, old guns, new guns, up steps, down steps, underground and overground, in and out of gloomy bombproofs, from the loopholes of which the "dogs of war" thrust forth their huge, black muzzles. One of the little garrison of the fort shows us round, and acts as general cicerone to our party. He answers our questions-the Northern tourists put quite as many as we strangers do; is it not twenty-two years since the siege? A whole world behind to them; but our soldier-guide has the whole story fresh in his mind. So has a bronzed and grizzled Southerner, who now for the first time, in the subterranean shades of a bombproof-tunnel, comes to the fore, and thenceforth divides public interest and attention with the lawful cicerone. Somebody puts to this new authority the old questionhow many lives were lost in the opening bombardment?

"Not one, sir," is the prompt answer, "not one by the Confederate attack. Seems strange, but so 'tis. There

was one life lost, and that was after the fort had surrendered. A man was blown up and killed. He laid a mine, as a trap to blow up the Confederates, and he tripped his foot, stumbled, and touched it off, and was killed by his own mine."

A gentle smile of contemplative satisfaction irradiated the Confederate's countenance as he narrated this anecdote-of which we afterwards heard divers and contrasting versions. I was walking with a gentleman from Massachusetts, but, as my escort did not appear able to feed my feminine curiosity with all the details I desired, I drew the better-informed Confederate authority to join us; and we rambled on in an exemplarily harmonious trio.

Our Southerner was brimming over with reminiscences, all uttered in dulcet and lamb-like tones which would well have befitted an idyllic love-story.

"With a seven-inch bore, like this," he observed, resting his boot-heel tenderly on a big gun that lay half buried in the sand, "we sunk the first monitor that came along. Hit the turret and made her careen, and then the lower battery took her right between wind and water."

He smiled softly, as if cherishing sweet and tender memories.

"I put a little Confederate flag on the buoy out there," he continued, pointing to a spot on the sunny water, "and it stayed there all the time."

"Didn't we come after it? Massachusetts.

inquired the tourist from

"Oh, yes; the Federals, they came after it several times;

but they didn't happen to get it," the mild Carolinian replied in his soft lingering drawl.

I do not know how much or how little correct history was current amongst us that day; but there certainly was a good deal of information to be had for the asking.

"Getting ready for our cousins!" observed a New York girl, patting a fine new gun approvingly.

"What cousins?" I inquired.

"Our English cousins," was the reply. "They might take a fancy to come over here!"

"I don't think we want to come over, except as tourists, as we have come to day," I observed, mildly deprecating. "I guess you and the Southerners have had enough of that," replied the young lady contentedly.

Our bronzed Southerner was picking up a sea-shell from the sand as a souvenir for me, and, probably by way of a coal of fire, he picked up a finer shell for her, and polished it with his pocket handkerchief.

In every group some chapter of the story of the siege was being told I fear occasionally coloured according to the bias of the narrator. The names of Beauregard, Sherman, Lee, Anderson, were echoing on every side. Indeed it was not 1883, it was 1861, in which we all lived that hour!

Time was up; the whistle sounded. We left the sandy isle of Fort Sumter-deserted now, save for a little garrison to be counted on the fingers of one hand—and returned to our boat, and to the present year of our Lord, 1883.

THE

OLD STONE TOWER, NEWPORT

BENSON J. LOSSING

HE object of greatest attraction to the visitor at Newport is the Old Tower or windmill, as it is sometimes called. On the subject of its erection history and tradition are silent, and the object of its construction is alike unknown and conjectural. It is a huge cylinder composed of unhewn stones-common granite, slate, sandstone, and pudding-stone-cemented with coarse mortar, made of the soil on which the structure stands, and shell lime. It rests upon eight round columns, a little more than three feet in diameter and ten feet high from the ground to the spring of the arches. The wall is three feet thick, and the whole edifice is twenty four feet high. The external diameter is twenty-three feet. Governor Gibbs informed me that, on excavating the base of one of the pillars, he found the soil about four feet deep, lying upon a stratum of hard rock, and that the foundation of the column, which rested upon this rock, was composed of rough-hewn spheres of stone, the lower ones about four feet in circumference. On the interior, a little above the arches, are small square niches, in depth about half the thickness of the wall, designed apparently to receive floor-timbers. In several places within, as well as upon the inner surface of some of the columns, are patches of stucco, which, like the mortar, is made of coarse sand and shell lime, and as hard as the stone it cov