Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States

[667] The harbor did not even afford fresh water, and we were obliged to supply ourselves from the vessel of my English friend, until our condenser could be repaired. The whole country was a waste, in which there was no life visible away from the coast. On the coast itself, there were the usual seabirds—the gannet and the sea-gull—and fish in abundance. We hauled the seine, and caught a fine mess for the crews of all the ships. Three or four naked, emaciated Hottentots, having seen the ships from a distance, had made their way to the harbor, and came begging us for food. They remained during our stay, and had their emptiness filled. Some thirty or forty miles from the coast, they said, vegetation began to appear, and there were villages and cattle.

I ordered Lieutenant Low, the commander of the Tuscaloosa, as soon as he should land his cargo, to ballast his ship with the rock which abounded on every hand, and proceed on a cruise to the coast of Brazil. Sufficient time had now elapsed, I thought, for the ships of war of the enemy, which had been sent to that coast, in pursuit of me, to be coming in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope. Lieutenant Low would, therefore, in all probability, have a clear field before him. Having nothing further to detain me in the Alabama, I got under way, on my return to Simon's Town, intending to fill up with coal, and proceed thence to the East Indies, in compliance with the suggestion of Mr. Secretary Mallory. The Tuscaloosa, after cruising the requisite time on the coast of Brazil, was to return to the Cape to meet me, on my own return from the East Indies.

When I reached the highway off the Cape again, I held myself there for several days, cruising off and on, and sighting the land occasionally, to see if perchance I could pick up an American ship. But we had no better success than before. The wary masters of these ships, if there were any passing, gave the Cape a wide berth, and sought their way home, by the most unfrequented paths, illustrating the old adage, that ‘the farthest way round is the shortest way home.’ Impatient of further delay, without results, on Wednesday, the 16th of September, I got up steam, and ran into Simon's Bay. I learned, upon anchoring, that the United States steamer Van-