complished of late. Cotton export is the chief trade. There are attractive parks, a magnificent shell road along the shore of the bay for several miles, and fine estates with beautiful villas on the hills in the suburbs. The harbor entrance from the Gulf is protected on either hand by Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, while the remains can be seen of several batteries on the shores of the bay, relics of the Civil War. Over on Tensas River is a ruin, Spanish Fort, one of the early colonial defenses, while in the city is the Guard House Tower, a quaint old structure built in Spanish style. Mobile was held by the Confederates throughout the war, not surrendering until after General Lee had done so in April, 1865, although the Union forces had previously captured the harbor entrance. This capture was one of Admiral Farragut's achievements. Having opened the Mississippi River in 1863, Farragut, in January, 1864, made a reconnoissance of the forts at the entrance to Mobile Bay, and expressed the opinion that with a single iron-clad and five thousand men he could take the city. Several months elapsed, however, before the attempt was made, but in August he got together a fleet of four iron-clads and fourteen wooden vessels, and on the 5th ran past the forts at the entrance, after a desperate engagement, in which one of his ships, the Tecumseh, was sunk by striking a torpedo, and he lost three hundred and thirty-five men. During the fight, Farragut watched it and gave his directions from a place high up in the main rigging of his flagship, the Hartford. Shoal water and channel obstructions prevented his ascending to the city, but in a few days the forts surrendered, the harbor was held, and blockade-running, which had been very profitable, ceased. Mobile Bay is one of the finest harbors on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Its broad waters have low shores, backed by gentle slopes leading up to forest-clad plateaus behind, a large surface being wooded and displaying fine magnolias and yellow pines, while in the lowland swamps and along the water-courses are cypress, and interspersed the live oak, festooned with gray moss. But almost everywhere Southern Alabama, like Florida, displays splendid pine forests, reminding of Longfellow's invocation to My Cathedral: "Like two cathedral towers these stately pines Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones; No organ but the wind here sighs and moans, No marble bishop on his tomb reclines. Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds, m leafy galleries beneath the eaves, Are singing! Listen, ere the sound be fled, And learn there may be worship without words." And in garden and grove, all about, there is a wealth of semi-tropical flowers and shrubbery, with their rich perfumes crowned by the delicious orange tree, whereof Hoyt thus pleasantly sings: "Yes, sing the song of the orange tree, With its leaves of velvet green; The finest that ever was seen; |