A whole month had thus been lost through the failure of the Sumter’s coal off the mouth of the Amazon.  News, too, had been received at Paramaribo that six or seven large fast steamers were in hot pursuit; and as it was not likely that all of these—­the larger, perhaps, more especially—­would adopt the tactics of the Keystone State, it was an object with the solitary little object of their vengeance to make the best of her way to some safer cruising ground.

On the 31st August, then, she took her final leave of Paramaribo, and running some eight or nine miles off the coast in a northerly direction as a blind, altered her course to east half-south, with the intention of avoiding the current by which she had on the former occasion been so baffled, by keeping along the coast in soundings where its strength would be less felt.

The 4th September found her well past the mouth of the Amazon, bowling along under all fore-and-aft sails, with bright, clear weather, and a fresh trade-wind from about east by south.  This was about her best point of sailing, and there being no longer any current against her, her log showed a run of 175 miles in the twenty-four hours.  On the same day a strange sail was seen, but time and coal were now too valuable to be risked, and the temptation to chase was resisted.  In the evening the equator was crossed, and the little Sumter bade farewell to the North Atlantic, and entered on a new sphere of operations.

The 5th September was a day of misfortunes.  The weather was thick and lowering; the wind rapidly increasing; to half a gale, and the little vessel straining heavily at her anchor.  In heaving up, a sudden jerk broke it short off at the shank, the metal about the broken part proving to have been very indifferent.  She now ran very cautiously and anxiously towards the light, and into the bay, no pilot being in sight.  For some time all went well, and the chief dangers appeared to be over, when suddenly the vessel ran with a heavy shock upon a sandbank, knocking off a large portion of her false keel, and for the moment occasioning intense anxiety to all on board.  Fortunately, however, the bank was but a narrow ridge, and the next sea carried the little vessel safely across it, and out of danger.  Much speculation, however, was excited by this unlooked-for mishap, but a careful examination of the ship’s position on the chart failed to elucidate the mystery:  the part of the bay where the Sumter had struck being marked as clear ground.  It was fortunate, at all events, that the vessel escaped clear, for within the next hour and a half the tide fell five feet, which with so heavy a load as that on board the Sumter could not but have occasioned a terrible strain had she been lying on the top of the bank.

Finding the soundings still so irregular as to threaten further danger, the Sumter now came to an anchor, and some fishing boats being perceived on the shore at a little distance, a boat was despatched which speedily returned with a fisherman, who piloted her safely to the town of Maranham.  She was visited by a Brazilian naval officer, who congratulated her captain not a little on his fortunate escape, the Brazilian men-of war never thinking of attempting the passage without a coast pilot.