'Phoenix,' Captain Crowell, burst her boilers when near the head of the
South-west Pass [which we had but just passed], killing and wounding
about twenty-five in number, seven of whom belonged to the boat, the
_balance_ to a barque she had alongside; carrying away the foremast of
the barque close to her deck, and her mainmast above her cross-trees,
together with all her fore-rigging, bulwarks, and injuring her hull
considerably. The ship 'Manchester,' which she had also alongside, was
seriously injured, having her bulwarks carried away, her longboat
destroyed," &c.

Such was the paragraph, with not a syllable of note or comment on cause
or consequences. It was evidently an every-day occurrence. What
recklessness was here indicated! and how comforting to a sick and
nervous man, now near the very spot of the occurrence, and in a vessel
about to be placed in the same pleasant relation to one of those
grunting monsters as the unfortunate "barque" had but three days before
occupied, with the trifling "balance" of eighteen of her crew "killed
and wounded!"

The fever having left me, I ventured on deck. At this moment one of
these infernal machines came in sight, towing down three large ships.
Instead of having them behind, as on the Thames and Mersey, she (like
the "Phoenix") had one on either side, closely lashed to herself, and
the other only behind. This terrific monster seemed to be carrying them
away arm-in-arm, like two prisoners, to destruction. At all events, it
was a position of familiarity and friendship with the "Sprite of Steam"
of which I did not at all like the idea; and yet we ourselves were
by-and-by to be placed in its perilous embrace!

The dreaded monster gone by, I resumed the perusal of my New Orleans