SPECIAL DESPATCH.

LETTER FROM CAPTAIN INGHAM, IN COMMAND OF THE FLORIDA.

[Received four years in advance of the mail by a lightning express,
which has gained that time by running round the world 1,200 times in a
spiral direction westward on its way from Brazil to our
publication-office. Mrs. Ingham's address not being known, the letter is
printed for her information.]

No. 29.

BAHIA, BRAZIL, April 1, 1868.

MY DEAR WIFE:--We are here at last, thank fortune; and I shall surrender
the old pirate to-day to the officers of government. We have been
saluted, are to be fêted, and perhaps I shall be made a Knight Commander
of the Golden Goose. I never was so glad as when I saw the lights on the
San Esperitu head-land, which makes the south point of this Bahia or
bay.

You will not have received my No. 28 from Loando, and may have missed 26
and 24, which I gave to _outward_ bound whalemen. I always doubted
whether you got 1, 7, 9, and 11. And for me I have no word of you since
you waved your handkerchief from the window in Springfield Street on the
morning of the 1st of June, 1865, nearly four years. My dear child, you
will not know me.

Let me then repeat, very briefly, the outline of this strange cruise;
and when the letters come, you can fill in the blanks.