_August 23d._--Weather clear, during the day, but we had some heavy showers of rain, with thunder, and lightning during the night. We are receiving coal rather slowly--a small lighter-load at a time. We are making some changes in the internal arrangements of the ship. Finding, by experience, that we have more tank-room, for water, than is requisite, we are landing a couple of our larger tanks, and extending the bulkheads of the coal-bunkers. By this means, we shall be enabled to increase our coal-carrying capacity by at least a third, carrying twelve days of fuel, instead of eight. Still the _Sumter_ remains fundamentally defective, as a cruiser, in her inability to lift her screw.
_August 24th._--Weather clear, and pleasant, with some passing clouds, and light showers of rain. The Dutch mail-steamer, from Demerara, arrived, to-day. We are looking anxiously for news from home, as, at last accounts--July 20th from New York--a battle near Manassas Junction, seemed imminent. Demerara papers of the 19th of August contain nothing, except that some skirmishing had taken place, between the two armies. The French steamer-of-war _Abeille_ arrived, and anchored near us.
_Sunday, August 25th._--Morning cloudy. At half-past eight I went on shore to church. The good old Mother has her churches, and clergymen, even in this remote Dutch colony. The music of her choirs is like the "drum-beat" of England; it encircles the earth, with its never-ending melody. As the sun, "keeping company with the hours," lights up, with his newly risen beams, one degree of longitude after another, he awakens the priest to the performance of the never-ending mass. The church was a neat, well-arranged wooden building, of large dimensions, and filled to overflowing with devout worshippers. All the shades of color, from "snowy white to sooty" were there, and there did not seem to be any order in the seating of the congregation, the shades being promiscuously mixed. The preacher was fluent, and earnest in action, but his sermon, which seemed to impress the congregation, being in that beautiful and harmonious language, which we call "low Dutch," was entirely unintelligible to me. The Latin mass, and ceremonies--which are the same all over the world--were, of course, quite familiar, and awoke many tender reminiscences. I had heard, and seen them, in my own country, under the domes of grand cathedrals, and in the quiet retreat of the country house, where the good wife herself had improvised the altar. A detachment of the Government troops was present.