up Morgan River to Dathaw Island, whichis separated from Saint Helena Island by a creek. This creek unites at his head with Cowan Creek, while the latter separates Saint Helena from Ladies Island. Boats pass by this route from Beaufort to Saint Helena Sound. The road to Beaufort from Ashton's, just mentioned, crosses the creek by a bridge at the plantation of the late Mrs. General Eustis. Ladies Island, at the head of Morgan River, is a little more than a mile wide. The town of Beaufort is on the opposite shore of the river of that name. A road leads from Mr. McKee's plantation, at the head of Morgan River, across to the bluff opposite Beaufort.

The above description will enable you to form an idea of the interdependence and of the intercommunication, by boat and carriage, between the islands filling up the head of Saint Helena Sound and the waters emptying into it; of the advantages to be derived from its military occupation, and of the opposition, with its means and facilities of combination, which this occupation is likely to provoke.

Port Royal Bay is the finest harbor south of Chesapeake Bay, which it resembles in capacity and extent. It is approached by three channels, the least of which has seventeen feet of water, while the two others have nineteen feet at mean low and twenty-five feet at mean night water. Several of our screw frigates of the first class can pass the bar, and when the entrance is once made a whole navy can ride at anchor in the bay in uninterrupted health and security. The bar, however, is badly situated; the narrowest and shoalest part is so far out from the headlands, which generally furnish natural beacons and sailing marks, that a conspicuous object is needed on the spot.

The light ship should be replaced, and large buoys should be planted in proper places (an open screw-pile basket-beacon, well braced, might be put down with great advantage in a well-protected spot, under the lee of Martin's Industry and the southeast breakers). We are looking ahead a little in saying this. The absence of light vessels, beacons, and buoys will by no means prevent access to the bay. The ships of the expedition will pass through a lane of small vessels ancohored on the borders of the natural channel. It is probable that the entrance to the harbor has been fortified on both sides, and especially at Bay Point. This point may be approached in the rear by landing at Pritchard's Inlet, next east of Trenchard's Inlet, near high water, pulling through the creek connecting the two down Trenchard's Inlet to a point near Luce Station, and thence passing along the beach and through the woods to Bay Point. On the Hillton Head side it is more difficult to take the point in the rear. The entrance is over two miles wide; there is fine anchorage under Bay Point; on the shore there is a number of rough houses, the summer resort of planters. Under the head of Saint Helena we have entered into some details respecting the interior communications and navigation that need not be repeated.

The town of Beaufort, on Port Royal Island, has no commercial importance. During the how weather, when the planters are in their summer residences, the population numbers about 2,000. At other periods of the year it has but little more than 500 inhabitants. A battery of eight guns, it is said, has been erected at the eastern end of the town. Water may be had at the Station Port Royal, Land's End, Saint Helena Sound, or by sinking wells from six to ten feet deep anywhere along shore, or casks at Bay Point. Near this point may be constructed a wharf for a coaling station above the mouth of the little creek that appears on the Coast Survey chart. The piece of marsh between the fast land and deep water (on the chart) must be crossed by a bridge. Timber grows close by. The woods directly in the rear of the sea-beach