Going on board, we were surprised at the extent and convenience of her
interior accommodations. There is a spacious ward-room, nine or ten
feet in height, besides a private cabin for the commander, and
sleeping accommodations on an ample scale; the whole well lighted and
ventilated, though beneath the surface of the water. Forward, or aft,
(for it is impossible to tell stem from stern,) the crew are relatively
quite as well provided for as the officers. It was like finding a
palace, with all its conveniences, under the sea. The inaccessibility,
the apparent impregnability, of this submerged iron fortress are most
satisfactory; the officers and crew get down through a little hole in
the deck, hermetically seal themselves, and go below; and until they
see fit to reappear, there would seem to be no power given to man
whereby they can be brought to light. A storm of cannon-shot damages
them no more than a handful of dried peas. We saw the shot-marks made
by the great artillery of the Merrimack on the outer casing of the iron
tower; they were about the breadth and depth of shallow saucers, almost
imperceptible dents, with no corresponding bulge on the interior
surface. In fact, the thing looked altogether too safe; though it may
not prove quite an agreeable predicament to be thus boxed up in
impenetrable iron, with the possibility, one would imagine, of being
sent to the bottom of the sea, and, even there, not drowned, but
stifled.
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