Some tales from Cape Otway involving the Telegraph Line.
"Is the Alabama in the neighbourhood of Cape Otway? This was a question pretty frequently asked yesterday, and which was the cause of some little excitement in commercial circles.
It seems that early in the day a strange steamer was reported from Cape Otway as approaching the Cape, but heading south-east. It was soon afterwards posted at the telegraphic office that she was evidently " not bound for Melbourne." The stranger, when about ten miles from the Cape, headed south, refusing to answer the signals made to her, and at a later hour she was observed standing westwards. These were the reports, and they indicated capricious movements sufficient to give rise to the suspicion that she was scarcely "honest" and to the supposition that she might be the famous and by some dreaded Alabama.
As the Victoria, with stores for Cape Otway, had sailed on the previous aftornoon, it was believed that she would be lying close to the lighthouse, and that her appearance, rig, pennant, ensign and man-of-war appearance might have raised suspicions in the minds of the officers of the strange steamer who might never have heard of our little war-vessel, and therefore might have supposed that the Victoria was a cruiser of another class, whose presence, perhaps, might be less welcome to the Alabama. This, it was conjectured, might have been one cause of the apparently uncertain movements of the stranger.
Our own latest telegram from Cape Otway suggested that the vessel was probably an auxiliary screw ship from Sydney or New Zealand and bound west; but as she was then heading south by west, under sail and steam, with a south east wind, we are at a loss to conjecture what ship from any of the eastern colonies would be in such a position, and whither bound".
The Argus, 18 March 1864.