Voyage of the Paper Canoe Part 10

It was more than a mile from the landing to Ocrac.o.ke Inlet, and a mile and three quarters across it to the beach. A straight course from the landing to the village of Portsmouth, on the lower side of the inlet, was a distance of five miles, and not one of the hardy watermen, who thumped the sides of my boat with their hard fists to ascertain its strength, believed that I could cross the sound to the other village without rolling over. One kind-hearted oysterman offered to carry myself and boat to Portsmouth; but as the day was calm, I rowed away on the five-mile stretch amid doleful prognostications, such as: "That feller will make a coffin for hisself out of that yere gimcrack of an egg-sh.e.l.l. It's all a man's life is wurth to go in her," &c.

While approaching the low Portsmouth sh.o.r.e of the sound, flocks of Canada geese flew within pistol-shot of my head. A man in a dug-out canoe told me that the gunners of the village had reared from the egg a flock of wild geese which now aggregated some seven or eight hundred birds, and that these now flying about were used to decoy their wild relatives.

Near the beach a sandy hill had been the place of sepulture for the inhabitants of other generations, but for years past the tidal current had been cutting the sh.o.r.e away until coffin after coffin with its contents had been washed into the sound. Captain Isaac S. Jennings, of Ocean County, New Jersey, had described this spot to me as follows:

"I landed at Portsmouth and examined this curious burial-ground.

Here by the water were the remains of the fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters of the people of the village so near at hand; yet these dismal relics of their ancestors were allowed to be stolen away piecemeal by the encroaching ocean. While I gazed sadly upon the strata of coffins protruding from the banks, shining objects like jewels seemed to be sparkling from between the cracks of their fractured sides; and as I tore away the rotten wood, rows of toads were discovered sitting in solemn council, their bright eyes peering from among the debris of bones and decomposed substances."

Portsmouth Island is nearly eight miles long. Whalebone Inlet is at its lower end, but is too shallow to be of any service to commerce. Hatteras and Ocrac.o.ke inlets admit sea-going vessels. It is thirty-eight miles from Whalebone Inlet to Cape Lookout, which projects like a wedge into the sea nearly three miles from the mainland, and there is not another pa.s.sage through the narrow beach in all that distance that is of any use to the mariner. Following the trend of the coast for eleven miles from the point of Cape Lookout, there is an inlet, but, from the character of its channel and its shallowness, it is not of much value.

Leaving Portsmouth, the canoe entered Core Sound, which grew narrower as the shoals inside of Whalebone Inlet were crossed, partly by rowing and partly by wading on the sand-flats. As night came on, a barren stretch of beach on my left hand was followed until I espied the only house within a distance of sixteen miles along the sea. It was occupied by a coasting skipper, whose fine little schooner was anch.o.r.ed a long distance from the land on account of the shoalness of the water. Dreary sand-hills protected the cottage from the bleak winds of the ocean.

While yet a long distance from the skipper's home, a black object could be seen crawling up the sides of a mound of white sand, and after it reached the apex it remained in one position, while I rowed, and waded, and pulled my canoe towards the sh.o.r.e. When the goal was reached, and the boat was landed high up among the scrub growth, I shouldered my blankets and charts, and plodded through the soft soil towards the dark object, which I now recognized to be a man on a lookout post. He did not move from his position until I reached the hillock, when he suddenly slid down the bank and landed at my feet, with a cheery--

"Well, now, I thought it was you. Sez I to myself, That's him, sure, when I seed you four miles away. Fust thinks I, It's only a log, or a piece of wrak-stuff afloating. Pretty soon up comes your head and shoulders into sight; then sez I, It's a man, sure, but where is his boat? for you see, I couldn't see your boat, it was so low down in the water. Then I reckoned it was a man afloating on a log, but arter a while the boat loomed up too, and I says, I'll be dog-goned if that isn't him. I went up to Newbern, some time ago, in the schooner, and the people there said there was a man coming down the coast a-rowing a paper boat on a _bet_. The _boat_ weighed only fifty-eight pounds, and the _man_ had a heft of only eighty pounds. When pa and me went up to the city agin, the folks said the man was close on to us, and this time they said the man and his boat together weighed only eighty pounds. Now I should think you weighed more than that yourself, letting alone the boat."

Having a.s.sured the young man that I was indeed myself, and that the Newbern people had played upon his credulity, we walked on to the house, where the family of Captain James Mason kindly welcomed me to a glowing wood-fire and hearty supper. Though I had never heard of their existence till I entered Core Sound, the kindness of these people was like that of old friends.

Half a mile below Captain Mason's home, a short time before my visit, a new breach had been made by the ocean through the beach. About twenty years before a similar breach had occurred in the same locality, and was known during its short life as "Pillintary Inlet." The next day I crossed the sound, which is here four miles in width, and coasted along to the oystermen's village of Hunting Quarters, on the mainland. The houses were very small, but the hearts of the poor folks were very large. They came to the water's edge and carried the canoe into the only store in the neighborhood. Its proprietor, Mr. William H. Stewart, insisted upon my sharing his bachelor's quarters in an unfinished room of the storehouse. My young host was hardly out of his teens. In his boyish way he kindly remarked:

"I am here all alone. Father told me, before he died, never to let a stranger pa.s.s my door but to make him share my lodgings, humble though they are; and now, any way, you're just in time for the fun, for we are to have three weddings to-night, and all the boys and girls of the neighborhood will be at Hunting Quarters."

I entered a mild protest against joining in the festivities, on the plea of not having received an invitation; at which the handsome youth laughed heartily.

"Invitation!" he exclaimed; "why, no one ever gives out invitations in Hunting Quarters. When there is to be a 'jollification' of any sort, everybody goes to the house without being asked. You see we are all neighbors here. Up at Newbern and at Beaufort, and other _great_ cities, people have their ways, but here all are friends."

So we went to the little house in the piny forest, where two hearts were to be made one. The only room on the first floor was crowded with people. The minister had not arrived, and the crowd was gazing at the young groom and his pretty bride-elect as they sat in two chairs in the middle of the company, with their arms around each other, never speaking a word to any one. The heavy weight of people began to settle the floor, and as two joists gave way I struggled to escape through an open window, thinking we would be precipitated into the cellar below. But the good-natured company took no notice of the snapping timbers, only ejaculating, "She'll soon touch bottom;" and to my inquiries about the inconvenience of being pitched through to the cellar, a rustic youth, with great merriment depicted upon his countenance, replied:

"Sullers, captain, why, there ain't a suller to a buildin'

within thirty miles of the Quarters. We never uses sullers hereabouts."

By my side was a young fisherman, who had got home from a cruise, and was overflowing with affection towards every girl present. "O, gals," he would cry, "you don't know how nice I feels to get back to you once more!" Throwing his arms around a bright-eyed girl, who vainly tried to escape him, he said, "O, weary mariner, here is thy rest! No more shall he wander from thee."

This sentimental strain was interrupted by an old lady, who reached her arm over my shoulder to administer a rebuke. "Sam, ye're a fool!" she cried; "ye're beside yourself to-night, and afore this paper-canoe captain, too. Ef I was a gal I'd drap yere society, wid yere familiar ways right in company."

The blow and the admonition fell harmlessly upon the head and the heart of the sailor, who replied, "Aunty, I knows my advantages in Hunting Quarters--_wimen is plenty, and men is few_."

The crowd roared with laughter at this truism, but were quieted by the shout of a boy that the preacher was a-coming; whereupon the reverend gentleman elbowed his way through the guests to the quiet couple, and requested them to stand up. A few hurried words by the clergyman, a few bashful replies from the young people, and the two were made one. The crowd rushed outside of the house, where a general scramble took place among the boys for their girls. Then a procession was formed, headed by the clergyman, which marched along the sandy road to another house in the woods, where the second marriage was to be celebrated.

It was amusing to see the young men dash away from the procession, to run to the village store for candy at twenty-five cents per pound, containing as much _terra alba_ (white clay) as sugar. With well-filled pockets they would run back to the procession and fill the girls' ap.r.o.ns with the sweets, soon repeating the process, and showering upon the fair ones cakes, raisins, nuts, and oranges. The only young man who seemed to find no favor in any woman's eyes invested more capital in sweetmeats than the others; and though every girl in the procession gave him a sharp word or a kick as he pa.s.sed, yet none refused his candies as he tossed them at the maidens, or stuffed them into the pockets of their dresses.

The second ceremony was performed in about three minutes, and the preacher feeling faint from his long ride through the woods, declared he must have some supper. So, while he was being served, the girls chatted together, the old ladies helped each other to snuff with little wooden paddles, which were left protruding from one corner of their mouths after they had taken "a dip," as they called it. The boys, after learning that the preacher had postponed the third marriage for an hour, with a wild shout scampered off to Stewart's store for more candies. I took advantage of the interim to inquire how it was that the young ladies and gentlemen were upon such terms of pleasant intimacy.

"Well, captain," replied the person interrogated, "you sees we is all growed up together, and brotherly love and sisterly affection is our teaching. The brethren love the sisteren; and they say that love begets love, so the sisteren loves the brethren. It's parfecly nateral. That's the hull story, captain. How is it up your way?"

At last the preacher declared himself satisfied with all he had eaten, and that enough was as good as a feast; so the young people fell into line, and we trudged to the third house, where, with the same dispatch, the third couple were united. Then the fiddler sc.r.a.ped the strings of his instrument, and a double-shuffle dance commenced. The girls stamped and moved their feet about in the same manner as the men. Soon four or five of the young ladies left the dancing-party, and seated themselves in a corner, pouting discontentedly. My companion explained to me that the deserters were a little stuck-up, having made two or three visits on a schooner to the city (Newbern), where they had other ways of dancing, and where the folks didn't think it pretty for a girl to strike her heels upon the floor, &c.

How long they danced I know not, for the prospect of a long row on the morrow sent me to rest in the storehouse, from which I was called by a kind old couple sending for me to take tea with them at half an hour after midnight. Unwilling to wound the sensitive feelings of these hospitable people, I answered the summons _in propria persona_, and found it was the mother of bride No. 1, to whom I was indebted for the invitation. A well-filled table took up the s.p.a.ce in the centre of the room, where a few hours before the timbers creaked beneath the weight of the curious crowd; and there, sitting on one side in the same affectionate manner I have described, were the bride and groom, apparently unmoved by the change of scene, while the bride's mother rocked in her chair, moaning, "O John, if you'd taken the other gal, I might have stood it, but this yere one has been my comfort."

At dawn the canoe was put into Core Sound, and I followed the western sh.o.r.e, cheered by the bright sun of our Saviour's natal day. At noon the mouth of the thoroughfare between Harker's Island and the mainland was unintentionally pa.s.sed, and I rowed along by the side of the island next Fort Macon, which is inside of the angle made by Cape Lookout.

Finding it impossible to reach Newbern via Morehead City that day, the canoe was beached upon the end of Harker's Island, where I breakfasted at the fashionable hour of two P. M., with men, women, and children around me. My mode of cooking the condensed food and liquid beef, so quickly prepared for the palate, and the remarkable boat of _paper_, all filled the islanders with wonder. They were at first a little shy, looking upon the apparition--which seemed in some wonderful way to have dropped upon their beach--with the light of curiosity in their eyes.

Then, as I explained the many uses to which paper was put, even to the paying off of great national debts, my audience became very friendly, and offered to get me up a Christmas dinner in their cabins among the groves of trees near the strand, if I would tarry with them until night.

But time was precious; so, with thanks on my part for their kind offers, we parted, they helping me launch my little boat, and waving a cheerful adieu as I headed the canoe for Beaufort, which was quietly pa.s.sed in the middle of the afternoon.

Three miles further on, the railroad pier of Morehead City, in Bogue Sound, was reached, and a crowd of people carried the canoe into the hotel. A telegram was soon received from the superintendent of the railroad at Newbern, inviting me to a free ride to the city in the first train of the following morning.

The reader who has followed me since I left the chilly regions of the St. Lawrence must not have his patience taxed by too much detail, lest he should weary of my story and desert my company. Were it not for this fear, it would give me pleasure to tell how a week was pa.s.sed in Newbern; how the people came even from interior towns to see the paper canoe; how some, doubting my veracity, slyly stuck the blades of their pocket-knives through the thin sides of the canoe, forgetting that it had yet to traverse many dangerous inlets, and that its owner preferred a tight, dry boat to one punctured by knives. Even old men became enthusiastic, and when I was absent from my little craft, an uncontrollable ambition seized them, and they got into the frail sh.e.l.l as it rested upon the floor of a hall, and threatened its destruction.

It seemed impossible to make one gentleman of Newbern understand that when the boat was in the water she was resting upon all her bearings, but when out of water only upon a thin strip of wood.

"By George," said this stout gentleman in a whisper to a friend, "I told my wife I would get into that boat if I smashed it."

"And what did the lady say, old fellow?" asked the friend.

"O," he replied, "she said, 'Now don't make a fool of yourself, Fatness, or your ambition may get you into the papers,'" and the speaker fairly shook with laughter.

While at Newbern, Judge West and his brother organized a grand hunt, and the railroad company sent us down the road eighteen miles to a wild district, where deer, c.o.o.ns, and wild-fowl were plentiful, and where we hunted all night for c.o.o.ns and ducks, and all day for deer. Under these genial influences the practical study of geography for the first time seemed dull, and I became aware that, under the efforts of the citizens of Newbern to remind me of the charms of civilized society, I was, as a travelling geographer, fast becoming demoralized.

Could I, after the many pleasures I was daily enjoying, settle down to a steady pull and one meal a day with a lunch of dry crackers; or sleep on the floor of fishermen's cabins, with fleas and other little annoyances attendant thereon? Having realized my position, I tore myself away from my many new friends and retraced my steps to Morehead City, leaving it on Tuesday, January 5th, and rowing down the little sound called Bogue towards Cape Fear.

As night came on I discovered on the sh.o.r.e a gra.s.s cabin, which was on the plantation of Dr. Emmett, and had been left tenantless by some fisherman. This served for shelter during the night, though the struggles and squealings of a drove of hogs attempting to enter through the rickety door did not contribute much to my repose.

The watercourses now became more intricate, growing narrower as I rowed southward. The open waters of the sound were left behind, and I entered a labyrinth of creeks and small sheets of water, which form a network in the marshes between the sandy beach-islands and the mainland all the way to Cape Fear River. The Core Sound sheet of the United States Coast Survey ended at Cape Lookout, there being no charts of the route to Masonboro. I was therefore now travelling upon _local_ knowledge, which proves usually a very uncertain guide.

In a cold rain the canoe reached the little village of Swansboro, where the chief personage of the place of two hundred inhabitants, Mr. McLain, removed me from my temporary camping-place in an old house near the turpentine distilleries into his own comfortable quarters.

There are twenty mullet fisheries within ten miles of Swansboro, which employ from fifteen to eighteen men each. The pickled and dried roe of this fish is shipped to Wilmington and to Cincinnati. Wild-fowls abound, and the shooting is excellent. The fishermen say flocks of ducks seven miles in length have been seen on the waters of Bogue Sound.

Canvas-backs are called "raft-ducks" here, and they sell from twelve to twenty cents each. Wild geese bring forty cents, and brant thirty.

The marsh-ponies feed upon the beaches, in a half wild state, with the deer and cattle, cross the marshes and swim the streams from the mainland to the beaches in the spring, and graze there until winter, when they collect in little herds, and instinctively return to the piny woods of the uplands. Messrs. Weeks and Taylor had shot, while on a four-days' hunt up the White Oak River, twenty deer. Captain H. D.

Heady, of Swansboro, informed me that the ducks and geese he killed in one winter supplied him with one hundred pounds of selected feathers.

Captain Heady's description of Bogue Inlet was not encouraging for the future prosperity of this coast, and the same may be said of all the inlets between it and Cape Fear.

Rainy weather kept me within doors until Friday, the 7th of January, when I rowed down White Oak River to Bogue Inlet, and turned into the beach thoroughfare, which led me three miles and a half to Bear Inlet.

My course now lay through creeks among the marshes to the Stand-Back, near the mainland, where the tides between the two inlets head. Across this shoal spot I traversed tortuous watercourses with mud flats, from which beds of sharp racc.o.o.n oysters projected and sc.r.a.ped the keel of my boat.

The sea was now approached from the mainland to Brown's Inlet, where the tide ran like a mill-race, swinging my canoe in great circles as I crossed it to the lower side. Here I took the widest thoroughfare, and left the beach only to retrace my steps to follow one nearer the strand, which conducted me to the end of the natural system of watercourses, where I found a ditch, dug seventy years before, which connected the last system of waters with another series of creeks that emptied their waters into New River Inlet.

Emerging from the marshes, my course led me away from New River Inlet, across open sheets of water to the mainland, where Dr. Ward's cotton plantation occupied a large and cultivated area in the wilderness. It was nearly two miles from his estate down to the inlet. The intervening flats among the island marshes of New River were covered with natural beds of oysters, upon which the canoe sc.r.a.ped as I crossed to the narrow entrance of Stump Sound. Upon rounding a point of land I found, snugly ensconced in a grove, the cot of an oysterman, Captain Risley Lewis, who, after informing me that his was the last habitation to be found in that vicinity, pressed me to be his guest.

The next day proved one of trial to patience and muscle. The narrow watercourses, which like a spider's web penetrate the marshes with numerous small sheets of water, made travelling a most difficult task.

At times I was lost, again my canoe was lodged upon oyster-beds in the shallow ponds of water, the mud bottoms of which would not bear my weight if I attempted to get overboard to lighten the little craft.

Alligator Lake, two miles in width, was crossed without seeing an alligator. Saurians are first met with, as the traveller proceeds south, in the vicinity of Alligator Creek and the Neuse River, in the lat.i.tude of Pamplico Sound. During the cold weather they hide themselves in the soft, muddy bottoms of creeks and lagoons. All the negroes, and many of the white people of the south, a.s.sert, that when captured in his winter bed, this huge reptile's stomach contains the hard knot of a pine-tree; but for what purpose he swallows it they are at a loss to explain.