Voyage of the Paper Canoe Part 11

In twelve miles of tortuous windings there appeared but one sign of human life--a little cabin on a ridge of upland among the fringe of marshes that bordered on Alligator Lake. It was cheering to a lonely canoeist to see this house, and the clearing around it with the season's crop of corn in stacks dotting the field. All this region is called Stump Sound; but that sheet of water is a well-defined, narrow, lake-like watercourse, which was entered not long after I debouched from Alligator Lake. Stump Inlet having closed up eighteen months before my visit, the sound and its tributaries received tidal water from New Topsail Inlet.

It was a cold and rainy evening when I sought shelter in an old boat-house, at a landing on Topsail Sound, soon after leaving Stump Sound. While preparing for the night's camp, the son of the proprietor of the plantation discovered the, to him, unheard-of spectacle of a paper boat upon the gravelly strand. Filled with curiosity and delight, he dragged me, paddle in hand, through an avenue of trees to a hill upon which a large house was located. This was the boy's home.

Leaving me on the broad steps of the veranda, he rushed into the hall, shouting to the family, "Here's a sailor who has come from the north in a PAPER boat."

This piece of intelligence roused the good people to merriment.

"Impossible!" "A boat made of paper!" "Nonsense!"

The boy, however, would not be put down. "But it _is_ made of paper, I tell you; for I pinched it and stuck my nails into it," he replied earnestly.

"You are crazy, my boy," some one responded; "a paper boat never could go through these sounds, the c.o.o.n oysters would cut it in pieces. Now tell us, is the sailor made of paper, like his boat?"

"Indeed, mother, what I tell you is true; and, O, I forgot! here's the sailor on the steps, where I left him." In an instant the whole family were out upon the veranda. Seeing my embarra.s.sment, they tried, like well-bred people, to check their merriment, while I explained to them the way in which the boy had captured me, and proposed at once returning to my camp. To this, however, they would not listen; and the charming wife of the planter extended her hand to me, as she said, "No, sir, you will not go back to the wet landing to camp. This is our home, and though marauding armies during the late war have taken from us our wealth, you must share with us the little we have left." This lady with her two daughters, who inherited her beauty and grace of manner, did all in their power to make me comfortable.

Sunday was the coldest day of the season; but the family, whose hospitality I enjoyed, rode seven miles through the woods, some on horseback, some in the carriage, to the little church in a heavy pine forest. The next day proved stormy, and the driving sleet froze upon the trees and bound their limbs and boughs together with an icy veneer. My host, Mr. McMillan, kindly urged me to tarry. During my stay with him I ascertained that he devoted his attention to raising ground-peas, or peanuts. Along the coast of this part of North Carolina this nut is the chief product, and is raised in immense quant.i.ties. The latter state alone raises annually over one hundred thousand bushels; while Virginia and Tennessee produce, some years, a crop of seven hundred thousand bushels.

Wednesday opened with partially clearing weather, and the icy covering of the trees yielded to the softening influences of a southern wind. The family went to the landing to see me off, and the kind ladies stowed many delicacies, made with their own hands, in the bow of the boat.

After rowing a half-mile, I took a lingering look at the sh.o.r.e, where those who four days ago were strangers, now waved an adieu as friends.

They had been stript of their wealth, though the kind old planter had never raised his hand against the government of his fathers. This family, like thousands of people in the south, had suffered for the rash deeds of others. While the political views of this gentleman differed from those of the stranger from Ma.s.sachusetts, it formed no barrier to their social intercourse, and did not make him forget to exhibit the warm feelings of hospitality which so largely influence the Southerner.

I went to him, as a traveller in search of truth, upon an honest errand.

Under such circ.u.mstances a Northerner does not require a letter of introduction to nine out of ten of the citizens of the fifteen ex-slave states, which cover an area of eight hundred and eighty thousand square miles, and where fourteen millions of people desire to be permitted to enjoy the same privileges as the Const.i.tution of the United States guarantees to all the states north of Mason and Dixon's line.

From Sloop Landing, on my new friends' plantation, to New Topsail Inlet I had a brisk row of five miles. Vessels drawing eight feet of water can reach this landing from the open sea upon a full tide. The sea was rolling in at this ocean door as my canoe crossed it to the next marsh thoroughfare, which connected it with Old Topsail Inlet, where the same monotonous surroundings of sand-hills and marshes are to be found.

The next tidal opening was Rich Inlet, which had a strong ebb running through it to the sea. From it I threaded the thoroughfares up to the mainland, reaching at dusk the "Emma Nickson Plantation." The creeks were growing more shallow, and near the bulkhead, or middle-ground, where tides from two inlets met, there was so little water and so many oyster reefs, that, without a chart, the route grew more and more perplexing in character. It was a distance of thirty miles to Cape Fear, and twenty miles to New Inlet, which was one of the mouths of Cape Fear River. From the plantation to New Inlet, the shallow interior sheets of water with their marshes were called Middle, Masonboro, and Myrtle sounds. The canoe could have traversed these waters to the end of Myrtle Sound, which is separated from Cape Fear River by a strip of land only one mile and a half wide, across which a portage can be made to the river. Barren and Masonboro are the only inlets which supply the three little sounds above mentioned with water, after Rich Inlet is pa.s.sed.

The coast from Cape Fear southward eighty miles, to Georgetown, South Carolina, has several small inlets through the beach, but there are no interior waters parallel with the coast in all that distance, which can be of any service to the canoeist for a coast route. It therefore became necessary for me to follow the next watercourse that could be utilized for reaching Winyah Bay, which is the first entrance to the system of continuous watercourses south of Cape Fear.

The trees of the Nickson Plantation hid the house of the proprietor from view; but upon beaching my canoe, a drove of hogs greeted me with friendly grunts, as if the hospitality of their master infected the drove; and, as it grew dark, they trotted across the field, conducting me up to the very doors of the planter's home, where Captain Mosely, late of the Confederate army, gave me a soldier's hearty welcome.

"The war is over," he said, "and any northern _gentleman_ is welcome to what we have left." Until midnight, this keen-eyed, intelligent officer entertained me with a flow of anecdotes of the war times, his hair-breadth escapes, &c.; the conversation being only interrupted when he paused to pile wood upon the fire, the chimney-place meantime glowing like a furnace. He told me that Captain Maffitt, of the late Confederate navy, lived at Masonboro, on the sound; and that had I called upon him, he could have furnished, as an old officer of the Coast Survey, much valuable geographical information. This pleasant conversation was at last interrupted by the wife of my host, who warned us in her courteous way of the lateness of the hour. With a good-night to my host, and a sad farewell to the sea, I prepared myself for the morrow's journey.

CHAPTER XI.

FROM CAPE FEAR TO CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA.

A PORTAGE TO LAKE WACCAMAW.--THE SUBMERGED SWAMPS.--NIGHT AT A TURPENTINE DISTILLERY.--A DISMAL WILDERNESS.--OWLS AND MISTLETOE.--CRACKERS AND NEGROES.--ACROSS THE SOUTH CAROLINA LINE.--A CRACKER'S IDEA OF HOSPITALITY.--POT BLUFF.--PEEDEE RIVER.--GEORGETOWN.--WINYAH BAY.--THE RICE PLANTATIONS OF THE SANTEE RIVERS.--A NIGHT WITH THE SANTEE NEGROES.--ARRIVAL AT CHARLESTON.

To reach my next point of embarkation a portage was necessary.

Wilmington was twelve miles distant, and I reached the railroad station of that city with my canoe packed in a bed of corn-husks, on a one-horse dray, in time to take the evening train to Flemington, on Lake Waccamaw.

The polite general freight-agent, Mr. A. Pope, allowed my canoe to be transported in the pa.s.senger baggage-car, where, as it had no covering, I was obliged to steady it during the ride of thirty-two miles, to protect it from the friction caused by the motion of the train.

Mr. Pope quietly telegraphed to the few families at the lake, "Take care of the paper canoe;" so when my destination was reached, kind voices greeted me through the darkness and offered me the hospitalities of Mrs.

Brothers' home-like inn at the Flemington Station. After Mr. Carroll had conveyed the boat to his storehouse, we all sat down to tea as sociably as though we were old friends.

On the morrow we carried the Maria Theresa on our shoulders to the little lake, out of which the long and crooked river with its dark cypress waters flowed to the sea. A son of Mr. Short, a landed proprietor who holds some sixty thousand acres of the swamp lands of the Waccamaw, escorted me in his yacht, with a party of ladies and gentlemen, five miles across the lake to my point of departure. It was now noon, and our little party picnicked under the lofty trees which rise from the low sh.o.r.es of Lake Waccamaw.

A little later we said our adieu, and the paper canoe shot into the whirling current which rushes out of the lake through a narrow aperture into a great and dismal swamp. Before leaving the party, Mr. Carroll had handed me a letter addressed to Mr. Hall, who was in charge of a turpentine distillery on my route. "It is _twenty_ miles by the river to my friend Hall's," he said, "but in a straight line the place is just _four_ miles from here." Such is the character of the Waccamaw, this most crooked of rivers.

I had never been on so rapid and continuous a current. As it whirled me along the narrow watercourse I was compelled to abandon my oars and use the paddle in order to have my face to the bow, as the abrupt turns of the stream seemed to wall me in on every side. Down the tortuous, black, rolling current went the paper canoe, with a giant forest covering the great swamp and screening me from the light of day. The swamps were submerged, and as the water poured out of the thickets into the river it would shoot across the land from one bend to another, presenting in places the mystifying spectacle of water running up stream, but not up an inclined plain. Festoons of gray Spanish moss hung from the weird limbs of monster trees, giving a funeral aspect to the gloomy forest, while the owls hooted as though it were night. The creamy, wax-like berries of the mistletoe gave a Druidical aspect to the woods, for this parasite grew upon the branches of many trees.

One spot only of firm land rose from the water in sixteen miles of paddling from the lake, and pa.s.sing it, I went flying on with the turbulent stream four miles further, to where rafts of logs blocked the river, and the sandy banks, covered with the upland forest of pines, encroached upon the lowlands. This was Old Dock, with its turpentine distillery smoking and sending out resinous vapors.

Young Mr. Hall read my letter and invited me to his temporary home, which, though roughly built of unplaned boards, possessed two comfortable rooms, and a large fireplace, in which light-wood, the terebinthine heart of the pine-tree, was cheerfully blazing.

I had made the twenty miles in three hours, but the credit of this quick time must be given to the rapid current. My host did not seem well pleased with the solitude imposed upon him. His employers had sent him from Wilmington, to hold and protect "their turpentine farm," which was a wilderness of trees covering four thousand acres, and was valued, with its distillery, at five thousand dollars. An old negro, who attended the still and cooked the meals, was his only companion.

We had finished our frugal repast, when a man, shouting in the darkness, approached the house on horseback. This individual, though very tipsy, represented Law and Order in that district, as I was informed when "Jim Gore," a justice of the peace, saluted me in a boisterous manner.

Seating himself by the fire, he earnestly inquired for the bottle. His stomach, he said, was as dry as a lime-kiln, and, though water answers to slake lime, he demanded something stronger to slake the fire that burned within him. He was very suspicious of me when Hall told him of my canoe journey. After eying me from head to toe in as steady a manner as he was capable of, he broke forth with: "Now, stranger, this won't do.

What are ye a-travelling in this sort of way for, in a paper dug-out?"

I pleaded a strong desire to study geography, but the wise fellow replied:

"Geography! geography! Why, the fellers who rite geography never travel; they stay at home and spin their yarns 'bout things they never sees."

Then, glancing at his poor b.u.t.ternut coat and pantaloons, he felt my blue woollen suit, and continued, in a slow, husky voice: "Stranger, them clothes cost _something_; they be _store_-clothes. That paper dug-out _cost money_, I tell ye; and it _costs_ something to travel the hull length of the land. No, stranger; if ye be not on a bet, then somebody's a-paying ye _well_ for it."

For an hour I entertained this roughest of law dignitaries with an account of my long row, its trials and its pleasures. He became interested in the story, and finally related to me his own aspirations, and the difficulties attending his efforts to make the piny-woods people respect the laws and good government. He then described the river route through the swamps to the sea, and, putting his arm around me in the most affectionate manner, he mournfully said:

"O stranger, my heart is with ye; but O, how ye will have to take it when ye go past those awful wretches to-morrow; how they will give it to ye! They most knocked me off my raft, last time I went to Georgetown. Beware of them; I warn ye in time. Dern the hussies."

Squire Jim so emphasized the danger that I became somewhat alarmed, for, more than anything else, I dreaded an outbreak with rough women. And then, too, my new acquaintance informed me that there were four or five of these wretches, of the worst kind, located several miles down the stream. As I was about to inquire into the habits of these ugly old crones, Mr. Hall, wishing to give Squire James a hint, remarked that Mr.

B---- might at any time retire to the next room, where half the bed was at his disposal.

"_Half the bed!_" roared the squire; "here are _three_ of us, and where's _my half_?"

"Why, squire," hesitatingly responded my host, "Mr. B---- is _my guest_, and having but _one_ bed, he must have _half_ of it--no less."

"Then what's to become of me?" thundered his Majesty of the law.

Having been informed that a shake-down would have been ready had he given notice of his visit, and that at some future time, when not so crowded, he could be entertained like a gentleman, he drew himself up, wrapped in the mantle of dignity, and replied:

"None of that soft talk, my friend. This man is a traveller; let him take travellers' luck--three in a bed to-night. I'm bound to sleep with him to-night. Hall, where's the bottle?"

I now retired to the back room, and, without undressing, planted myself on the side of the bed next the wall. Sleep was, however, an unattainable luxury, with the squire's voice in the next room, as he told how the country was going to the dogs, because "n.i.g.g.e.rs and white folks wouldn't respect the laws. It took half a man's time to _larn_ it to 'em, and much thanks he ever got by setting everybody to rights." He wound up by lecturing Hall for being so temperate, his diligent search in all directions for bottles or jugs being rewarded by finding them filled with unsatisfactory emptiness.

He then tumbled into the centre of the bed, crowding me close against the wall. Poor Hall, having the outside left to him, spent the night in exercising his brain and muscles in vain attempts to keep in his bed; for when his Majesty of the law put his arms akimbo, the traveller went to the wall, and the host to the floor. Thus pa.s.sed my first night in the great swamps of the Waccamaw River.

The negro cook gave us an early breakfast of bacon, sweet potatoes, and corn bread. The squire again looked round for the bottle, and again found nothing but emptiness. He helped me to carry my canoe along the unsteady footing of the dark swamp to the lower side of the raft of logs, and warmly pressed my hand as he whispered: "My dear B----, I shall think of you until you get past those dreadful 'wretches.' Keep an eye on your little boat, or they'll devil you."

Propelled by my double paddle, the canoe seemed to fly through the great forest that rose with its tall trunks and weird, moss-draped arms, out of the water. The owls were still hooting. Indeed, the dolorous voice of this bird of darkness sounded through the heavy woods at intervals throughout the day. I seemed to have left the real world behind me, and to have entered upon a landless region of sky, trees, and water.

"Beware of the cut-offs," said Hall, before I left. "Only the Crackers and shingle-makers know them. If followed, they would save you many a mile, but every opening through the swamp is not a cut-off. Keep to the main stream, though it be more crooked and longer. If you take to the cut-offs, you may get into pa.s.sages that will lead you off into the swamps and into interior bayous, from which you will never emerge. Men have starved to death in such places."

So I followed the winding stream, which turned back upon itself, running north and south, and east and west, as if trying to box the compa.s.s by following the sun in its revolution. After paddling down one bend, I could toss a stick through the trees into the stream where the canoe had cleaved its waters a quarter of a mile behind me.

The thought of what I should do in this landless region if my frail sh.e.l.l, in its rapid flight to the sea, happened to be pierced by a snag, was, to say the least, not a comforting one. On what could I stand to repair it? To climb a tree seemed, in such a case, the only resource; and then what anxious waiting there would be for some cypress-shingle maker, in his dug-out canoe, to come to the rescue, and take the traveller from his dangerous lodgings between heaven and earth; or it might be that no one would pa.s.s that way, and the weary waiting would be even unto death.