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VACATION CRUISING
IN
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE
BAYS.
^y BY
J.-^t>''ROTHROCK, M.D,
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
" In brief, I may say that we have had somewhat too much of '
the
gospel of work.' It is time to preach the gospel of relaxation."
Herbert Spencer, New York Address.
ILL US TR A TE
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1884.
l^
Copyright, 1884, by J. B. LiPPINCOTT & Co.

TO
MY MOTHER
THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS
AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED,
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE OF HER DEVOTION
TO THE WELL-BEING AND HAPPINESS
OF HER CHILDREN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Description of the Yacht, and Reasons for

THE Cruise 7
II. Down the Chesapeake and Up the James . • iS
III. Down the James and Up the Chesapeake . . 50
IV. Cruising on the Delaware River and Bay . 166
V. Who Should Go Cruising 238
VI. T9 Winter-Quarters in the Choptank . . 245

VACATION CRUISING
IN
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS.
/
CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION OF THE YACHT, AND REASONS FOR

THE CRUISE. .
The plan of spending this vacation on the

water grew gradually, and at last commended
itself to my judgment, because it was cheap, full
of health, and promised as complete a change in

mode of life as one could hope to obtain.
Furthermore, as I proposed partly utilizing
the time by such natural history studies and

observations as would not consume brain-power
faster than it was created, some few books, a
microscope, plant-press, and paper were required.
7.
8 VACATION CRUISING IN
These conditions were most fully met by making

a small yacht my means of conveyance, my
home, and my laboratory. It is to be remem-
bered that study was far from being the primary
object of the cruise.
To carry out my plan a strong, nearly new
boat was purchased, —not a racing yacht, in which
everything was sacrificed to speed, but a solid,
" well-fastened" little sloop, whose qualities were
safety "first, comfort second, and some speed at the
tail-end of a long list of good points.

This boat, originally the " Varuna," of Bridge-
ton (New Jersey), was renamed '*
Martha," for
reasons which were entirely satisfactory to my
little boys (who were my sailing companions part
of the time) and to myself. The custom-house
papers gave thirty feet long, eleven feet beam,
and three and a half feet deep as the dimensions
of the little craft.*
* Much greater depth and less beam in proportion to length
are now regarded as important elements of safety, and doubtless

truly so ; but I was obliged to have a boat whose depth would
not prevent my entering harbors where I particularly desired to
go. An old waterman expressed his opinion of my boat by

saying, " You can't drown her."
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. g
No more sail was carried than was absolutely-
required. The spars were shorter and stronger

than were usual in sloops of her size ; and, as
further security against a capsize, more than a
ton of pig iron was placed and fastened as low
down inside as we could get it. Six hundred
to a thousand pounds more outside on her keel
would have added to her sailing qualities, though
without this the boat gave no indication of un-
steadiness.
Before the vacation began every seam had been

most carefully gone over and made tight ; the
standing rigging was newly set up, and every
cord of the running rigging was either new, or as
good as new. Our ground tackle was two power-
ful holding anchors and plenty of manila rope to
swing to. Cleats and reefing gear were all in per-
fect order. Not once during the entire summer

were we endangered or incommoded from want
of preparation of anything we should have had
ready, but which was not ready.
A good aneroid barometer held a place so

conspicuous that it must be noticed, and thus we
were left without excuse if not forewarned of
coming danger by storm. Compass, charts, lead
lO VACATION CRUISING IN
and line, side-lights, anchor-light, and cabin-light

completed the details that contemplated safety.
Next came comfort. First of all, every avenue

to the cabin was guarded by wire mosquito-net-
ting, —so well guarded that we absolutely escaped
all torment from these minute flying fiends. We al-
ways kept the sliding cabin windows open. Hence
we had the full benefit by day and by night of
whatever " air was going." The " bunks" were
large enough for men of moderate dimensions to
sleep comfortably in, with tossing room besides.
The rule that all bedding must be frequently aired
was religiously adhered to.
Food. — Canned corn, tomatoes, and baked

beans, with rice, oatmeal, prunes, good pilot-bread,
ham and the best breakfast bacon, tea, coffee,
and sugar, I purchased for the season at wholesale

price. Fresh fruits and meats were obtained as
required. If there was lack of luxurious living,
there was no want of nutritious plain food. The

medicine-case was well supplied, — not that it was
needed much for the inmates of the boat, but
because, in the out-of-the-way places where we
went, it often enabled me to relieve some suffering
fellow. There is a comfort in giving help without

—
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. n

hope of reward, or without possibility of it, save
such mental approval as a pure charity brings to
the giver. A little of this does go a long, long
way into after-life, softening one's own sorrows,
and brightening his own joys. Hence, then, by

all means, a medicine-chest.
Another most important article was added
a small, cheap camera for dry-plate photogra-
phy. One may now be had at a price which
is within reach of every tourist, and nothing is
easier than to become an adept in the use of the
instrument. Let me suggest, however, that each
tourist contemplating a prolonged trip purchase

enough plates at once for his use, and that he
fairly test their sensitiveness before leaving his
base of supplies. I have no complaints to make

because a large proportion of the plates of a well-
known dealer failed to give the results I had
anticipated, and which I had always obtained
before from his supplies. The fault was my own,
that I had not tried the lot before starting out.
We can hardly as yet guess how important a

factor this amateur photography is to be in the
book-making of the future. Neither can we meas-

ure its possible influence in opening minds to the
quiet beauty or the sublime grandeur which our

land everywhere possesses. To judge what its
possible effect may be a century hence, study

what it has already done for men —and women
too —who, before they became amateurs, had no
appreciation of the fact that a tree or a rock could
have either individuality or attractiveness. With-
out wishing to be over-enthusiastic, or be re-
garded as filled with the zeal of a neophyte, I
can hardly avoid counting this art in as one of the

humanizing forces of the times.
Reading Matter. —What so good as some of
iCingsley's writings ? Real enough to charm and
invigorate the mind, suggestive enough to open
whole realms to any student who has the capacity
for observation or for generalization, yet without
the details with which some authors drag their
readers down to the level of those everlasting

figures. There is a mental condition which grows
out of constantly contemplating ratio and per-
centage, which is dangerous, because the victim
always fails to note that the sunshine is leaving
his soul, and that, as his facts and his averages pile
themselves higher and higher, his own inner self

is being dwarfed. Who of all writers could so fitly
—
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 13
fill the little space left for reading matter as

Charles Kingsley ? Of course there were, besides,
the ordinary scientific and yachting manuals.
One more element remained to be considered,
which, if not under the head of comfort, comes

under the more important one of health, — I mean
cleanliness. Nothing so disturbs rest as the
thought that as one sleeps visitors, demons of
the night, children of filth, are feasting upon his
blood ; or that some disease-germ, vigorous in
the absence of fumigation, is nursing in his veins
a progeny that shall work him unknown harm.

This bar to bliss when cruising is often intimately
associated with a hired vessel. But then there

could be no excuse for it on board one's own
yacht, so I determined that, inside and out, the
vessel should be cleaned every day. This rule

was observed during the entire cruise, save for
two weeks very early in the season. The yacht

was also pumped out, washed out, and fumigated
on the least suspicion that anything might be
wrong, or on the bare idea that peace of mind or
health of body could be in the least degree sub-
served by any additional precaution.
And now,
2
; —
" Over the rail
My hand I trail,
Within the shadow of the sail
A joy intense,
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence." Drifting.
Note. — During the summer I had the pleasure of having

with me, each for a short time, the following gentlemen : Messrs.
George Johnson, William Butler, Jr., James Sellers, Professor
G. M. Philips, and Mr. James Bull. My two little boys were

with me several weeks. So that not the least among the ''de-
lights of yachting is the privilege of having friends share what-
ever of pleasure there may be in it.

CHAPTER II.
DOWN THE CHESAPEAKE AND UP THE JAMES.
Friday afternoon, June met the " Martha"

9, I
at Delaware City, whence we were to go through

the canal to the Chesapeake Bay. Of course it
was an unlucky day on which to begin a long
trip, though I am bound to declare that, looking
back on the events of the cruise, I do not see

just where the misfortunes came in. The day was
exceedingly warm, and a dead calm rested upon
the waters. The glare of the sun was almost
intolerable to the eyes ; though I must say here
that this intolerance of the bright reflection
ceased in a few days.

The hours from ten, when I reached the place,
until three, when the yacht came into the lock,
passed away very slowly. The local industry

which appeared to be most thriving at that time
was sturgeon-catching. Two or three antiquated
river sloops and schooners lay alongside the wharf.

5
1
VACATION CRUISING IN
The odor arising from them told plainly enough

what their vocation was. But the crews of these
sturgeon-boats revealed most unexpectedly a
fondness for the beautiful. The air of the town
was filled with the perfume of roses, which
were then blooming in profusion. Sturdy, oil-
odored sturgeon-fishermen wandered through the

town with huge clusters of roses, giving you as
they passed the mingled perfume of the rose and

the fish in the same inhalation. This unlooked-
for susceptibility, however, was not so strange
as it was to discover that the place where the
roses came from was a bar-room filled with a
noisy crowd. The roses and the rye were dis-
pensed over the same bar.

The " Martha" entered the lock at Delaware
City, as has been said, at three in the afternoon.
By four we were hitched on to the steam-tug

"Swallow," and long before dark were through
the canal. When constructed, this canal must
have been one of the great internal improve-
ments of that age. The wonder is, however,
that in spite of it Baltimore did not filch away
from Philadelphia more of the grain crop which
was grown on the Pennsylvania hill-sides. It is
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, 17
doubtless well known who the moving spirits of

the enterprise were, and also what their object
was in cutting the State of Delaware through.
One can readily understand how, in the interest
of its great city, Pennsylvania could well afford

to have made the canal, if necessary, in order
that her own grain crop at least might be handled
in and exported from her own chief port, rather
than to have gone abroad from another State.

As a rule, there is no inspiration in canal navi-
gation, or certainly few people find it. For all this
it was a really enjoyable trip across from bay

to bay. Our transit was made in the delicious
cool of the evening, after a frightfully hot day.

The adjectives used are strictly intentional and
premeditated, for the sufficient reason that they
express more truly than figures can how the
noonday and the evening temperature affected us.
I do not know where the mercury would have

stood, because I never carry a thermometer when
on a Southern cruise in summer, for it is simply
exasperating to know just how much heat we are
enduring. It is far more comfortable not to have

the exact figures ; they always intensify the sun's
rays. In the canal we enjoyed the scenery and
6 2*
8 —
the rich perfume from the magnolia and the fox-

grape. I would really quite like to spend a week
in working (botanizing) along the banks of the
canal. There is a luxuriant, and apparently a
very varied, flora in the region.
On Saturday morning our patience was almost

exhausted before we were taken in tow by the tug
for the Elk River. The master of the tug did not
care to venture out so long as the fog remained

dense. Probably he was entirely right, because
until eight o'clock objects distant more than a
hundred yards were shut out from view ; though
the captain of a large Crisfield schooner did not
think so, and, hoisting his sails, he started to
work his way down to the Elk. However,
" luck in leisure," —we passed him very soon
when the tug did start.
As we entered the Elk the fog cleared away

entirely, and the glorious water view opened
before us to the southward. I never look from
above the Bohemian River down toward the bay
that this panorama does not impress me. It
does so more and more the oftener I look at and

enjoy it. To the south there is no visible limit.
The bold, timber-covered bluffs east or west, with

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. iq
navigable rivers coming in between, run so that

the horizon widens as one looks south. It is a
scene characterized neither by grandeur nor yet
by quiet beauty alone^ The combination of
water, of plains, and of hills in just the proper
proportion is what completes this perfect picture,
—-so perfect, too, that each season brings its own

special beauty to the view. Back from the water
a little distance, on higher ground, may be seen
the comfortable houses of the farmers. Without
indicating the presence of great wealth, the whole
appearance of the region is one of thrift and
abundance.. There is no sign of the **
take-it-as-
it-come^* spirit which is so common south of An-

napolis ; the air of the place rather speaks, " Make
the most of it.[' Turkey Point, high and tfmber-
clad^ the location of an important light4iouse.
stands like a sentmel between the Elk and the
wide^ shoal mouth of the Susquehanna River»
Probably one should say as little harsh in char-
acter about wind or weather as possible when
cruising for he can alter neither one nor the
other- neither does it indicate a well-ordered
mind to find fault with that which cannot be
helped^ and which^ even if we could alter, would
probably be the worse for the interference. Still,
as a simple inquiry, it may be allowed us to ask,

—how many days of the summer season does the
southern-bound navigator find head-winds to con-
tend with on the upper, or indeed the whole,
Chesapeake Bay?
By four in the afternoon we entered what is
known to fishermen, oystermen, and others of

aquatic tastes as Still Pond Harbor. It lies just
south of where the Sassafras River empties, or

rather opens, into the Chesapeake. That which
is taken for the harbor generally is but a deep
indentation or bay opening to the west, and
hence, with a wind from the same direction, is
merely a trap from which there can be hardly an

escape, and in which one must ride out a sea
backed by the width of the bay. In the October

gale, some years ago, there were several " oyster-
pungies" lost in this very harbor; so, at least, I
was informed. I had good reason for knowing

that there was one such unfortunate there as late
as 1879, for, entering the harbor about dark in

the evening with the schooner " Alice M.," we
struck fairly upon the wreck, — fortunately for us,
however, with no evil results. Not a sign marked

1
the presence of this dangerous obstacle save the

" wake" or ripple made by the wreck itself.
, The Still Pond is an offshoot or an inland pro-

longation of the harbor, and with which it is con-
nected by an inlet say seventy feet wide and twice
or thrice as long. That we found it and came
to anchor in it, as but few yachtsmen do, I am
indebted entirely to the sagacity and the pluck
of " Lew," to whom, by the way, I have not yet
introduced the reader.
" Lew" is a comely, open-hearted yachtsman,
of say twenty-one, whom I was fortunate enough
to secure as assistant before I left the Delaware.
He is experienced, companionable, and trust-
worthy; and I can only hope that in future I
may never meet with a worse man or a less re-
liable man than Lewis Seaman. It was through

him, as I have said, that we found the way into
Still Pond. I had been in the harbor before, and

had not found the pond. He had not been there
before, but did find it. That is just the difference.
He noticed the inlet and saw how rapidly the tide
ran out, and at once reasoned there must be a

large body of water behind the inlet to force a
current through with such velocity.
So we headed for the inlet, and gradually saw

how it increased in size as we approached, until,
when in its mouth, the pond opened to our view;

but the current, which suggested the pond, well-
nigh prevented our reaching it. The wind died
away as we approached the inlet, and when we
were in it, ceased entirely. So the anchor was
dropped, and then " Lew," taking a rope over his
shoulder, went ashore. I hoisted the anchor on
board, and *'
Lew" towed the yacht through into
the mouth of the pond. East and west the land-

locked, beautiful pond spread out before us.
Every one who is fond of the water has some

ideal harbor which suggests perfect safety, easy
landing on attractive shores, and what more
each must add for himself to complete the pic-
ture. To me, when longing for a week on the
water, this one. Still Pond, is ever uppermost in
my mind. I often plan a whole vacation spent
there. There is room enough for a large fleet in
the pond, but, unfortunately, the bar across the

mouth prevents vessels drawing more than three
feet of water from entering. My chart shows on
the southern shore of the harbor another arm,

much like this on the north, but I have never
explored it In the interest of humanity, it is to
be hoped that means may be taken to deepen the

channel into this Still Pond ; for it is doubly hard
that men should perish, as in that October gale,
when there is an absolutely secure anchorage in
full sight.
Considered from another stand-point, this place

is one of those glorious surprises which so often
strike a person cruising in the Chesapeake. Not
only did the beauty of the spot take possession
of me as soon as it was disclosed, but within
half an hour after we had dropped anchor, Lew's
net had caught all the fish we needed for supper.
Had the Pilgrim Fathers landed here instead of
where they did, it is doubtful whether their piety
and importance would have allowed them to stop
short of the belief that a spot so delightful and

so prolific was created specially for them, and
the work of Indian extermination might have
been prosecuted with intense zeal. Pike, yellow
neds, perch, catfish! Surely such a bill of fare

might well awaken the enthusiasm of any- man
with a yachtsman's appetite, even if he were ab-
solutely devoid of his sporting proclivities.
Every hour of day or night appeared to me to

have brought some peculiar sound. In the morn-

ing we had catbirds, blackbirds, kingfishers, and
fish-hawks ; at noon, a family of ,crows, young
and old, kept up a most persistent and vigorous
cawing. Whether the last was a; lesson in elocu-
tion for the junior members of the family I can-

not say, though there appeared to be some object
and some method in it. At night a legion of
frogs gave us a prolonged high-toned serenade.
Close along the northern shore there is a clean,
gravelly bottom, and a somewhat greater depth

of water than a little farther out, where, on top
of the gravel, a slimy, dark, oozy mud is depos-
ited. The tide at that point appeared to flow
more rapidly along-shore. Examining the mud
microscopically, we found much decaying, loamy
matter, some very fine sand, and a number of the
silicious skeletons of diatoms. I never saw so
many, or such industrious fish-hawks. All day
long we could hear them coming down with a
splash into the water. Of course an occasional
bald eagle appeared, to exact his contribution
from the hawks. Even the crows seem to be
unusually aquatic in their habits here. I saw one
go down into the water almost as recklessly as
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 2$
the fish-hawks did. High grounds and low

grounds were close by our anchorage, and we
found the yellow clover, the small verbena, the
blue-flag, and the mountain-laurel all within a
stone's throw of where we lay.
This was not the first time that I have won-

dered why men will sail without a barometer on
board. We had a fine thunder-storm, and from
our point of safety could enjoy it. The heavy
thunder and vivid lightning and puffy squalls
would have combined with the rain, which came
down in force, to make sailing in the bay unpleas-
ant enough. When we anchored, there was not
a cloud in sight; but for all this the barometer
warned us to prepare. We did so. There is
always more or less danger in sailing in the

bays in small craft, and it is simply common
sense to take the lesser risk which the barometer
affords.
Monday, the i ith, we were off by six in the
morning. It was natural that we should leave

Still Pond with regret. We had no reason to
anticipate finding other harbors both as safe and
as pleasant. Let me say to other yachtsmen that,
in going out the inlet, back-flaws and baffling
B 3
;
winds may very often, if not usually, be expected

as the bluff, where the pond narrows into the inlet,
is passed. Sometimes these uncertain elements

cause no little trouble in " working ship" where
the channel is so narrow.
Once out in the bay the little " Martha" en-
countered the full force of a strong head-wind, and
fairly danced on the waves like a cork. White-
caps were forming on all sides. The wind was
puffy and uncertain, —now almost a calm, when the
boat would lose her headway and lie like a log
then in an instant a violent puff would strike the

sail, knocking the yacht down, rail to the water,
before she could gather speed enough to make

her mind the helm. We now appreciated the full
value of the fixed iron ballast. More would have

been better, as the excessive buoyancy was a dis-
advantage in these short, chopping seas. Ballasted,
as the boat had been the previous year, with sand,
most of which was hardly below the water-line,
such sailing must have been dangerous in the
extreme. The amazing stupidity of many yacht-

owners is absolutely a marvel. Most of those
with whom I spoke before placing the iron in my
vessel were rather inclined to tender their sym-
pathy that I could be stupid enough to buy iron

when I could pick up sand or stones. The reason
why I did not buy more and place it where it
belonged, outside in the form of an iron keel, was

because it involved an expense greater than I felt
at liberty to incur. The worst fault was not

lack of stiffness, but great buoyancy. Lew re-
marked, in a quiet way, "This boat takes the

trouble to go right over the tops of all these
waves." So it was ; for sometimes she actually
appeared to jump half her length out of the water.
Three miles ahead we sighted another point,
one which marked a tempting harbor. The tide
had turned and was against us ; this, with adverse

winds and waves, decided us to put into the har-
bor, —Worton's Creek. The attempt to beat down
to Annapolis involved a long, hard day's work,
with no pleasure whatever in the sail. Giving the
yacht more sheet, we headed for the creek, en-
tering it in good style, flying past a party of
fishermen who were running out an immensely
long seine. Once fairly in, we sighted two arms,
one of which ran northward, opening into a con-
siderable expanse of water, the other and more in-
viting one extending toward the south. We beat

into the -latter about a mile, and dropped oui

anchor opposite to Buck Neck Landing. Shortly
afterward the steamer "Van Corlear," from Balti-
more, came in and afforded us a chance to send
off our mail.
For a while the place appeared to be alive,
carriages thronging the wharves to receive those

coming, and to help away those who were leaving.
But they departed with the steamer, and in half
an hour the place resumed its wonted quietness.

Dreaminess appeared to rule the hours. For the
rest of the day hardly a sign of life was visible.
I made several attempts to purchase some rope

which I needed on the yacht, but found the mer-
chant was taking a nap, or had gone visiting, or
was somewhere else than in his store. Late in
the evening the desired purchase was made. The
law of compensation, it is evident, runs through
the whole universe outside of ourselves. I am con-
vinced now that it at last decides the individual
destiny. Were it not for some such law, men at
Buck Neck Landing might live forever, or cer-
tainly as long as the patriarchs. The world's
troubles do not appear to concern them, the
world's thoughts never agitate them ; come peace,
come war, nerve-tissues and myosin are renewed

as fast as expended, and but for some beneficent
disease or accident men never would leave there
to stay even in Paradise. The place would be
overcrowded. With fish in the waters and fruit
on the land, these kind-hearted, generous, and

honest inhabitants would remain, in quiet and in
sunshine, until they multiplied enough to wear
their clothing out by jostling against each other.
There was a solitary living exception to what

I have said, visible from meridian until four p.m.
A good-natured colored boy amused himself by

the hour sculling a heavy " yawl-boat" over to the
western side of the creek ; then, hoisting a broad
board in the bow for a sail, he threw himself

down in the stern of the boat and scudded be-
fore the wind back to the eastern shore. He was
full of the languid poetry of drifting; his whole
soul was saturated with it, though it never found
expression. The solitary reader of his Muse was
myself Happiness is a purely relative term.
This, of course, is a platitude. But who of all
mankind ever come to fully appreciate the

breadth of even so plain a thing, and to rest con-
tent with the present ? I have in mind now two
who illustrate the extremes. One of them is that
young negro. He came alongside, and I gave

him a bucket of preserved prunes, which neither
Lew nor myself could tolerate. He received
them with open eyes and mouth. If he only
knew how little generosity there was in that gift,
we would suffer in his estimate. He soon be-

came too full of happiness on preserved prunes
even to enjoy the pleasure of crossing the creek
behind his board-sail. We saw him on the other
side, with his feet hanging over the boat and re-
ceiving the caress of the water, just as his face,
upturned to the sun, was comforted by the su-
perheated rays. An hour later Pompey came
alongside again. For the gift of a cigar he con-
sented to have his " picture tuk."
Marked on the lower part of the store building
I found the statement, " High-water mark. Sep-
tember 17, 1876." It was gratifying to obtain
the fact, not only because it was a fact and indi-
cated a storm-tide several feet higher than com-

mon, but because it evinced interest in an unusual
event. However, two months later I should have
seen busy times on that very quiet wharf, when
the peach crop, one great interest of the region.
was being shipped. We went ashore during the

evening, and enjoyed the hospitality and conver-
sation of one of the near residents.
Annapolis. —Tuesday, the 12th, we left our

anchorage on the last of the ebb tide, and headed
south for Annapolis. We hoped by making an
early start to reach our destination in spite of
the adverse and heavy weather. So we did, but it
was at the cost of vast patience and severe buffet-
ing. As the crow flies, the distance would have

been considerably less than thirty miles. In a
fair wind the run would have been a very short
one ; but in a small boat, with wind and tide both
against us, it consumed a great part of the day.
Yet it appeared that we were not much worse

off than others who were in sight and bound the
same way. Harbor after harbor was passed, until
by two o'clock p.m. it was clear that, even with
the odds against us, reaching our destination
was merely a question of time and perseverance.
Hoping to avoid the force of the waves, we left
the eastern shore and started for the other side.

To my surprise, where I expected to find a shel-
tered shore, the water was almost or quite as
rough as the one we had left. The difference in
color between the deep-green water and the yel-

lowish hue in shoaler places was strikingly ap-
parent. From Bodkin Point, down along the
western shore, the beat appeared almost intermi-
nable. We had fully decided at one time on an-
choring in Magotha Harbor. On maturer reflec-
tion we both concluded it would be just a little
unmanly to remain there over-night, when a

friend and prospective shipmate was waiting for
us in Annapolis. It did appear, though, as if we

never could get by Sandy Point. " It shoals" a
long, long way out. Then, too, fellow-yachtsmen,

be advised : do not attempt, as we did, to go in-
side of the buoys off Greenbury Light when it is
blowing a gale, unless you know the ground too

well to make a mistake. The " Martha" tried
the experiment, and, though she did drag over,

there was nothing at all to spare. It is very try-
ing to keep outside, especially when the wind is
against you, but probably you will find it best to

do so.
We received a lesson in naval architecture when

crossing from the eastern to the western shore.
My boat, being the usual model of the Dela-
ware Bay, —broad and short, — was at her very
worst in the head-wind and " choppy sea" of the

Chesapeake. She labored severely, with lee rail
under (for we were carrying whole sail, though the

wind whistled through the rigging), or rose over
the waves until it appeared as if more than half the

hull was out of water. Alongside of us came a
Chesapeake " bug-eye," * of light draught, but long
and narrow. We saw her start from Tolchester
Beach, and creep up on us swiftly and surely. We
were laboring ; she was moving along without ef-
fort, going not only faster, but working more to

the windward. At the very time this forty-feet
bug-eye was leaving us, we ourselves were distanc-
ing a large coasting schooner. The bug-eye ca-
reened over very little, went easily through the
water, made no pounding or splashing, and looked
almost into the wind. Thus she proved herself
as possessing every requisite of a first-class sea-
goer. It is doubtful if she drew more than two

feet and a half of water; it is much more prob-
able that she drew less. She certainly did not
* The term "bug-eye" appears to be a corruption of " buck-
eye," which name was at first given from the auger-holes on either
side of the bow, and through which the cable ran.
34
have ballast enough to sink her if she had filled
with water. These were all most desirable features

in a small boat. But here was a direct violation of
what we have been taught were cardinal features
in small-boat construction, —shallowness and small

beam on the one hand, and great length, with no
ballast, and shallowness on the other. The present
ruling fashion is that a small boat shall be at least
four times as long as broad, and that she shall

carry, say, half her tonnage, or more, deep down in
the water, in the shape of a lead or iron keel. It
is certain that a boat built after this, the English
cutter model, may " knock down ;" but it is cer-
tain she will not stay down. Unless she fills, she
must right again. I believe that, so far as our
American sloop and the English cutter have come

into fair trial, the cutter has proven the better
boat, — safer and faster. I am not sure what the
result of a contest between the cutter and the
bug-eye would be. From what I have seen of
the latter class of boats in the Chesapeake, I am
most strongly prepossessed in their favor. The
model of this nondescript is peculiar. Probably
the light cedar gunning-skiff which does duty as
a yawl-boat for us is as nearly an exact imitation
of the bug-eye model as one can imagine. Now,

that same skiff, with sharp bow and stern, such as
the bug-eye was, gave us, when we towed it down
to Annapolis through heavy seas, a most astonish-
ing illustration of sea-worthiness. Every vessel we
met had her yawl swung up, or on deck. Yet our
yawl rode so easily that the line by which we
towed her was seldom stretched, and not a tin-
cupful of water worked into her during the whole

day. The best statement I can give of the bug-
eye model is one furnished to Forest and Stream
by " Talbot." Here it is. The accompanying
illustration will give a general idea of the appear-
ance of the craft. It should be added, however,

that the smaller vessels of this class have all their
sails triangular in shape.
CHESAPEAKE BUG-EYES.
Editor Forest and Stream :
The inquiry contained in your paper concerning the bug-eye,
as it is called by our oystermen, is a step in the right direction,

and Mr. Roosevelt can obtajn any information he may desire from
Captain James L. Harrison, Tilghman's Island P. O., Talbot
County, Maryland. Captain Harrison is the builder of the fastest
boat of this type on the Chesapeake, If this model is peculiar to

this section, there remains in store a treat for all who adopt it in
other waters, where speed and safety are desired. The boat is
not perfectly flat-bottomed, as Mr. Roosevelt supposes, but built so
as to combine light draught and carrying capacity. The centre-
board is constant, also single head-gear. The jigger is always
CHESAPEAKE BUG EYE.
Stepped so as to trim sheets to traveller on deck. Many of them

are built with round sterns with overhang, as in the cutter.
Schooner rig prevails to great extent, but adds nothing to speed.
These boats are extremely fast, and brave the heaviest gales of
our winter. Larger vessels often capsize, but the bug-eye never.
I enclose you the dimensions of the boat thought to be the fast-
est in the whole fleet, with a sketch showing rig: length, fifty
feet; beam, twelve and one-half feet; dead rise, one and one-
half inches to the foot; draught, light, three feet; centreboard,
twelve feet.
Talbot.
It appears from the above, especially when one

remembers the sharp-sterned "pinkies" of half
a century ago on the New England coast, and
which were so remarkable for sea-going qualities,
that in estimating all the good lines in a boat-
model we must probably give considerable im-
portance to the shape of the stern. Indeed, some
assert that the shape of the latter is of as much
importance as that of the bow. I have a half-con-
viction that, taken all in all, these same bug-eyes
are as fast and as safe as many of our renowned
yachts of the same size.
The evolution or mode of development of the

bug-eye is interesting. So far as now appears,
the whole fleet of them grew out of the equally

famous Chesapeake log canoe, — " kunners," as the
negroes and some of the illiterate whites called

them. These originally were made from three
large pine logs, which were neatly and strongly
jointed together by three dressed faces, so that
one made the bottom and the other two the sides.
These were hollowed out and finely shaped out-

side. Being nothing but wood, they were of course
unsinkable, besides being extremely strong, tight,
and durable. Then two long masts, which had
a most wonderful rake, were added. A jib was,
or was not reckoned part of the outfit. These

Chesapeake canoes did their work so well that
they became the popular small boat of the region,
and to increase their size and carrying capacity
the largest available logs were used. Still, the
limit in size did not appear to have been reached,
and the model is essentially preserved in boats
now framed and planked up in the ordinary ship

style. These are the latest product of Chesapeake
naval genius, and are the popular bug-eyes. The
small modifications of the canoe type which they
have introduced are somewhat more " dead rise"
and more swell amidships. It may be well for our

yacht constructors, before absolutely and finally
adopting the deep English type as the highest

product and most suitable vessel for our waters,
to examine very carefully into the claims of these
nondescripts. We offer no opinion ; that must be

formed after full, fair trial. Chesapeake naval-
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 3^
constructive genius cannot well be despised. It
has too famous a place in the history of the Balti-
more clipper, which a generation ago so aston-

ished the world. To my mind the secret of their
wonderful stiffness remains unsolved. Oystermen
say they will live out a storm longer than any
other model on the bay. There is no other style
growing more in favor with these men than the

bug-eye. Hence, then, a fair trial, if for no other
reason than to test the value of an American type.
A day could not be spared, on our way down,
to see the points of interest in and about Annapolis
without a serious break in our plans. However, as
we found a friend (Lieutenant Bull, of the navy),
the break was made, and the time spent in the
grounds of the Naval Academy, under his guid-
ance, was a more than sufficient compensation for
waiting.
When we left, on the morning of the 14th, we
were comforted by the assurance, received the
day before, that we might expect head-winds going
down the bay about nine days out of ten at that
season. However, thanks to the squall of the
previous evening, the wind had hauled around to
the north, and we had a fresh breeze following us
—
all day. So that, after a run of ninety miles, we

dropped our anchor for the night in Smith's Creek,
a little offshoot from the Potomac. The small

number of sails we saw in making the run was
a surprise, bearing no comparison to what we ex-
pected, or to what we should certainly have seen
had we been on the Delaware. Still, it is hard

to think that Baltimore, with its superb water-
approaches, will long lag in the race.
The little bay, for such it was, in which we
had anchored was completely landlocked, and not
more than two hundred yards wide; yet it con-
tained water enough for a good-sized vessel. This
abundance of superior harbors may be considered
as a peculiarity in which the Chesapeake is pre-
eminent. This, along with the navigable waters,
estuaries, and rivers intersecting the land in all
directions, has in one sense retarded the develop-

ment of the country, i.e., by making water com-
munication so easy and so extensive, it has in so
far superseded the necessity for roads. The sail-
ing canoe is the ordinary means of travel from

place to place along the shores. This retarding
effect was observed even by the early colonial
writers.
June the 15th still gave us, in the morning,

a promising northerly wind, and we started out
early, hoping to make a big run to the south-

ward that day. It was, however, four p.m. when we
reached Milford Haven, on the Piankatank River.
Our intention had been to push on down to Mob-
jack Bay, but the weakening wind warned us to
seek a harbor while we could have daylight to do
it in. No rule can be regarded as invariable when
one's doings depend upon the uncertainties of
wind and weather. It was my desire, however,
always to be at anchor by three in the afternoon.
This allowed a turn on shore to see what could

be found, and gave us a chance to take in all
the surroundings, and decide what we would do

in any emergency which might arise during the
night.
Milford Haven is still another of those surprises

which constantly greet one yachting along the
western shore of the Chesapeake. Now, as else-
where, we were landlocked for the night. The
entrance, which at first appeared too small to
admit a vessel, widens out into a broad, deep
mouth, and inside the harbor which it leads to
a whole fleet of canoes and some good-sized

schooners lay. During the evening spent there

Mr. J. and Lew occupied themselves catching
crabs. Half an hour of the sport was sufficient
to cover the deck with vigorous pugnacious

specimens, who the night through manifested
their excessive vitality by threatening any one
audacious enough to leave the cabin in the dark
hours. However, this was more than compensated
for when we came to enjoy them cooked. There
is a difference in flavor of crabs, just as there is
in that of oysters ; and for both Milford Haven is
justly famous. Cape May "goodies," served up

with the oysters and crabs, make one even now,
after the lapse of several months, remember our
anchorage in the Piankatank with feelings of com-
plete satisfaction.
There was a source of annoyance in our charts.

These were all that we could desire out in the
deep water, but along-shore, in water where we

thought we could go, they gave us no informa-
tion. The score of little bays and harbors that one
" might make," if only his chart would indicate the
depth of water or show him the way in, were a
constant aggravation, because we knew there were
such, and such quiet places, too, as we most de-
sired to enter with camera in hand. Chart-makers,

we shoal-water yachtsmen, we owners of very
small craft, do beseech you to give the channel
and the depth of water into every small harbor in
the Chesapeake. Our experience at the mouth of

the Potomac was provoking. The chart led us to
put in there because of a small safe harbor which
was indicated ; butwe searched in vain for it, and
were obliged to make a considerable run out of
our way to find a secure anchorage.
June i6th found us astir by sunrise, which this
season of the year means by about half-past four.

We thought ourselves early risers, but the par-
tridges were up before us, and we could hear their
musical whistle from all sides. Is it so that there

are early and late risers among our day-birds ? It
was not until long after the " Bob White" whistle
was heard that the crows began to make them-

selves conspicuously noisy. However, this was
Virginia we were in, and it is only within a few
years that black folks have dared to speak at all.
Our anchorage in Milford Haven was on the

southern side. The anchor was let go in two
fathoms of water, but during the night, swinging
with the tide, the yacht had been left stern
aground. This accident caused but little delay.
We were soon floating, and in less than the

length of the yacht were again in the channel,
with water enough for a large schooner. Most
of these harbors have certain features in common.
Thus there is ordinarily a bar at the outlet, where
the current of the main body of the water, meet-
ing with that coming from the harbor, causes

enough retardation of the water to allow the
suspended mineral matters to fall to the bot-
tom. Such, at least, is the explanation which

forces itself on my mind. There may be a much
better one, however, for aught that I know.
Then, again, leading to and from all these har-
bors, there is a strong current where the inlet or

outlet is narrow and the harbor is wide. Hence
through this narrow part there must be a rapid
current, with great capacity for deepening and
eroding the channel. This, in fact, is just what

we find, and when by storm or otherwise the
channel is closed, this swift current very speedily
opens another.
We asked a negro who came along-side to sell
oysters, just after we had anchored, who the fe-

males were that, in the absence of the men of the
!
crew, saved their sloop from the vengeance of the

governor when he was hunting oyster pirates, a
few months before. There was a nice httle story-
going the rounds of the newspapers that these

Piankatank women, recognizing the emergency,
escaped by themselves getting the anchor and
sails up and navigating the vessel to a place of
safety. One of our popular illustrated journals

gave a page or two of rhyming history of the
affair. The negro knew nothing of it ; but, if it
" was so, he guessed they must have come from

the other side." Whether true or not, it illustrates
that home praises are often very faint, and that it

is only when echoed back from a distance that
they are heard at all. Alas for fame
There is a tortuous, very narrow channel from
Milford Haven out to the bay, in which, by sail-
ing east, we hoped to save important time that
would have been lost to have gone out from the

north as we came in. A very intelligent colored
man, one Richard McKnight, undertook to pilot
us through this lower passage. We found him a

character, who, between serving during war times
as a cook for a Northern general and as a sailor,
had gathered quite a fund of information. The

46 • VACATION CRUISING IN
use he made of his knowledge as we drifted
slowly out was very entertaining. His observa-

tions upon the animal life around us were quite
acute. As for the fish-hawks and the eagles, he
seemed to have been taken into their secrets.
Their sounds and movements were familiar to him

as those of the little boy who accompanied him.
Among other things, he told the local tale as to
why the eagle exacted a tribute from the hawk.
The former was the earlier inhabitant of the
region. When the fish-hawk came, he did not
know how to make his nest. This the eagle
taught him to do, under promise that the hawk
should pay in fish for the instruction. This obli-
gation was disregarded, and the eagle was obliged
to take his due by force.
So simple a tale as this, not elaborate enough

or far enough reaching in its relations to be
classed as a myth, was, nevertheless, extremely
suggestive. It brought to my mind the fact that

these tales are always found, when found at all,
among those who, without being ignorant, are

nevertheless always illiterate. How the folk-lore
originally came, it is, after all, hard to explain.
It would be hard to prove that it had always a
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. ^y
more substantial basis than this tale of the col-
ored pilot. Our American Indians have such

explanations as this for the habits of almost every
animal.
Those wild winter nights when, in 1865, I was
in the most unknown and uncivilized parts of
British Columbia were in one way a perpetual
delight to me. My Indians, crouching around
the camp-fire, amused themselves by telling, night
after night, the same tales, with as much eager-
ness and interest as if they had been wholly fresh
and new. Thus the beaver and the porcupine
decided to travel together. The beaver was to
take the porcupine across the rivers, and the
porcupine was to help the beaver down the hills.
The beaver, however, ducked the porcupine in
crossing a stream ; and then, as his hair dried
in the warm sun, it became hard and rigid like

quills. The porcupine retaliated by dragging the
beaver down the next mountain, and so wore all
the fat off of the under-side of his body ; and none
has ever come there since.
The run of the i6th was a very short one. We
anchored for the night behind New Point Com-
fort. So far as the weather was concerned, we
—
^8 VACATION CRUISING IN
rested well enough, but there was a fish-mill on

shore which was most exasperatingly fragrant.
It called to mind some passages from "The
Tempest,"
Adrian. The air breathes upon us here most sweetly.
Sebastian. As if it had lungs, and rotten ones.
Antonio. Or, as 'twere perfumed by a fen.
The United States boat " Fish-Hawk" lay in the
same place. We could not see just what she was

doing, though, of course, she had some mission
there, and was accomplishing it in the usual com-
fortable, leisurely government way.
Sunday mofning, the 17th, the wind was so fair
that we concluded to start for Fortress Monroe.

An hour before sunrise everything looked un-
promising. The wind was not only dead ahead,
but there was too much of it. Any other place
was better than where we were. It was certain
that we must make a harbor somewhere else.
Then, too, the Sabbath in full reach of the odors

from a fish-mill ! It would have been enough to
banish all proper feeling, and to concentrate all
one's attention on his nose. So the start was

made, and soon, as the old adverse breeze died
away, a new and favoring one sprang up. This

carried us to the fort by half-past two in the
afternoon.
The following day we started up the James,
anchoring for the night at the lower end of
Jamestown Island. The next evening found us
anchored off City Point, where my vacation work
was to begin.
The only unpleasant association connected with

the place was that my friend, Mr. J., who had
been with us for a week, took his departure for
the North and the treadmill of life again.
CHAPTER III.
DOWN THE JAMES AND UP THE CHESAPEAKE.
To the next generation City Point will have

lost the meaning which it has for thousands of
men now living. Its very situation, at the junc-
tion of the James and the Appomattox, is full of
stirring suggestions. It is strange that the waters
which flow past the birthplace of the nation
should also have their source so close to the spot
where the final struggle for its life and perpetuity
was made.
Bermuda Hundred, City Point, and Petersburg
are all associated, geographically and histori-
cally, and all were during the recent war a very

focus of military operations. Plots and counter-
plots were worked out there. Troops were em-
barked and disembarked on the very wharves
whose ruins yet remain along-shore. Over those
very decaying piles, hundreds, mayhap thousands,
of wounded or sick heroes marched, or were car-
ried, on their way to Northern hospitals.

The town itself has but little to speak of.
Whatever energy the place indicates is centred

along the wharves, where the railroad and the
steamboats meet. Rumor says some interest
hostile to the growth of the place is at work.

It is hard now to picture the sight of troops and
engines of war on the very spot which, at the
time of our visit, was covered with matured
wheat. The only reminder of war that one sees
are the six monitors which lie at anchor on the
southern side of the channel. One officer, re-
siding in Petersburg, commanded the whole fleet,
while a squad of men does duty in allowing the

old war-battered vessels to rust and rot in be-
coming dignity. Their decks are white ; the iron,

and other things which the unwritten law of the
sea demands shall be black, receive their proper
care and color. All of these monitors have seen
service. They are part of the original fleet which
first in a practical way settled the value of ar-
mored ships. Weak as they now are from age
and in comparison with the ironclads of other

governments which have decent self-respect, they
were once the very bulwarks of the nation. One

hardly knows whether most to pity or to de-
spise a power which in time of peace allows its
strength to rot into weakness, and then to disap-

pear, — all this, too, as the sop thrown to party
selfishness on the one hand, and to party fear on
the other. On the mere basis of probabilities, one
might venture to assert that there are a score of
land and water leaders, men yet unknown, who

in the proper time and emergency would come
forward to command our forces and to organize
victory, provided that they had the mere material

of war. We can probably produce Grants and
Porters more speedily than ironclads and cruisers.
Heroes are very much creatures of accident, as

monitors are of time and money.
Taking the James as a whole, the banks are still
very much as nature and war left them. Consid-

ering that nearly three centuries have passed since
the early colonists landed, it is remarkable how
many of the beautiful building-sites along the
banks remain timber-clad to this day. Here and
there a stately mansion rises on the bluffs or
towers up from behind the belt of woods. This
is to be said, —that when costly homes were
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. S3
erected, the choice of the site was ahnost invari-
ably in favor of a commanding position. Nowhere

in the country is this more clearly manifest than
along the James. More than this, I fancy one

can see, only half concealed, the wish that in
future these same halls might have clustered
about them not only the associations of the old
English homes after whose patterns they were
built, but also something like baronial pomp as
well. Virginia thresholds suggest not only a

color line, but a caste line. This is not so much
an individual peculiarity as it is due to times
first and circumstances afterward; and it reflects
the aggregate sentiment of a ruling circle. It
may, like the odor of roses, persist even after
the process of disintegration has set in. If one

is struck unpleasantly by these appearances of
strength, he must not forget the real strength,
the genuine heroism and the broad statesmanship,

which this old commonwealth nurtured. It is fair
to judge a generation rather by what the best
men desire to do than by what the average char-

acters succeed in doing. When actions have
passed into history and we sum up the doings of
a past generation, we are most likely to estimate

54
their rank by what the pioneers in thought and

deed have accomplished for those who followed
them. This is surely the most ennobling in-
fluence to be drawn from history ; and in medi-

tating over the doings of two centuries with
Virginia, it is well that we give ourselves the
benefit of that lesson.
The same old tale of timber destruction which

is written on the bare hillsides of the North is
being rewritten on the banks of the James. Tim-

ber exportation is one of the industries of the
region, — good enough for the present, but, in the
interest of the future, not nearly so productive of
benefit as a policy would be which made men

save that timber where it is and gain the year's
living from old acres better tilled. Three-fourths
of all the vessels that went out of the James
during our stay there were freighting away tim-
ber. Granting what must be granted, —the un-
healthiness of the low grounds, —would it not be
better to leave them for the present in standing
timber, where it exists, or even to replant where
it has been removed in anticipation of the time,
which is surely coming, in which forest value will
be as certain as the value of a silver-mine ? The
question is, or soon will be, a national one — can

we longer afiford to be without some such system
of forestry as has produced beneficent results in

France and in Germany ? True, it may be many
years before Virginia will suffer from lack of
timber. But then that simply means she yet
has time to study a lesson which many other
States have already learned to their cost, —that it
is bad to be short of timber, and that, once gone,

it takes many years and costs much money to
restore a forest.
The difference between the season here and

near Philadelphia is quite marked. As I looked
from my cabin window on June 20th I could
see much of the wheat crop already cut and " in
shock." A day earlier I found blackberries
(Riibus villosiis) fully ripened; even the wild
plums {Pntmis Americana) were commencing to
be edible.
With a fair wind, on June 20th we left City

Point to descend the river. The first stopping-
place was at Berkeley, a few miles below. I
wanted a view of the old mansion-house, which,

erected in 1723, has been the scene of many im-
portant historical events. Tradition tells us that
on the lawn in front of this building Patrick

Henry rehearsed his great speech to the Virginia
representatives, before whom it was in form de-

livered at the Virginia Convention. I can neither
confirm nor deny the historical accuracy of this
statement, which was given to me by the courteous
and obliging proprietor, Mr. Stevens. In the same
house President Harrison was born. It was used
also by General McClellan during his Peninsular
campaign ; and then were removed the beautiful
trees which once ornamented the lawn, facing and
gradually sloping to the river, three hundred yards
away. The original grant of this estate dates back
to 1636, when it was given by the Crown to
the Merchants' Trading Company, and by them
sold to Benjamin Harrison, in 1645, ô^ the sum
of sixteen pounds sterling, containing then about
eight thousand acres, and extending back to the
Chickahominy.
Malvern Hill, where our great but unutilized
victory was gained during the recent war, is but
eight miles distant.
The steep banks of the bluff, where they face the
river, show a mixture of sand and gravel which is
very like that revealed by the cuts of the Chesapeake

and Delaware Canal. The bald cypress {Taxodiiim

distichuni) was at its very best when I saw it in
June. Its light-green feathery foliage contrasted

richly with the dark-hued pines back of it. To
those who have never seen these trees before, they
always present a strange appearance, which is due,
first, to the fact that they grow down to and in
the water ; and, second, to their large, conical,

buttress-like hollow roots. They can hardly help
enlarging one's views of the possibilities of plant-
life and form for variation. Along-side of or but
little higher than the cypress, the buttonwood
(Platamis occidentalis)^ with its large leaves, was
thriving luxuriantly; and, still farther from the
river, the leaves of the Liquidambar, or the sweet-

gum tree, stood out boldly with their five to seven
projecting ray-like lobes.
In one respect the condition of the negroes and
poorer whites along the shores of the bay and the
banks of the river has not much improved since the
days of slavery. They were then, as now, —prob-
ably hardly more than now, —largely depending on
the water for much of their food. Sailing up and
down the James, we saw them, after the work of
the day, actively engaged in fishing. In one house
which we entered we found an old gray-headed col-
ored woman preparing the same kind of corn-bread

that was the staple food years ago. By day and
by night we could see and hear the sturgeon
jumping out of the water, and coming down again
with their characteristic heavy splash.
When it is remembered that most of the really
desirable land in our Western Territories is already

taken up, the idea forces itself upon one that
capital seeking land investment would do well to
turn its attention toward Virginia. It should be

remembered that portions of Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois were once (indeed, still are) as much
under the curse of malaria as the banks of the
dreaded James River. Yet those same regions
have become centres of active industry and of busi-
ness prosperity. Cinchona has as nearly eliminated
malaria as an element in retarding civilized oc-
cupancy of a new land as the telegraph has an-
nihilated space. This woof and warp of human
events is a strangely tangled thing. Who could
have supposed that the discovery of remedial
properties in a tree on the slopes of the Andes
would open an avenue which made African ex-
ploration and settlement by white races possible ?
!
Yet who can deny that it has done so ? Those

who will drink the waters of Marah have a right
to the palm-trees of Elim. It is certain that the

bad reputation of the region along the James was
intensified by the long list of sick men sent home
from there during the Peninsular campaign; but
then it must also be remembered that the circum-
stances under which those victims had lived were
altogether exceptional and trying.

At ten o'clock at night we would hear the
negro fishermen singing as loudly and happily as
though they had not already done a day's work.
Light-hearted race ! How well they illustrate
that life and contentment are, after all, pretty
much as we make them
Our short stay on the James would, of course,
furnish very incomplete data on which to base
an estimate as to the number of vessels of con-

siderable size which pass up and down the river
each day. While we were there, probably it would

be safe to say, there were three or four daily each
way that went or had been above City Point.
On the evening of June 20th we anchored near

what was left of the old Fort Powhatan. A still
strong river-wall is all that marks the site of this

6o VACATION CRUISING IN
once-important post from the river side. A coun-

try store stands on the hill above, and a wharf
furnishes a landing-place for good-sized vessels.
Shipment of timber appears to be at present the
chief industry. Earthworks, occupied for a time

during the recent war, are on the hill back.
Continuing our voyage down the river, the next
landing was made at Lower Brandon. During
the war I had occasion to know the bravery and
the persistency of purpose with which the Vir-
ginians adhered to their doctrine of State Rights.
Here, at Lower Brandon, for the first time in my

life, I was made acquainted with the hospitality
for which the old families of the State are so
proverbial. I presented myself at the door of

the noble old mansion, a sun-browned yachtsman,
certainly with dust on my shoes, and I fear with
the odor of tar on my raiment. The gentleman of
the house being away, permission to photograph
the house and its surroundings was very kindly
given by the ladies. By them, also, I was taken
to the parlor and shown the old family portraits,
each of which had a history. Indeed, it is very

doubtful if a single private room on the continent
contains a larger number of portraits of distin-
: 1
guished persons, most of whom, too, were related

to the occupants of the house. Some of these
paintings were more than a century and a half old.
Colonel Byrd, who figured so conspicuously in
all the early doings of the colony and in its re-
lation to the mother-country, had, of course,
a conspicuous place among the family portraits.

Mrs. H. most kindly allowed me to examine the
original manuscript account by Colonel Byrd of
running the line between Virginia and North
Carolina. He was himself one of the leading
characters in the work. Colonel Byrd's writings
furnish a mine of wealth which no historical stu-
dent of the times and the colony can afford to be

without. They have been published under title
of " The Westover Papers," and throughout are

characterized by elegance, force, and reliability.
Of course, on a flying visit it was impossible to
do more than simply to glance at the precious

document. I make one extract from it, which
shows that the author was a keen observer of the
lower animals as well as of man
" When the water is shallow 'tis no uncommon
thing to see a bear sitting, in the summer-time, on
a heap of gravel in the middle of the river, not
only to cool himself, but likewise for the advan-

tage of fishing, particularly for a small shell-fish
that is brought down with the stream. In the
upper part of James River I have observed this
several times, and wondered very much at first
how so many heaps of small stones came to be

piled up in the water, till at last we spied a bear
sitting upon one of them, looking with great at-
tention on the stream, and raking up something

with his paw, which I take to be the shell-fish
above mentioned." (October, 1729.)
Of Colonel Byrd, Doyle (" English Colonies in
America : Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas,"
p. 348) writes: "In 1720 the first event oc-
curred which throws any clear light from without
on the internal life of the colony. In that year
boundary disputes arose between Virginia and her
southern neighbor, and it was found necessary to
appoint representatives on each side to settle the
boundary line. The chief interest of the matter
lies in the notes left us by one of the Virginian
commissioners. Colonel William Byrd was a rich
planter, whose multifold activities and varied ac-
complishments recall that generation of English-
men to which Virginia owed her origin. Educated
in England, then called to the bar and elected a

fellow of the Royal Society, afterward for thirty-
seven years a councillor in Virginia, three times

agent at the English court, and the leading spirit
in every industrial enterprise, Byrd shows us how

active and brilliant a career lay open to a great
Virginian landholder."
It is, then, to Byrd's industry in recording the
events of his daily life that his own well-established

claim to historical remembrance is due. Besides
this, however, these same labors made him the first
American historical authority of his times, and also

the preserver of a knowledge of social life which
but for him must have been in great part lost.
Along with his high sense of honor and a most

keen penetration, he appears to have been, withal,
somewhat caustic in his writings. Thus he char-
acterizes Edenton as being the one capital in the
world without any place of worship. This mode of

expressing an opinion reminds one very strongly
of—
" 'Tis in Annapolis alone
God has the meanest house in town." *
^ See " Colonial Life in Maryland," E. W. Latimer.

The portrait of Colonel Byrd, and also that of

Miss Eveline Byrd, hang on the parlor wall at
Lower Brandon. The latter must have been

strikingly beautiful. The impression she pro-
duced has almost become historical.
Nothing struck me so forcibly as the dignified
and frank manner in which the war and its im-

mediate issues have been accepted by the property-
holders along the James. There is a nobility
which is above even the reverses of war, and if
ever in my life I felt that I was in the presence

of such it was at Lower Brandon. I would like
to say more, but deprive myself of the pleasure,

lest the sincerity of what I have written should be
doubted.
When night came I could look from my cabin
window and see, two miles away, the lights where
the negroes were fishing. I fancied that I could
hear them singing. But along the line where the
woods and the water met I could see no other
light made by human hands. The fire-flies flick-
ered among the foliage on shore, and the full
moon rose out of the water to the eastward with
an unusually cold red light. Scudding clouds and

puffs of wind lent just enough of weirdness to the
scene to make me fully realize how these same

shores appeared when the first voyage of explora-
tion was undertaken from Jamestown Island to
the present site of Richmond. I cannot help

hoping —nay, thinking —that a new prosperity
awaits the Old Dominion ; that her soil, restored
to its original fertility, may again produce bounte-

ous crops ; and that her scars of war will be covered
by a mantle of peace which shall nevermore be
turned aside.
I was particularly anxious to secure a good
photograph of the Lower Brandon mansion-house.
But here, as on Jamestown Island, the two places
where, of all others, I most desired success, I
absolutely failed to obtain the views. Uniform

success during the previous season made me so
careless that I did not attempt developing the pic-
tures until I returned home. Then, when too
late, I discovered my failure. The mansion is
composed of two wings and a main central build-
ing. The wings were erected first, and of bricks

brought over from England. One finds there the
same alternating order of red and black bricks

that he can still see in so many of the older parts
of Philadelphia. Subsequently the main central
e 6*
(i(i
building, as it stands to-day, joined the wings.

In spite of the injury wrought by war, it is a riiost
imposing building. Inside all was once in keeping

with the exterior ; that it is not so now is largely
due to some unjustifiable acts of vandalism, I am

ashamed to say, on the part of our own Northern
troops.
I had the pleasure of accompanying the ladies
to the harvest-field, where Major Page was super-

intending the cutting of the wheat crop. I found
him a courteous gentleman, who shook hands
very cordially with me knowing that we were on
different sides of the recent conflict. I cannot
help asking just here how much of the Southern
intolerance of Northern men may come from an
ill-advised and indelicate aggressiveness on the
part of the latter. I make no assertion, but simply
ask the question.

There were on the estate about two hundred
and fifty acres in wheat, and some eighty laborers
engaged in harvesting it. The major suggested
about eighteen bushels per acre as the probable
yield of the one-hundrcd-acre field he was then
engaged upon. In the thriving crop of clover I
could sec the sign of a restored fertility. The

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 6/
absence of this on much of the land that I visited
along the James was leading me to underestimate
the recuperative process which is taking place.

Lower Brandon mansion, along with its large-
hearted hospitality, is a house of "many indus-

tries," as one of the ladies remarked. It is the
post-office for the region, and the money received
for their service to the country is set apart for the
church there, which, like many others, needs all
it can obtain to enable it vigorously to prosecute

its Christian work.
If to the occupants Lower Brandon appears

like a " Paradise Lost" since the war, there are
very many who hope that ere long it may be a

" Paradise Regained." I visited the grounds early
in the morning of June 22d. The cooing of the
pigeons and the whistle of the partridges were
everywhere heard. Squirrels played among the
branches, or deliberately sat and chattered at me
as I passed. Their only fear seemed to be when
on the ground ; but, once on the tree, they imme-
diately stopped to inspect the intruder. The
Magnolia grandiflora was in full bloom, and its
fragrance appeared to temper the morning air.
Mimosas, with their delicate foliage and still

more delicate flowers, peeped out from under

the taller trees. Honeysuckles twined everywhere
about the mansion, taking possession of whatever
they could embrace. The strange association of
plants which originally came from homes which
were widely distant from each other struck me
very forcibly. Thus side by side were Scotch firs'
and mimosas, and over a vigorous Chinese alian-
thus twined in close contact the English ivy

(Hederd) and the American poison-vine {Rhus),
each appearing to thrive as though the land and
climate had been made for it alone.
On the Japan quince {Cydoiiia), where the fruit

was already half matured, I found a luxuriant
growth of the fungus known to botanists as the
Rcestelia. What is the subtle discernment among

plants which enables even these low forms of life
to recognize, and to appropriate for their own

nourishment, the suitable life-blood of a higher
form ? Rcestelia is commonly found parasitic on
plants of the rose family. To this the Japan
quince belongs, and the fungus, even though
American-born, recognized at once in a plant
imported here from halfway around the globe
a friend, or a servant, that would nourish it. It is
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 6g
simply another expression of natural law, which

operates regardless of the limitations of time or
longitude. Whether the fitness here of each for
each is to be expressed in terms of evolution or
of direct design, it is none the less wonderful. I
can see a broad system of philosophy in the

teaching of Mr. Darwin and some of his leading
conservative followers. The wildest guesses, too,
of some of his enthusiastic disciples may prove
true; but so long as guesses are promulgated as
verified scientific facts, they only by so much

retard the very cause they are intended to aid.
Take, for example, the soberly-stated proposi-

tion of a leading writer of the evolutionist school,
that among our horned animals those frontal ap-

pendages (horns) came because of the irritation
produced by the butting warfare waged among

the progenitors of our present horned animals.
The form of logic expressed by such reasoning is
**
that it is easier to believe the proposition than
to prove to the contrary," a mode which, in spite

of its convenience, is not safe. Even the argu-
ment in favor of the statement, derived from the
order of appearance of these animals in past time,
does not justify the mode of reasoning employed,
!
or the positive, dogmatic teaching growing out of

it, since there is an utter want of direct proof of
the cause producing the appendages. How many-
unknown causes may have led to the same result?
It is this toleration of probabilities in scientific
reasoning which has done so much toward

burdening our modern writings with such a
load of false conclusions.
Not long ago I was under the shade of some
maple-trees whose more than half-matured fruit
covered the ground. Among these specimens

there were some where one-half of the fruit (that
is, one of the pair of winged seeds) had aborted,
or failed to grow. Surely, in accordance with the
old, well-established law, it must be, I thought,
that those half fruits will each be larger than in a
fruit where both halves have grown to normal

size. I was ready to prepare a note of it for a
scientific journal. However, I restrained myself
until I had examined the facts fully ; when, lo

the half-fruits were found to be no larger alone
than when grown, as they should have done, in
pairs. This is not a fable, even if it has a moral.
I am quite willing to point it against myself, pro-
viding some of my contemporaries will seriously

~~
tt^'Af^MÂ'^X
i -«^^^^j^^f.M^.
ask themselves whether they have not been as

unfortunate in some of their scientific reasoning.
Before leaving Lower Brandon and its associa-
tions, I must call attention to the bullet-marks
shown by the illustration on the eastern front of
the mansion. These are but a partial expression
of the lawlessness of our own troops. The shots

were not fired in battle, but represent the ungov-
erned lawlessness of warfare. I do not mean to
assert that our own soldiers were worse than
others, but simply to say that all such acts as
mutilate property, destroy life, or in any way in-
jure an individual, unless done (as these were not)
in execution of military duty, are wholly inex-

cusable and unjustifiable upon any pretext what-
ever. There is a still worse tale of vandalism to
be told in connection with the same building. On
one of the windows there was, written by him-
self, the name of each President, down to that of
our martyred Lincoln. Associated with these

were the autographs of many statesmen and
scholars. One might suppose that such honored
autographs would be secure, engraved with the
diamond on the glass, against even the great de-
stroyer Time, and that they would be both sacred
>j2 VACATION CRUISING IN
and safe among the soldiers of Freedom. But

they were neither, for an unpalsied Northern arm
shattered the pane and destroyed the roll.
It is sad to see how many of these old estates
are changing owners, going, though, it may be, to
those who will care for them and .

respect their
traditions. After all, is there not in the pride of
ancestry, in the attachment to the State, a prin-
ciple which, if not in itself pure, unadulterated

patriotism, is yet a sure foundation for patriotism
to rest upon ?
River navigation is always most uncertain.
How often we were " headed off" by the wind in
some days of sailing on the James it is hardly

possible to say. We started to Brandon in a calm,
but reached our anchorage in a furious little gale,
which covered the river with white-caps in a few

minutes. However, the tide was going out, and
we soon found the yacht had nestled down into
a soft bed of mud, where she quietly lay. That
was not a hundred yards distant from where an
ocean-steamer passed an hour before.
On the evening of June 22d we anchored south
of the Chickahominy, and next morning ran over
to photograph the mouth of this historic river.
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. yy
In itself it is nothing but a good-sized stream,

opening through swamps and low, pine-covered
bluffs into the James. For all this, however, it
has been the scene of some of the most impor-

tant events witnessed in our short colonial and
federal life. Captain John Smith, very soon after
the location of the settlers upon Jamestown
Island, set out to explore the Chickahominy
region, which, though nominally under control of
Powhatan, was directly governed by his brother
Opechancanough, who from first to last was hos-
tile to the whites. It was on this trip that Smith
was captured, and marched from village to vil-
lage by his captors, then doomed to execution,
and rescued from the jaws of death by Pocahon-

tas. This, at least, is the legend, which, it is to be
remembered, came not at first from Smith him-
self The romance of it never was heard of until
Pocahontas became, after baptism, the Lady Re-
becca. Here, too, is a strange incident in her life,
which, as it has not been so fully told elsewhere,

I will quote from Doyle (" English Colonies in
America Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas,"
:
" It now came to Argall's ears that Po-

p. 143) :
cahontas, now about seventeen years old and mar-

D 7
ried to one of Powhatan's captains, was with the

king of the Potomac. Argall at once determined
to possess himself of her, as a means of ransom-
ing the English prisoners and goods taken the
previous year. With this view he went boldly to
Japazaus, and told him that unless he delivered
up Pocahontas to the English he must no longer

regard them as brothers and friends. This threat,
backed up, according to one account, by the
promise of a copper kettle, proved too much for
the fidelity of Japazaus. Pocahontas was beguiled

on board Argall's vessel, and found herself a pris-
oner. Other influences possibly were at work to

bring about a union between the races. In the
spring of 1613, Pocahontas was baptized by the
name of Rebecca, and married to one of the prin-
cipal settlers, John Rolfe." This was just about
one year later than when, as a captive, she was
the wife of one of her father's captains. Was
she for a brief period a widow ? One year later,
Ralph Hamor, who appears to have been both

educated and influential, went to Powhatan with
a request for another of his daughters. I will not
give the full particulars of that visit, but refer the
reader to Doyle {op. cit.y p. 145). This same

;
Hamor (apparently) wrote that Rolfe "married

one of rude education, manners barbarous, and
cursed generation, merely for the good of the
plantation."
The least that can be said is, this is a pity if
true, —so much of a pity that we prefer to accept

Bancroft's account of the conversion and court-
ship of the Indian princess. It may be that
Hamor's own unsuccessful suit had somewhat
soured his disposition against the Indian race
and manners.
Still more history has been made for Virginia
along the banks of the Chickahominy. In 16 16,

owing to the almost exclusive attention which was
paid by the colonists to the culture of tobacco,
there was not enough of corn for food. The
Chickahominy Indians had promised a supply,
but, seeing the straits to which the whites were
reduced, refused contemptuously to deliver the
stipulated quantity. This resulted in a fight, in
which twelve Indians were killed and as many

more captured. This for a time enforced peace
but only for a time. The Indians, a few years
later, made a bloody retaliation, which threatened

the very life of the young colony.
—
^6 VACATION CRUISING IN
The events of i860 to 1864 along the famous

little stream are still fresh in memory. At last
white-winged Peace, in the shape of trading-

schooners, go up and down the Chickahominy
giving Northern money in exchange for Virginia
lumber. We may now well believe that its future
will be as quiet as its past has been turbulent.

Prosperity came slowly to Virginia ; but it did
come, nevertheless. Bancroft, describing the con-
dition of things there in 1656, says, "Virginia had
long been the home of its inhabitants. 'Among
many other blessings,' said their statute-books,
'
Almighty God hath vouchsafed increase of chil-
dren to this colony, who are now multiplied to a

considerable number ;'
and the huts
'
in the wil-
derness were as full as the birds'-nests of the

"
woods.'
I was much struck by the patriarchal appear-
ance of some of the negroes. One, whose white
head and placid countenance was especially im-
pressive, called to mind the lines of Keats,
" While his bow'd head seem'd listening to the Earth,

His ancient mother, for some comfort yet."
Nights in June, along the James, apparently

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. yy
were just suited to the fire-flies. Rather, I should

say, these bright Httle creatures were almost the
only things visible after dark. They would crowd
about the yacht when a mile out from land.
The bluffs, along the southern shore especially,

furnished a most instructive lesson in world-
making, stratum after stratum being piled each
above the other in a very striking way, their hori-
zontal position suggesting naturally enough their
deposition from the water, and then, being undis-

turbed ever since. On the other hand, the water, I
might say, gives an equally interesting lesson, but
one which is not so far advanced. Approaching

the southern shore, just below Hog Island, as
we were hunting a channel into a little creek, we

found by the lead-line that for a long distance the
bottom was almost absolutely flat. " One fathom"
was the report, repeated until it became painfully
monotonous. The lead indicated everywhere that
soft mud was being evenly deposited. In many

places an oar could be run down into it several
feet with the utmost ease. The bluffs were once
just as the river-bed now is, and, allowing suffi-
cient time, the future student of geology may find
the now-forming mud flats above the surface of

7*
the water, and point to them as being simply

another page in the same natural history.
Jamestown Island was the next point of special
interest below the Chickahominy. Mr. Brown,

the present proprietor of Old Jamestown, received
me with the utmost kindness, and allowed me to
photograph whatever I desired to. The patience

of gentlemen who own such interesting spots as
this passes my comprehension. But once during

the entire vacation did I meet with anything
which approached a rebuff, and that was under
circumstances which were fully and satisfactorily
explained afterward. Yet I had no letters of
introduction anywhere; and I take this oppor-
tunity of saying, once for all, that the pleasantest
memories of my trip on the James are associated

with the uniform kindness I received from those
upon whom I called for information, or for per-
mission to photograph points of interest. I espe-

cially desired to secure good photographs of the
ruins on Jamestown Island. My want of success
has been explained in connection with a similar
failure at Lower Brandon.
Even the ruins of Jamestown have almost dis-
appeared. Fragments of the old magazine remain,

and also a portion of the church tower ; but these,

with the cemetery back of the church, are the
only visible memorials of a time and a settlement
which we regret have left so few monuments. It
is evident, however, from the scattered bricks and

the faint indications of old cellars and the like,
that the settlement covered a considerable area.*
It was ill-fated from the very start. The unfortu-
nate site was chosen simply because, being an

island, it might more readily be defended against
Indian attack. It is strange, however, that it was
necessary for the friendly Indians to warn the
settlers that, if they expected exemption from such
onsets, they must clear the ground and remove
the reeds or tall grass that grew on the low,
swampy lands, for in these the attacking parties
would surely secrete themselves.
Disease, growing out of the situation, swept

away the settlers, and proved so inimical to the
young colony that its abandonment as the chief
point was merely a question of time. Disaster

after disaster was associated with the place.
About 1609 the condition of things there was
* It is more than probable that the James River now flows over
what was once within the limits of the town.
disheartening. Smith, who had ruled wisely and

firmly, was so injured that he was obliged to
return to England. Percy succeeded him, but,

owing to ill health, lacked the force of will re-
quired in one who was to rule over so turbulent
a community. Doyle (/. c, p. 132) thus describes
the situation :
" The Indians slew the settlers*
hogs, and cut off any stragglers from the fort.
Ratcliffe, who had gone in command of a foraging

party, was entrapped into an ambush by the In-
dians and killed, with thirty of his men. The
outward aspect of the colony proclaimed its state
of anarchy and distress. Jamestown looked more

like the ruin of an ancient fortress than an inhab-
ited town. The palisade was torn down, and the
gates off their hinges. Rows of deserted houses
told of the mortality which had thinned the set-
tlement, while their shattered timbers, torn and

broken for firewood, bore witness to the sloth
and thriftlessness of the survivors." Abandon-
ment of the whole place and embarkation for
more promising shores were seriously considered,

and only the arrival of reinforcements, with fresh
stores and with provisions^ prevented the execution

of this purpose. Then, several years later, came
1
the first massacre by the Indians, in which three

hundred and forty-seven settlers were slain. This
assault was directed, if not led, by Opechancan-
ough, of whose subjects, it will be remembered,
twelve had been killed and twelve captured in a
previous encounter with the whites. In 1644 the
same inveterate foe instigated another massacre of
the whites, in which three hundred perished. Then,

among its other reverses, Jamestown was burned in
the struggle between Bacon and Berkeley. James-
town was abandoned as the capital, and Williams-
burg named as its new location. (In 1696?)
The most interesting ruin of Old Jamestown is,
of course, its church tower. One marvels that a
church so large as this was (judging from the

ruined tower) could have been erected at so early a
period in colonial history. It is to be remembered
that to the men of those times (at least, to the
better part of them) worship was something more
than a luxury. I did not measure the tower (as
I should have done), but should say it had a

square base of about twenty feet. The remains
still rise say twenty-five feet, and are entered by
a fine large doorway. The bricks, of course, were
brought from England. The first question which
/
naturally suggests itself is : Why should a spot so

full of sacred and patriotic memories as this is
be allowed to fall into ruin, and to be overgrown

by weeds? Or, worse still, why should it be
allowed to remain so ? Alas for mankind ! The
proprietor apologized for the appearance of the
ground, and said, " I would gladly open it up and
uncover the graves, were it not for the fact that to
do so would simply be to make them more ac-
cessible to curiosity-seekers. Men come to the
old tower and carry off the young ivy shoots ; they
break the tombstones, and nothing is so sacred as
to prevent its destruction." From what I saw,
there could be no doubt about the truth of his
statement.
Through the gateway of the tower we passed
into the old graveyard, over what was probably
the site of the body of the church. Here and
there an opening in the rank underbrush and
weeds revealed a tombstone or sepulchral slab,
and on some of these an inscription may be made
out. Time has dealt harshly with the lettering,
and in some cases almost destroyed the characters.
There is a remarkable instance of the effect of
tree - growth, furnished by a buttonwood tree
(Platanus occidentalis) which stood by the side of

a grave. Since the time of burial this has grown
into a very large tree. Meanwhile its lateral growth
encroached upon the horizontal slab covering the
grave, and also carried it upward slightly. Hence
the stone became imbedded in the base of the tree,
and was also subjected to a considerable vertical
strain. The two forces fractured it. Mr. Brown

informs me that human agency aided in its
further destruction afterward. There was no

date to indicate the age of the grave.
From other graves I copied the following in-
scriptions :
" Under this Stone lies interred
The Body of
Mrs. Hannah Ludwell,

Relict of
The Hon. Philip Ludwell, Esq.,
By whom She has left
One Son and Two Daughters.

After a most exemplary Life,
Spent in chearful Innocence

And exercise of
Piety, Charity, and Hospitality,

She Patiently submitted to
Death on the 4th Day of April, 1731, in the 52

Year of Her Age."
:
Another reads
" Here Lyeth William Sherwoo— d, (?)
That Was Born in the Parish
of White Chappel Near

London. A great Sinner
Waiting for a Joyfull
Resurrection."
The colony was then, at the time of Mrs. Lud-

well's death, more than a century old. This
further shows with what rapidity even our sup-
posed imperishable memorials are effaced by time.
It raises the question, also. Was this the first ceme-
tery the colonists had upon the island ? It also
makes clear that removal of the capital from

Jamestown, in 1696, did not depopulate the place,
however much it may have lessened its importance.
Doyle has correctly stated that the life of the
Virginian of that period was, from choice, in the
country, rather than in the town, —his plantation
interests demanded his presence.
There is probably less than an acre inside the

brick wall surrounding the cemetery. It is incom-
prehensible that the State of Virginia should not
have made some provision for the care of these
grounds. Some other States would have pur-

chased the site, and established such a custody-

there as would have effectually protected the
place.
A few hundred yards above the church tower,

along the bank of the river, we came upon what
tradition calls the " old magazine." I at first
thought I had reason for doubting that this had

been its purpose. However, a closer examination
showed me that tradition was probably correct.
The vault and the thickness of the walls make

this the most plausible theory. The illustration
shows that the building is now almost wholly

undermined by the water. A cypress-tree, still
farther up, stands now well out in the water.

This, too, the illustration shows. Yet, some
thirty years ago, the road, I was told, ran by
that tree ; hence so recently as this the magazine
must have been well inland. These data serve to
show with what rapidity the river is encroaching
upon the land.
Williamsburg was laid out with such great

anticipation of its future, and in such extreme
loyalty to the king, that its ground-plan was that
of the letter W- However, it failed to meet the
hopes which were formed.
S^ VACATION CRUISING IN
The long-cherished idea of a college for the
colony was realized there. Doyle (/. c, p. 273)
says of it :
" Meanwhile, the college was advanc-
ing, and before Nicholson's term of office had
come to an end two sides of the quadrangle
which the building was designed to form were
completed. A few years later, however, a fire
undid all that had been accomplished ; and when

Beverly wrote, in 1720, though the damaged
buildings had been restored, no further progress
had been made."
This institution was first contemplated in 1619.
The Indian massacre, which so shortly followed,

put an end to all consideration of the project at
that time. In 1660 grants in its behalf were
made; but it was not until 1695 that it was actu-
ally chartered. Along with the charter the Col-
lege of William and Mary received, through the
intercession of the Rev. James Blair, a small en-
dowment also. In 1776 it was made surveyor-

general of Virginia, and thus received about five
thousand dollars a year from fees. This source of
income was swept away by the Revolutionary war.
Washington was examined here, and received from
the college his authority as a deputy surveyor.
The objects of the college were specified in the
petition of Blair for its charter. " They were to
be Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Philosophy, Mathemat-

ics, and Divinity." Of course this assumes that its
chief function was in the interest of the Church.

It may be interesting to note its influence. Bishop
Meade ("Old Churches and Families of Virginia,"
vol. i. p. 28) writes of this College of William and
Mary in 181 1 : It "was regarded as the hot-bed of
French politics and religion, and I can truly say

that then, and for some years after, in every edu-
cated young man in Virginia whom I met I ex-
pected to find a sceptic, if not an avowed unbe-
liever." From this we may infer that, so far as the
dogmas of religion were concerned, its mission re-

mained unfulfilled.
Quoting again from Doyle (/. c, p. 274) :

" Yet
we may well doubt whether the college did much
for the colony. About thirty years later one of
its own Fellows pithily described it as a '
college
without a chapel, without a scholarship, and with-

out a statute, a library without books, a president
without a fixed salary, and a burgess without elec-
tors.' The College of William and Mary had but
a small share in training that generation of Vir-
ginian statesmen who left so deep an impress on

the history of the world."
Of its subsequent history we prefer to say
nothing, save that an institution which lost a
large part of its government support through
the Revolution in 1776 would appear to have still
some claim on the Union which grew out of that

struggle.
Passing Hog Island on our way down, we ran

in along-shore, and spent Sunday at anchor near
Ferguson's wharf, which is nearly abreast of the
Point of Shoals light-house.
The bluffs looked very inviting, and I expected
to find something of interest there. We had seen
a blue stratum exposed at several points along the
river. Here it formed the base of the bluffs, and
was very suggestive of tertiary deposits, which I
had seen elsewhere. However, Lew anticipated

me in the discovery. He soon returned to the
yacht with the news that there was no end of
such things (coral and fossil shells) on shore. I
suggested that the coral might have come there

as ballast from the West Indies ; but Lew scouted
the idea :
" too much of it for that." So
There is
we went ashore together. The blue stratum was

full of shells (pecten and its usual associates).
Here and there the tide had undermined it, and

masses fell to the tide-level, where the shells lay-
in profusion. The coral revealed itself just at the
tide-hne, and not in the bluff, but out in the water.

So far as we could see, it was there as an immense
mass, from which we broke off a fragment weigh-
ing about two hundred pounds. It never came
there as ballast. As to its origin and its extent
geologists may decide, if, indeed, they have not
already done so long since. We —that is, Lew

and I — made considerable collections of these
interesting things for the Philadelphia Academy
of Natural Sciences.
June 25th gave us a strong head-wind, which,

with the tide against us, made the run to Newport
News a tedious one. No stop was made, as we
had " done the place" on our way up the river.
Newport News appears to be one of the spots
created for some great ends. Its high situation

indicates easy drainage, and, so far as that goes,
freedom from many diseases which curse some

neighboring towns which are built on lower land.
The great depth of water along-shore, its accessi-
bility (being free from ice the year through), and,

8*
above all, its being midway between the lands of

wheat and of cotton, are factors in its destiny
which indicate a great future for the place. Add
to these the fact that a strong railroad company is
erecting buildings so large, so costly, and so per-

manent that it cannot afford any failure on the part
of the place. It is, besides, quite as easy of access
as Norfolk, and has advantages which the latter
does not possess. Northern energy and capital

had "taken hold," and many "modern houses"
were contemplated, if not actually contracted for.
Most of the buildings erected when we were

there were of the class that suggested the name
"Shanty-town" naturally enough. Their tempo-
rary character, the inmates, and the proportion of
bar-rooms were strong reminders of some new
Western towns I had seen; but, like them, New-
port News bids fair to grow into something better.
The push and energy of the new West, however,

were in striking contrast when placed alongside
of the ways of the old South. It is strange in-
deed that this, the first river region of the conti-
nent actually settled in by an English-speaking

population, should be about the last to feel the
awakening of a real active life. Were I a young
;
man seeking a home, with the privilege of choos-

ing between the West and the James River region,
I should decide in favor of the latter. I offer no
advice to others in this matter, but what I have
written represents my own views upon the sub-
ject. I make the statement, too, with a full
knowledge of the unhealthfulness of the region

but remember, at the same time (leaving Indiana,
Illinois, and portions of Ohio out of the question),
that the Juniata Valley of this State (Pennsylva-
nia) was once as bad as the valley of the James is
to-day.
The name Newport News is still full of stir-
ring memories. For one short day the victory

gained by the " Merrimac" (" Virginia") awakened
hopes among the Confederates which must have
been bright, —the more so as all that had been
expected of the new ironclad was far more than
realized in her combat with our wooden vessels.
These hopes were but bright illusions, for the
very next day the " Monitor" turned the tide of
victory against the soldiers and the sailors of

the South.
Besides the memorable naval battle associated
with Newport News, it and the whole northern
Q2 VACATION CRUISING IN
shore were closely connected with our campaigns

against Richmond; just as Norfolk and the south-
ern shore were with the defensive operations going
on at the same time on the part of the Confeder-
ates.
Fortress Monroe and Hampton. —We an-
chored on the evening of the 25th of June in

Hampton Creek, among " oyster-pungies" and
fishing-canoes. Negro life appears here, I may
say, certainly in a most characteristic form pos-
sibly, too, I may add, after considering all its ob-
stacles, in a most promising form. Evidently very
much of the old spirit —the war of the races — is
still found in certain quarters in Hampton. " Nig-
ger, light that lamp !" was the order given in a
store of the village to a colored man of the estab-

lishment. The fact that it was silently obeyed
would probably indicate that it was neither un-
usual nor unexpected. I will not add in which
of the churches, / was aftcrzvard told, the white
gentleman held a conspicuous place. However,
time is a sovereign cure for many diseases. Prob-
ably in another generation such specimens of lin-
guistic pathology will be studied even there with
about the same interest and disgust as that with

which a microscopist of to-day examines a section

from any other festering sore.
As I watched the water in the night from the
deck, one of the " nettle-fish" (jelly-fish) passed
by, slowly drifting out with the tide. It was
brilliant enough to be seen as a ball of phosphor-
escent light. We found them so abundant as to
be nuisances. In Mob-jack Bay, north of York
River, bathing-houses are built for the express
purpose of protecting the bathers against them.
On the night of the 26th of June we had a
settled rain. Even if there is no inspiration to me
in the patter on the deck, it is always pleasant. In
the " Marble Faun," Hawthorne makes his count
say, " The sky itself is an old roof, and no doubt

the sins of mankind have made it gloomier than
it used to be." It was a leaky roof that night,
in all truth, but our deck was better than the

roof; so that we had none of the count's gloomy
philosophy in the little cabin. The next morning
it was still raining, but I could look out from
my " ten-by-twelve" home and commiserate the
negro fishermen as they went by in their open
canoes. So on down through the various grades
of comfort one may go. I have no doubt that
yon negro, clad in oil-cloth, cares nothing for us,

but is extending his sympathy on down toward
his poorer comrade, who is now passing the point
below in a very dingy old canoe, and who has not
one single stitch of oil-cloth between himself and
the rain. Men, in comparing, seldom care to go
higher than themselves. It is best that they
should not in anything but virtue.

But, take it " all in all," the life on the water is
a healthy one. In spite of rain and wind and

soul-tormenting calm, hardened hands and sun-
browned face, I have enjoyed it all. It is simply a
return to first principles, —a vagabond life, if you
insist upon so considering it, but still one which
most men some time long for. June 1st I came
on board my boat painfully conscious of having
nerves and aching points all over my body. But
after a month of aquatic life I found muscle had
the nerves in subjection, and not a single pain
interfered with perfect peace of mind or of body.
I have looked in vain through Bacon's " Wis-
dom of the Ancients" for an interpretation of the
fable of Antaeus, the earth-born giant. This enor-
mous being was said to have been monarch of
Libya, and a son of Neptune and Terra. I have
often wondered why the wise Baron of Verulam

allowed the conflict between the giant and Her-
cules to pass unnoticed. His " Novum Organum"
supplied, so thinkers say, the pass-key which
opened all the dark chambers of mind and mat-
ter. I believe, however, that no single thought
as to what the fable might mean ever entered
the lord high chancellor's dream. Great truths
usually become plain when the world is ready for
them, — at least so nearly ready that, when started,
they can take care of themselves. Modern civil-
ization had not in 1609 a.d. brushed away the

last particles of soil which clung to man. He was
still of earth, a little earthy, and not wholly un-
natural. He, too, as well as Antaeus, remembered
his ancient mother, knew that he was fashioned
from the dust, and drew fresh strength whenever
he pressed the dear bosom again. The little
pigmy cares, to Antaeus, were only playfellows

that entertained him as he lay full-length, absorb-
ing might from the greensward or leafy bed.

But these same associates, with whom we dwell
not only by day, in business hours, but at night,
in the renewing and strengthening hours, have
grown to be the Hercules lifting us up so high
— !
from earth that neither hand nor foot nor mind

can often touch the soil whence all our early-
strength came. Only once in a great while do we

get down to our fount of life and vigor ; and then
we leave it strong or weak as we have lingered
there or hastened rashly away into the grasp of
Hercules again. How much these summer-loi-

tering hours with earth and sky and water would
renew our youth if we would allow our minds
and bodies a holiday ungrudged
When a man, already rich, comes to endure labor,
through the heat of summer and through the cold
of winter, simply for the gain it brings, then he
needs a force to drag him off for a season, to

isolate him from the world, while he can contem-
plate some high ideal in art or in science, in philan-
thropy or in religion.
The recent address of Herbert Spencer in New

York came with great power from one who knew
so well, experimentally, the evil effects of overwork.
He told us,
" In America, as in England, work with many
has become a passion. The savage thinks only of
present satisfaction, and leaves future satisfaction
uncared for. Contrariwise, the American, eagerly
pursuing a future good, almost ignores what good

the passing day offers him ; and when the future
good is gained, he neglects that while still striving
for some remote good.

"What I have seen and heard during my stay
among you has forced on me the belief that this
slow change from habitual inertness to persistent

activity has reached an extreme from which there
must begin a counter-change, a reaction. Every-
where I have been struck with the number of faces
which told in strong lines of the burdens that had
to be borne. I have been struck, too, with the
large proportion of gray-haired men and; inquiries
have brought out the fact that with you the hair
commonly begins to turn some ten years earlier
than with us. Moreover, in every circle I have

met men who have suffered from nervous collapse,
due to stress of business, or named friends who

had either killed themselves by overwork or had
been permanently incapacitated, or had wasted long
periods in endeavors to recover health. I do but
echo the opinions of all observant persons I have
spoken to, that immense injury is being done by
this high-pressure life, — the physique is being
undermined.
E ^ 9
gS VACATION CRUISING IN
"... Old Froissart, who said of the English of
his day that they take

'
their pleasures sadly, after
their fashion,' would doubtless, if he had lived

now, say of the Americans that they take their
pleasures hurriedly, after their fashion. . Nor

. .
do the evils end here: there is the damage to

posterity. Damaged constitutions reappear in
children, and entail on them far more of ill than

great fortunes yield them of good. When life
has been duly rationalized by science, it will be

seen that among a man's duties care of the body
is imperative, not only out of regard for personal
welfare, but out of regard for descendants. His
constitution will be regarded as an entailed estate
which he ought to pass on uninjured, if not im-

proved, to those who follow ; and it will be held
that millions bequeathed by him will not com-
pensate for feeble health and decreased ability to
enjoy life."
Holiday grew out of holy-day. This originally

meant a day which was perfect or excellent. The
history of our word for such a season of recreation
hardly more clearly suggests the sacredness of
rest, than it does the godliness of strength which
springs from the holiday. There is a sin against
!
the body which is unpardonable, because it leads
to death, and so destroys the form in which

creative energy has thus far culminated. Recrea-
tion once signified restoration to health.
Hampton Roads and the region around is the

veritable historic centre of the country. An ac-
cident gave the name, Point Comfort, to the sandy

point where Fortress Monroe now stands. Driven
by a heavy storm in July from the Piankatank,
Captain John Smith found his first secure shelter
under its protection. Hence the name, inspired
by gratitude. But how often since has the same

safe anchorage awakened similar emotions
The plans for French naval co-operation dur-
ing the Revolutionary struggle were made here
before the advance on Yorktown. In 1813, after
being repulsed at Norfolk, the British vented
their rage upon the unprotected village of Hamp-
ton. During our recent war the possession of
Fortress Monroe decided in our favor most im-
portant events. Indeed, it is hard to say what
might have followed had this position fallen into
the hands of our adversaries. A glance at the

map will show at once how essential to us it was.
There might have been no iron-clad engagement
—
at Newport News, but, instead, Washington and

Baltimore would have been exposed to immediate
attack from the " Merrimac." Here the first slaves
were landed ; and in Fortress Monroe was issued
General Butler's famous order which declared

slaves to be, as property, " contraband of war,"
an order that removed the curse under which for

two centuries the African race had groaned on
our j^^^ shores.
To speak of that marvel of hotels, the " Hygeia"
(under the very guns of Fortress Monroe), is
simply to repeat what is already well known.

In the village of Hampton is St. John's Church,
one of the ecclesiastical landmarks of the country.
It was built in 1658, was in ruins during the war
of 181 2, and used then by the British as a stable,
and burned in 1861, when General Magruder fired
the town to prevent its being used by the Northern

troops. The walls are built of bricks made in
England, and seem as though they might still
outlast the centuries, notwithstanding the trials
they have endured. I am indebted to the present

rector, Rev. J. J. Gravatt, for a photograph, show-
ing one of its sides, in front of which is a group
of Indian students from the Hampton School.
—
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, jqi
So much of history of the early and the late

events of national life can seldom be found
crowded into so limited an area. Yet I have
only alluded to some of the striking outlines of
all that has been witnessed here.
Still more important history at leasts not less

important — is being made now on the same ground,
but under the quiet rule of peace. Less obtrusive
by far than the stirring events of the past, what is
now being done toward educating the Indian and

the colored races must leave a trail of light in the
future. It will yet be reckoned among the first
clear, shining acts of justice toward those with

whom our dealings in the past have been dark as
infamy. If we credit the Hampton School with
no higher results than those of an experiment,
thus far successful, we cannot over-estimate the
importance of what it has accomplished. What
is to be done with the Indians ? Probably Hamp-
ton and other like schools will soon teach us.
Its great mission is with the Negro. A curse
follows a crime closely ; and the curse is looming
up dark and threatening. If slavery was once
fitly characterized as the black plague, what shall
we say of the ignorance it engendered among
those who were the victims ? Emancipation, irre-
spective of its righteousness, became a war meas-

ure necessary for the salvation of the country.
With it came the right of suffrage, as naturally as
sunshine comes with the sun. But a vote is a

vote, whether cast by an intellectual giant or by
a mental dwarf, and has as much weight in one
case as in the other. In this is the well-recog-
nized danger; for the perpetuity of republican
government is assured only as long as the ma-
jority is intelligent as well as honest. Couple
these evident truths with the fact that the rate of
increase is vastly greater among the uneducated
black race than among the more cultured whites.
This is the whole truth and the whole danger,
and this, then, the curse : that those whom we
once enslaved and degraded threaten to subvert
even the power that at last invested them with the
dignity of a full citizenship. Shall the vigorous
free black, with his enormous rate of multiplica-

tion, sometimes vengeful, usually injudicious, come
to doom finally the very institutions which, as a
slave, he has already so greatly endangered ?
Hampton School demands not only national aid

in its projected work, but national gratitude as
:
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. J03
well. Every educated colored man it sends forth

is a pledge to the future. Considering the diffi-
culties which lay in the road of the institution,

it is no longer an experiment, but an astounding
success.
Copying from the official report of the school,

which bears date of June 30, 1882, I find the fol-
lowing statements of Mrs. E. C. Dixon

" Of the 389 graduates and 37 Senior under-
graduates —those who left before the end of the
year — entered
:'
third in the new *
Record-Book
(males, 280; females, 146; total, 426), I have
learned that 326 have engaged in teaching, and
that more than three-fourths of the whole — i. ^.,319
—have made teaching their vocation since they
left the institute ; three are licensed preachers, as

well as teachers. Over ninety per cent, have en-
gaged in teaching. Of the whole number 27 have
died ; 2 became insane ; leaving 397 to be '
kept
track of.'
" Taking those engaged in teaching : Of

these,
**
276 have taught in Virginia.
46 " ** « North Carolina.
14 " « " South Carolina.

16 " " " Maryland.
5 have taught in New Jersey.

« <<
Georgia.
5 "
4. " « « Alabama.
4- " (( « Louisiana.
2 " (( ((
Florida.
(( ((
1 has Tennessee.
(( ((
I '' Missouri.
I " « tt
Kansas.
I '' « <*
Delaware.
(( ((
I *' Ohio.
I *'
« « Vermont.
I ''
« ((
Nebraska."
One can hardly help noticing the overwhelm-

ing proportion of those students who went South,
where they could render the most signal service.
Such a showing leads inevitably to the conclusion,
that, together with the knowledge imparted, the

institute must keep constantly before its students
what is their manifest destiny and their highest
moral obligation.
We owe support to a school that does so
much toward removing the national danger from
ignorance, and substitutes for it, hope and high
possibilities.
Besides the mere matter of education, in its
common acceptation, we must also remember the

trades which the negro has a chance of learning
there, some of which, at least, he can learn in very-
few other places. Hence the tendency of the

work done in the school is not only to place the
pupil on a respectable plane of life, but to enable
him to hold his position in future. The full
import of this can be understood only when it
is remembered that over a large portion of the
United States there are trades' unions from which

the negro is systematically excluded, and by
which, so far as may be, he is prevented from
acquiring a trade. I am simply mentioning the
fact, not criticising it. In truth, bad as the prin-
ciple may be, it is in reality no worse than Wall
Street gambling in the property of others, or than
a wheat corner in Chicago, which speculates in

the daily bread of the laboring man. Neither of
these is worse than the others, for all spring from
the law of self-protection first, and then grow into
inordinate selfishness at last.
How well the Hampton work is done appears

from the following extract, taken from the memo-
randum - sheet accompanying the " Report for
1882 :" " Our printing-office, book-bindery, har-
ness-, tin-, wood-working, and shoe-shops, will
gladly compete for work wholly on the merit and

I06 VACATION CRUISING IN
the prices of the articles made." [Signed, S. C.

Armstrong, principal.]
Two large farms and a saw-mill, besides the

above-named industries, give to the willing and
energetic students further means of supporting
themselves while receiving their education.
In a volume like the present it would be out of
place to go more into detail than we have.
The Indians, of whom there were ninety-two in

attendance during the year ending June, 1882, ap-
pear to be mainly, or. in part, at least, supported by
the government, —that is, the United States gov-
ernment pays one hundred and sixty-seven dollars
apiece for each of one hundred Indian lads. This
does not include, or meet the expense of tuition,
which costs, besides, about seventy dollars a year
for each student.
From the report of Miss Isabel B. Eustis, I quote

the following pithy passages :
" The success of the
education of our Indians turns upon the conditions
which await them on their return to their homes.
We believe in their ability to stand in an ordinarily
healthful moral atmosphere. The false conditions
of life which exist in an Indian agency, the diffi-
culty of obtaining healthful sympathy or wise re-

:
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, loy
straint make their task of stemming the current of

savage life an almost superhuman one. The girls
have no foot-hold on which to attempt to breast it.
The boys have their trades, and can separate them-

selves from their old homes and their camp life.
There is absolutely no position of dignity to which

an Indian girl can look forward after three years of
training, with any reasonable confidence. There is
nothing for her but to enjoy or suffer the present

as best she may." ..." Should the United States
government ever find it possible to keep their
treaty with the Sioux tribe, which provides for a

school and suitable teacher for every thirty chil-
dren in the tribe, the way might open for the solu-
tion of the knotty problem." Such schools located

. among all the Indian tribes " would give honorable
work, full of inspiration to our best Indian girls."
Just one extract more to show the other side, —the
absence of such suitable employment. This I take
from the report of Lieut. George Leroy Brown
"The girls- must be prepared to stand up against a
'
sea of trouble' and temptation."
There is one more aspect to this question of
practical philanthropy which is working out a

solution of so many social and political problems
;
I08 VACATION CRUISING IN
and dangers. Those who lead in such movements

are, in a large number of instances, ladies, —women
of character, culture, and refinement, who endure
the work and the sacrifices connected with it from
the very best and purest principles. Yet to these
very pioneers our leading colleges, in most in-
stances, deny the advantages of an education

which would be cheerfully accorded to the pupils
of those ladies. It is useless to decry this as an
act of flagrant injustice; just now our eyes are
blinded when we look at the question. But
some sort of moral revolution will come, —nay,
is coming, —by which the scales will be removed
and we will then ask, how could we ever have
been party to such a wrong ?
It is right that the Negro or the Indian should
be admitted to the best college course, when pre-
pared for it. But how can it be right that his
teacher shall be deprived of like advantages ?
Do the ordinary avocations of daily life, where

the sexes mingle without restraints, justify the
fears of our conservative college rulers ? The

day is probably not far distant when public in-
stitutions, instead of being judged by what they
think of themselves, may be measured by their
aggressive power for the widest usefulness; and

when neither age, respectability of teaching force,
well-equipped laboratories, nor crowded library

shelves will atone for the sin of narrowness.
The Hampton National Home for Disabled
Volunteer Soldiers is well worth visiting. Unfor-
tunately, the limited time at my disposal prevented
me from doing so. A view of the grounds, as
one parses the water-front, leaves the impression
that all possible is being done for the inmates.
Wind and weather often interfere with the
plans of yachtsmen. My own experience did not
in this respect differ from that of those who sailed
before me. So with this explanation I must leave

the large remainder of interesting facts concern-
ing this most noteworthy region untold. What
Fortress Monroe now is need not be stated, for
others have done so more fully than I can do.

A delightful, easy southerly wind carried us up
the shore, past Back River, which was once the
scene of General Magruder's military operations.
The ground is now devoted to labors more peace-
ful, more odorous, and more useful. An estab-
lishment for the extraction of oil from the small
fish known as " moss-bunker" stands in sight from
10
no VACATION CRUISING IN
the bay. These fish swim in schools, and may-

be recognized by the dark color they give the
surface water. The refuse remainder, left after
extracting the oil, is ground up and forms the

basis of a fertilizer which is in considerable de-
mand by agriculturists. That the business is
lucrative may be supposed from the vast number

of vessels engaged in the capture of these fish.
Almost every inlet of considerable size along-shore

has one or more " fish-mills," where " the catch"
is " worked up." How long the industry will last
at the present rate of destruction of the fish is a

problem which we cannot yet solve. Those en-
gaged in the business did not mention to me any
scarcity of fish. Indeed, at Newport News the
James River appeared to be dotted over with the

dark schools. Between catching oysters in winter
and the fish in summer, these amphibious beings,
negroes and poor whites, manage to eke out a
living, such as it is. The negro workers I saw
at one fish-mill, which shall be nameless, were as
degraded a looking lot of human beings as I ever
met. But for the fact of their speaking English
one might have supposed they were fresh from
the " Guinea Coast."
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, m
It is a puzzle to me to understand how a man
can labor amid the filth, the stench, and the as-
sociations of such an establishment, and still retain
anything of purity, though I know some men who

do ; nevertheless, I cannot understand it.
As noon of the 28th of June approached, we

rounded Too's Point light-house, on the York
River, and looked long and eagerly before we saw
Yorktown. A mere glance at the bluffs, which
front the river, would leave on the mind of an
observer the impression that these and the ground
back of them were an ideal battle-field. There
is very little concerning the place that remains
unsaid. If I were obliged to offer an opinion
at all concerning the town, I should say that
neither fire nor war could damage its appearance
very much. Time was when I regarded the
surrender of Cornwallis as due entirely to the cour-
age of our troops. I am now inclined to think he
wanted to get away from the place badly enough

to make almost any reasonable sacrifice. I have
no doubt he would have left earlier had he found
it possible to do so.
The evening of June 29th found us anchored in
Antepoisen Creek, —that is, in the hook made by
the northern shore, which is guarded by Rappa-

hannock Spit light-house. What evil genius in-
spired those who named Mob-Jack Bajs, Sting-ray
Point, Antepoisen Creek ? Our run had been only
about thirty-five miles. The wind was fair, though

most of the way very light. So far as I am able to
say, I think that, during the month of June, morn-
ing and evening can generally be depended upon
for a breeze from some quarter in Chesapeake Bay.
There is almost as certainly a trying noon calm,
during which the sun beats down with a most
intense fervor. Squalls, to be dreaded, often come
during June and July, and their usual time of ap-
pearance is towards evening. Our harbor in Ante-
poisen Creek was another of the many beautiful
ones, such as we had hitherto found. Near its
head we were completely landlocked and had

about two fathoms of water under the bow, —just
such a place as one can sleep most soundly in.
There was no fear of anything.
A brilliant shooting-star darted across the sky

in the early evening, and after it there were several
others, but none so bright as was the first.
Lying on the ground, or on the deck of a ves-

sel, one becomes acquainted with the sky. The
longer he looks the more unfathomable do its
depths appear. The most distant stars seem on

the hither side of space, shining out clear of their
background, and leave on the mind the sense of a
great void behind them, dark or blue from its vast-
ness. A night without such meteors is rather rare,
but we are so taken away from them by fatigue,

or so shut out from heaven by slate and shingles,
that we miss seeing their fiery trails when they
journey inside the limits of our vision, and thus
we think them something unusual. Cuthbert, the
shepherd-b.oy of the northern English lowlands,
fancied, when he saw such stars sink into the sea,
that they were angels carrying home the soul of

good Bishop Aidan. Like all who led his life,
the lad had never come to think of the stars
simply as of lanterns. He had watched them
through all his eight years, and had made them
his friends, — remote to be sure, — friends, too, that
sometimes hid their faces behind the clouds, when

he would fain have seen them ; but still they were
friends with some good mission toward such
simple folk as lived in those trustful times. I
have companions who have sought wisdom in

the books until they are pale, and who have lost
h 10^
: —
the elastic step one should have until his head is
silvered. They can name each star and tell its
distance from the earth in miles, but they have
never laid down and gone to sleep while looking
up at them, and wondering, not studying, how big

those stars were. I think these persons have
missed an element of education which would
send them back to work wiser and better and
healthier for their gazing.
A zoologist could employ his time well on the

boat some days studying the habits of the an-
imals. Swallows come and sit on the gaff, when
far away from land. That is not strange; but
that anything so small, and withal so hated, as the
potato-bug should venture miles away from shore,
and then stop on a vessel, is both strange and
reckless. We simply started them on their way,
with the hope, however, that they might not live
to plague the farmers of the Eastern Shore. Off
the Piankatank, as we went down the bay, my
friend, Mr. J.,
shot a loon. Dissecting it, he
found in the stomach, undigested, a small, slender
fish, whereof my other friend, Dr. Bean, of the
Smithsonian Institution, writes, as follows
" The fish which you sent me on the 28th, and
which I return now, is Siphostoina fiiscum (Storer,
Jordan and Gilbert), —the common pipe-fish. It
frequents our northern coast southward to Vir-

ginia at least; northwardly its range is unknown,
but it extends probably as far as Maine.
" In the pipe-fishes the dorsal fin is the prin-
cipal propeller, and the body is held obliquely in
swimming; they swarm in the sea-weeds along-
shore, feeding upon minute crustaceans and prob-
ably small detached fragments of Algae. In some
species the female is much deeper-bodied than the
male, and in the breeding season is more brightly
colored. The male has only a rudimentary anal
fin, and behind this is a marsupium, or egg-pouch,
into which the eggs are received from the female.
The young are developed before they leave the
paternal pouch. The brood is usually large,
considering the size of the parent.

" The graceful movements of the pipe-fishes, to-
gether with the peculiarities of their embryology,

make them extremely interesting animals for
marine aquaria. The dorsal is usually oscillating
with an undulatory motion, its margin describing
the form of the letter S. Food is sucked into the
bill with considerable force. The gill-openings
Il5 VACATION CRUISING IN
are minute and situated about on the median line

of the body ; they can be wholly closed by the
operculum, and thus doubtless facilitate the in-
ward movement of objects desired for food.
"The number of species of pipe-fishes on our

coast is rather large, the Southern States having
a much larger proportion of them than the North-

ern. The whole number of recorded species in
the known seas is upward of one hundred and
twenty. They prefer warm seas, sometimes enter-
ing fresh waters.
" In some cases the marsupium of the male is
abdominal instead of being behind the anal. We

have not yet heard of such species in our waters."
" Crabbed" is a word the meaning of which I
should enlarge, and say it is a senseless pugnacity
and a disposition to attack anything with or with-
out hope of success. This I would deduce from

observations at headquarters. Lew brought a crab
to the surface, which, though the well-baited hook
was less than a foot away, was, nevertheless,
attacking the lead sinker with all his might.
Probably on reaching the bottom the sinker had
fallen on his back or touched one of his numerous
appendages, and thus excited his wrath, or he
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, nj
may have attacked it on the general principle that

it was an intruder. When the water was clear
and quiet, looking over the side of the boat, we

saw another wrestling with a fish larger by far
than itself. Their odd projecting eyes are sharp

enough, and ever on the watch for something to
attack. The first approach of an enemy causes
the claws to rise in aggressive as well as defensive
warfare. The crab is a mail-clad bully. Probably
the fact that he is mail-clad, and hence more than
a match for all his familiar associates, makes him
reckless in attacking even those with whom he
is not so well acquainted. He does not know that
a falling brick would crush him, armor and all.
Crabs serve to reinforce some ideas one occa-

sionally gets of men, — the less brains, as a rule,
the more pugnacious, — that is, granting that all
stomachs are equally good. I am persuaded that

an angel would quarrel when suffering from
dyspepsia.
Though we had a gun on board, no song-bird
was shot, or even fired at, from my boat. We had
every morning in the early part of our cruise
what was to me a sacred concert. Blackbirds,
robins, sparrows, even crows and fish-hawks,
;
Il8 VACATION CRUISING IN
joined as best they could in the chorus which

was sure to bring the sleepers on deck. Is a man
the worse for having emotions ? Less than a year
ago a gentle mother sat with a suffering infant on
her lap, and she promised the babe that when
summer came, and it was well, the birds would
sing to it. The promise was kept sooner than
any one dreamed it would be, for only a few days
later, before even a crocus was above the ground,
they did sing a sweet song close by where the
tiny form lay at rest. I believe the spirit listened
from beyond the clouds. Since then their notes
sound to me so much like music intended for the
best part of man that I always stop to listen. At
all events, the soul capable of such enjoyment is
somewhat the purer for being gratified.
On June the 30th we started early, hoping to

make the harbor in the mouth of the Patuxent.
This was only about forty-five miles in a direct line.
Knowing the uncertainty of the wind, we desired

to take every advantage that time could give us
hence an unusually early start. At first we had

a fair wind, and plenty of it ; it was right " astern"
also. Before we reached the Great Wicomico it
was " dead ahead," and when we fairly opened the

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, hq
mouth of the Potomac there was a calm. This at

first was simply an annoyance. We supposed
it was merely one of the lulls we. had so often
experienced before, and endeavored to comfort
ourselves by such philosophy. Hour after hour
passed, but no wind came. The tide was carrying
us down and across the bay, — just the direction
we did not want to go. Then annoyance deepened

into exasperation (senseless, to be sure), as the
little yacht was tossed like a feather on the heavy

swell. There was not a trace of air. Never be-
fore did I so fully realize what was meant by a
dead calm. With each lurch of the boat the
blocks creaked and the sails flapped heavily from
side to side. The heat was more than the word
intense implies; it was scorching, and the glare

from the superheated deck was almost unendur-
able. What was the pleasure in yachting ? None,
under such circumstances. So that entire day
passed. Exasperation gave place to, — well, call
it fear. " All men are cowards at times," and it
only renders matters worse to add to the weak-

ness of fear the sin of prevarication.
All day the barometer had been going down.
It was certain that a storm was impending. East,
south, and west were filled with heavy clouds.

We could hear the heavy thunder, and see the vivid
lightning flash across the sky. Would there be
enough of wind before the squall burst upon us to
enable us to make some harbor? Or must we

too stand the onset in our little boat out in the
middle of the bay? These questions were never
uttered, though I am quite sure they were in-
wardly asked by both Lew and myself

Later in the afternoon a slight wind was seen
coming over the water towards us from the mouth
of the Potomac. It came so slowly that we feared
it would die away before reaching us. After what

appeared like an age it began to be felt, first fan-
ning our cheeks, then filling our sails ; and in a
few minutes more we were quietly slipping through

the water, back toward Great Wicomico, which we
had passed early in the morning. This, to be sure,
was not where we wanted to go, but choice was
lost in thankfulness to reach any harbor. In
two hours, just as darkness had fairly settled
around us, we let our anchor go in a quiet arm of
the Great Wicomico. It was a lovely, secluded
little bay, in full sight of one of the greatest fish-
ing establishments of the Chesapeake, —a perfect,

" restful" place that we had found for the morrow,

which was the Sabbath.
During the night the storm came; and, as we
heard the wind whistling fiercely through the rig-
ging, and felt the yacht rocking on the waves, we
thought even kindly of the breeze which had car-
ried us away from our destination, but into perfect
safety.
I have related the experience of that day to

show the most dismal side of yachting by sail.
If one has a long purse and no end of generosity,

if he is willing to keep a floating home for sailors,
to be simply a passenger on his own boat, to go

when and where his sailing-master directs, then a
large steam-yacht is much better. I was yachting

under other circumstances and with other objects
in view; and, furthermore, as the season wore
along, I gradually came to prefer risking my
boat under my own directions than to accept
what greater skill the presence of a sailing-mas-
ter, might bring. I will simply add: yacht-owner,
learn the rudiments, go slowly, but command your
own craft. If there be any manhood in the sport,
that will bring it out. If there is not, then it were

better abandoned.
F II
I must, however, say this : if one can find an-
other Lew, then he is fortunate. Lew is equal

to any emergency likely to occur on a small
craft. Entering the harbor I have described, our
boat, though drawing only a little over two feet of
water, grounded. While I was off in the yawl-
boat hunting the channel he jumped overboard

and pushed the yacht into deep water. By the
time she was fairly floating I had found the chan-
nel, and we were soon in our Sunday harbor.
On Monday, July the 2d, we were off, and with
a stiff breeze astern soon passed the mouth of the
Potomac. I do not know whether, or not, this
river is usually treacherous, but it has so hap-

pened, that both my friends, with whom I have
conversed, and myself have been, as a rule, baffled
there, by the wind. By ten o'clock in the morn-
ing we were safely on the northern shore, and
soon after two o'clock were at anchor back of
Solomon's Island, in the Patuxent.
We had passed during the morning from one

State into another. Was I mistaken in supposing
that I saw greater thrift north of the Potomac ?
A few years ago it would have been argued that

the difference was due to the greater dependence
of Virginia on slave labor, — that, though Maryland

was still a slave State, yet it was not absolutely
wedded in all its life habits to the enervating curse.
This may or may not be true. I shall not attempt

to decide. I cannot take leave of Virginia, where
I received so much kindness, and for the character
of whose citizens one must have such respect,

without bringing out the early relation of the
mother-country (as judged by her own writers) to
the perpetuation of the system of negro slavery
in the colonies.
Quoting from Doyle (" English Colonies in
America, Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas,"

p. 388), I find:
" In 1719 the Assembly [of South
Carolina] took the further step of imposing a duty
of forty pounds on all imported negroes. Had
this measure been carried, it must have put an
end to the slave trade so far as South Carolina
was concerned. It is sad to think that such a
measure was frustrated by the cupidity and jeal-
ousy of the English government. But it had

become a settled maxim of colonial policy to
allow the provincial assemblies no control over
external trade, and in all commercial legislation to
regard the profit of the English merchant rather
than the social and industrial well-being of the

colonists. The proprietors and the crown were
for once united, and the measure was vetoed."
. . . "A Virginian clergyman, writing in 1724, de-
plores the number of negroes, and the consequent
discouragement to the poorer class of white emi-
grants. In South Carolina more than one attempt
was made to stem the tide. In 1678, an act was
passed offering a bounty on the importation of
indented white servants, Irish alone excepted.
That they were designed to counteract the influx
of black slaves, is shown by the provision that
they were to be distributed among the planters,

one to every six negroes" (loc. cit., p. 388).
Patuxent may be called the dividing line be-
tween the low, sandy shore on the western side

of the Chesapeake and the bolder bluffs which we
find more common on the upper parts of the bay.
I have never seen a more beautiful illustration
of how perfectly parallel to each other, strata

may be deposited, and how subsequent erosion
may remove some and leave other portions, than
the northern shore of the Patuxent, shows at the
river's mouth and some distance inside and out-
side. Neither have I ever seen more tempting
building-sites than these same bluffs offer. High,

dry, froixting on salt water, with no fresh-water
marshes near, such situations, one might infer,
would be healthy. For aquatic sports the harbor

of the Patuxent would afford abundant facilities.
I have no doubt game is abundant both on land

and on the water in season.
It is safe to say, that when the demand for
country homes becomes more common among

persons of culture than it now is, these bluffs will
be in demand as building-sites. Of course, that
will be when facilities for reaching Washington,
Annapolis, and Baltimore are greatly increased.
From the Patuxent we crossed to the Eastern
Shore. Early in the morning there was a gentle
breeze. It soon showed that we could not de-
pend upon it. I therefore headed directly across
to secure an anchorage where we could hold what

ground we had gained, and not drift hopelessly
back with the tide. It was late in the afternoon
before we had any wind. A large schooner that

passed across our bow, going up the bay, had
drifted back several miles astern of us. Night
came on, dark enough, and we were obliged to
appeal to the- lead-line to aid us in finding our
II*
way up the Choptank, after passing the light off

Benoni's Point. We at last, fearing to venture
farther, let an anchor go in Lecompte's Bay on

the southern shore of the Choptank. Next morn-
ing, July 4th, we had a fair wind into Cambridge
Harbor.
Sunday morning, July /th, I rose early, at half-
past four. The pure glory of the morning im-

pelled me to do so. Home-life is very apt to rob
one of the cream of the day. Tired by the duties
which the acquisition of daily bread imposes
upon us, we shut ourselves within ourselves and
brick walls. But this is not to be endured when
yachting. The windows are widely open, and the
earliest streak of dawn along the horizon invites
you forth to receive your day's allowance of health

fresh from the hand of morning. Some one says
early risers are apt " to be conceited all forenoon,
and stupid all afternoon." This does not apply
to one in whom the aquatic life has done its full
work of regeneration. Constant intercourse with

nature has banished conceit, and when afternoon
comes he does as most other easy-going, sensible
animals do, — deliberately goes to sleep and renews
his stock of mental and physical vigor, — that is, if
at anchor. If sailing, there can be no drowsiness

by day or by night, short of absolute exhaustion.
I am becoming each year less surprised at how

little real good the majority of our health-seekers
gain by their vacation. That they reap so little
benefit, is simply, as a rule, because they have

not earned it, and hence do not deserve it. The
professional man, if he wants the vigor of the sailor
who is with him, must do as the sailor does. One

new muscular fibre is added to another, when by
exercise we throw off the sloth-softened old ones.
When one can hardly keep his conscience
quiet, when it reproaches him for making his
vacation unduly long, then he is in a fair way to
accomplish something notable on his return to

duty. This sense of wasting time is often the
very best sign that vacation is doing a worthy and

beneficent work. It tells how well the man has
become, that he longs for activity in duty instead
of longer rest.
The jelly-fish exist by thousands in portions

of the Choptank. They fairly swarmed around
the boat. But, graceful and wonderful as they
were to watch, they were nevertheless a nuisance,

inasmuch as the daily bath was often postponed
because of them and their merited title, ''sea-
nettles." The mode of reproduction of these soft

animals is wonderful, and when first fully made
known sounded almost as strange as a fairy tale.
It has, however, been written again and again, and

is in every *'
Elementary Zoology ;" so that we
refrain from giving its details here.
The Choptank differs but little from the other

rivers of the Chesapeake. Almost any one of them
would afford a naturalist good working-ground
for an entire season. There is, however, more
monotony in the country bordering the Choptank
than in that along the Patuxent, for the former is
nearly a dead level. Yet to me there is a quiet

charm about the many-armed Choptank, which
makes me wish to spend a whole vacation on its
waters. During the season there is, for those who

care to catch them, an abundance of fish, crabs, and
oysters. And during colder months water-fowl
congregate there in vast numbers.
The Choptank has for Pennsylvanians, and
especially for those of them in sympathy with the
Society of Friends, a special historical interest.
Late in December, 1682, says Bancroft, " tired
of useless debates, Penn crossed the Chesapeake,

to visit Friends at Choptank, and returned to his
own province prepared to renew negotiation, or to

submit to arbitration in England" (" History of
the United States," vol. ii. p. 125). The difficulty
alluded, to grew out of settling the boundary line
between Maryland and Pennsylvania. I have

often been amused at a statement made by Alsop
in times long antedating the American Revolution,
—a statement which has all the characteristic
truth and point, with none of the venom (or
something worse) which so often appears in the

scamp's doings and sayings, — " He that intends
to court a Maryland girl must have something

more than the tautologies of long-winded speech
to carry on his designs." The brightness and

unaffectedness of the modern representatives com-
pel the belief that sham is as much despised by
them as it was by their good mothers.
Cambridge may be taken as a characteristic
town of the Eastern Shore. To those who

have, as we had, friends there, it is always a most
delightful place to visit. When we say that on
the Eastern Shore one finds more traces of the
old colonial life and customs than elsewhere in
Maryland, no disparagement is intended. On

the contrary, we may be quite sure that the

social habits and the hospitality, which form such
striking reminders of earlier times, are real and
most sincerely genuine, and are very certain to
be impressed on the memory long after more

formal meetings are forgotten.
There is certainly a great future awaiting the
Eastern Shore. The climate, soil, and situation

all combine to make one think that its rejuvena-
tion cannot be long delayed. During the past
few years the new industry of oyster-canning has
given some towns a most extraordinary impetus.
I do not regard this, as it is now conducted, as
likely to be of any great, permanent good, be-
cause it must require but a few years to remove
the oysters on which present" prosperity depends,
unless oyster-raising becomes, as it may, a feasible
thing. To this we shall allude later. But when

I remember the agricultural capacity of the East-
ern Shore I think its future is certain, simply

because the rest of the country "hath need of
it." I am convinced that in the next generation
the owner of land on the Eastern Shore will be
said to have, like the owner of a rich silver-
mine in the West, " a sure thing."

The early history of Maryland reveals some

strange modes of aiding Church and State. Think
of raising a church-rate by imposing a duty on
tobacco ! I fear many sensitive mortals in these
days would wash their hands clear of the con-

tamination caused by touch of the funds. Yet
when, in 1698, the Episcopal creed was the one
recognized by law, the rate was so raised. Hawks,
in his " Ecclesiastical Contributions," calls to mind
another striking bit of legislation : In Maryland
" the vestry of Port-Tobacco Parish imposed a
tax on bachelors, and the Assembly confirmed it.
It, at least, indicated the sense of the Legislature
that it was a luxury to have no wife, and that

the privilege ought to be paid for." These are
mere remembrances of the past, only alluded to
because they had well-nigh been forgotten, and

because they may serve to illustrate the changing
phases of human thought and morals.
The yacht left Cambridge on the morning of July
9th, —that was j ust before peaches were ripe. Hence
we were prevented from seeing the shipment of the
great peninsular crop. Peach season is, of all times,
the one in which to visit the region. More infor-
mation can be gained then than at any other time.

We could notice a great change in the weather

since we went down the bay a month earlier. Then
the wind appeared to be continuous, or usually so,
in one direction from early in the morning until
towards evening. When we left Cambridge we

found that the calms we had experienced off the
mouth of the Potomac and in crossing from the
Patuxent to the Eastern Shore were but the first
of a series. From Cambridge up, we were reason-

ably sure of a morning breeze (though often a
very gentle one), then a noon-day calm, then more
or less threatening weather towards evening. Not
that evening always brought its squall, for it did
not, but that it nearly always attempted to, — if
such an expression be allowable.

Starting from Cambridge at 9 a.m. with a fair
breeze, which died out, it was full twelve hours

before we dropped our anchor in the snug little
harbor between Poplar Island and the main-land.

I was particularly anxious for a good, rousing wind
that day, as my friend. Captain Thomas Howard,
was with me, and I wanted to show my little sloop
to the best advantage. When we stopped for the
night it was blowing hard from the south. The
last two or three miles of our run were made before
a wind under which the yacht fairly staggered;

and as we passed over the shoal water in the dark-
ness, before reaching our anchorage, I knew that
if we made any mistake and ran aground, the mast

would go like a reed in a hurricane. In spite of
the wind, which whistled vigorously through the
rigging, we lay down in a most comfortable frame
of mind. We could feel the boat tugging away
at the anchor, but having full confidence in the
strength of our cable and in the holding power of
the anchor, we could sleep undisturbed.
Though I am one day late in doing so, I must

here add, William Butler, Jr., of West Chester,
had come on board at Cambridge to share the
luck of the cruise with me.*

Leaving Poplar Island next morning, we
threaded our way out into the bay past the south-
ern end of Kent Island. It should here be stated
that a light-house has been erected within a few
years on the end of the bar which " makes out" from
the southern point of Kent. Outside of that bar
* I will also state, that owing to news from home, Lew was
obliged to leave me at Cambridge, In his stead I hired a
colored man (Moses Robinson) for the rest of the summer. A
more faithful servant no man was ever fortunate enough to have.
is one of the deepest parts of the bay. My chart

shows, for a single point there, eighteen fathoms.
The low shores of Kent Island, in spite of their
monotony, were very attractive. Besides this, toO;
the island played a very important part in the

early history of the country, being claimed both
by Virginia and by Maryland.
In 1 63 1* the Virginia Assembly sent a sur-
veyor named William Clayborne to take posses-
sion of the island. It was claimed both " by royal
grant and by actual purchase from the Indians."
It appears to have been occupied several years
earlier by settlers and by Indian traders from Vir-
ginia. Besides its fertility, its position from an
offensive or defensive point of view, as well as its
value as a trading-post, made both colonies eager
to possess it. Clayborne was a resolute, and prob-

ably a somewhat reckless, man, belonging to a
class still largely represented in our frontier States.
Things remained in an unsettled and somewhat

threatening condition on the island until the spring
of 1635, when Clayborne took steps which inau-
gurated open hostilities. In the naval skirmish
* There appears to be a little conflict of dates between Bancroft
and Doyle on the Kent Island troubles.

which ensued, three Virginians and one Mary-

lander were killed. Clayborne, being worsted, was
obliged to leave the island. Maryland now took
possession, and Captain Evelyn was made its gov-
ernor. The inhabitants being mainly from Vir-
ginia were naturally enough hostile to Maryland,
and the new governor appears to have had any-
thing but an amicable community to deal with.
Accordingly, we find it was not long before he pro-
claimed martial law. For a time, at least, there
seems to have been no bloodshed, though it was

necessary to refer the case to the home authorities
in England. By them, after much debate, it was
finally assigned to Maryland. In 1641, authority
was given by Maryland to the Kent Islanders to
wage war against the neighboring " Susquehan-

nock" Indians, who had become exceedingly
troublesome. At first, the relations between them
and the islanders appear to have been of the most
friendly character, but only for a time ; it was noth-
ing but the inevitable conflict between a higher
and an inferior race when brought into actual con-
tact. One or the other must ultimately give way.

About 1644 Clayborne renewed his attempt on
Kent Island, and, after holding possession for a
year or two, was finally ejected by Calvert, of
Maryland, who himself died very shortly after-

wards ; and his death, as Bancroft tells us, " fore-
boded for the colony new disasters" (/. ^., vol. i. p.
192).
From Kent Island across to Annapolis our run

was short and pleasant. We reached our old
anchorage there just about noon. After dinner
Mr. B. and I went to the top of the State-house.
When the gentlemanly janitor accorded this privi-

lege, it was with the proviso that we should not
use our pencils or knives on the building. Apart
from the fact that we had no desire to leave any
kind of a memorial of our visit, was the further
fact that we could not have done so if we had de-
sired, as previous visitors had already covered the
dome with their scribbling. Adventurous, ambi-
tious fellows had climbed, at the risk of their bones
and lives, up under the timbers of the dome, and
there marked or carved their names. Who can
fathom the depth of human vanity ? The desire
for such notoriety implies the lurking supposition

that some one will care to read the inscription.
As a rule, the less the importance of the scribbler
the greater the desire for such immortality. To

return to the dome, however. Such a panorama

as we had there spread out below us is seldom
to be seen. The country was looking its very-
best. The reaped and the promised crops bespoke

the fertility of the soil, just as the throng of
small boats engaged in fishing, told how prolific
the water was. Undulating hills, with valleys

through which navigable streams ran, made a per-
fect lowland landscape. Mountains near, or even
remote but visible, might have made a stronger
picture, though they could have added nothing
to the calm, peaceful perfection of that landscape.
I could have studied and enjoyed it day after day

without weariness.
The evening of the nth of July found us in
Chester River, after a most wearisome drift across
and up the bay. About four p.m. dark clouds
came up in the south, and, anticipating a blow,
we lowered away our sail to take in a double reef.
This was hardly done before the squall was upon

us. In a few minutes we had, for the river, very
high waves, and, more than all, found that we had
a lee-shore much nearer than we liked. However,
the vessel carried her sail well, and we " clawed
off" in good style.
12*
Queenstown, in the southern bend of the river,
was where we desired to anchor for the night.
We succeeded, after getting aground, in working

our way into the Httle harbor through a pro-
vokingly narrow channel. The names of the
towns on the Eastern Shore are strikingly sug-
gestive of Old England : Queenstown, Oxford,
Cambridge, Easton, Chester, all indicate pride
in, and affection for, the mother-country.
Sometimes for weeks the yachtsman has to do

almost constantly with calm or squall, and the
alternatives narrow down to drifting or scudding.
We apparently had entered upon one of those

trying periods. As we came out of Chester River,
there was a bare suspicion of wind. No one could
say where it came from, — first south, then west,
then nowhere. After exercise of great patience

and muscle we had worked, by three p.m., out into
the bay again. Meanwhile, the clouds were piling
up dark and threatening, and the falling barom-
eter told that beyond doubt a storm was impend-
ing. Together with these, there were obvious
warnings —there was a peculiar, hazy atmosphere
and an absolute stillness —which led us to think
that when it did come, it would be severe. The

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 13^
cloud-bank moved, from the southeast, west,
then toward the north, gathering, as it went, into

a heavy, blue-gray or lead-colored (but not
black) mass. There is something in waiting for
such an onset not unlike the feeling with which
the soldier waits for an enemy's charge. It was
certain to come, and it was certain to be full of
danger. Those who can best control their feelings
are the most fortunate. The man who under such

circumstances boasts that he has no fear is not so
much to be envied for his supposed fortitude as
pitied for his lack of truthfulness.
There was a large schooner which came out

of the river with us. She had headed northward
for Baltimore, and we were endeavoring to enter
Magothy* River, to the west. First we saw the

schooner take down her topsail, then her fore-
sail, then her jib, and then her mainsail. We
knew that there was no time to waste. It was
evident that the captain, looking to the wind-
ward, had reason for his prompt action. So we
lowered our jib and put a double reef in our main-
sail. We hoped to carry enough of canvas to
run into Magothy River. The bay was still as
* Sometimes spelled Magotha ; at others, Magothy.

calm as a mill-pond after we had shortened sail.
But in a few minutes, darkness suddenly shut the

schooner to the north of us out from view. In
an instant later the rush of the wind was upon us.
The stanch little boat endured the tremendous

strain so bravely that we were at once reassured
as to her seaworthiness ; and she held her way
toward the harbor. " Mose" braced himself
against the tiller, and, though a powerful man, it
required all his strength to keep the boat from

luffing, as her jib was down. In less than five
minutes the waves were breaking over us, and
the spray dashed into our faces until we were no
longer able to endure it. If we could have stood
at our posts the boat would have gone safely into
the Magothy River. But we could not, and there
was nothing left for us to do, except to lower the
mainsail and go to the southward, under bare
poles, before the wind. This had become the
more necessary as we were now among larger
vessels, all of which were scudding. Hence, if
for no other reason than to keep out of their

way, we were obliged to do likewise.
The intensity of the wind did not last more
than twenty minutes; but while it did last our
Speed was fearful. To make matters worse, we

were towing the yawl-boat, which ran up on to us
and would drive its iron-clad bow into the stern
of the yacht with tremendous force. As the

darkness " lifted," we saw coming down astern of
us a large schooner. To keep out of its way, the
jib was hoisted. It was impossible to prevent the
yacht from "yawing" when she rose on the waves,
and then the jib would fly from side to side until
each time the sheet tightened it made our heavy

bowsprit quiver like a reed. Soon after, we
hoisted the peak of the mainsail. We soon saw
that there was no danger now so long as we kept
going before the wind, for, in spite of the high
seas which followed us, not a drop of water came
on board after we headed south. The buoyancy
of the boat was wonderful. And, from that day
forth, I felt that my yacht more than compensated
for being slower than some others, by being safer.
The iron ballast, low down and well fastened,
evidently, was just where it was doing the most

good.
In an hour it was all over ; and, under all sail,
we were heading for Annapolis Harbor. We could

now look around and see the damage done by the
.
squall. Several vessels, whose sails had been

split, were repairing damages. Others, like our-
selves, were hunting an anchorage. Just as the

sun went down we dropped our anchor in the
same snug berth that we had left two days before.
Looking back on this squall, I can now only

regard it as a small cyclone, — at least, having its
revolving character. Before it disappeared the

clouds were again back in the south. The rain,
though heavy, was not in proportion to the wind.

Viewing these storms, after several seasons of
cruising, I am more than ever surprised that a
good barometer is not regarded as an essential
part of every vessel's outfit. I am safe in the asser-
tion that mine never once deceived me during all
the time I had been using it, and that it has often
put me in a safe position by its timely warning.
Once, indeed, taking advantage of its indications,
we sought shelter through a gale which strewed

the bay with wrecks, and which cost many human
lives within a few miles of where we lay in quiet.
It may appear like a waste of words to urge this

subject, but, knowing many yachting-parties
that
never include this instrument among their effects,

I wish to say that when I claim small vessels may
undertake long voyages, I only do so when this
instrument is on board and all due precautions

have been taken. Anything short of this is
simple foolhardiness, which nothing can justify

or extenuate.
" Mose" proved to be a character, —huge of
frame, of unbounded good-nature, and possessed

of such a fund of unusual expressions, which he
used without the slightest regard to their meaning,
that we were kept in perpetual laughter. His pa-
tience knew no limit. He would sit by the hour
untangling the " worst snarled" gill-net, and im-
mediately go through the same work again if
from carelessness or clumsiness one of us tangled

it a second time. " There," said he, as he opened
a mass of knots which had tried him for half an
hour, " I'se got one more aggrawate out on it."
He serves to. illustrate forcibly what education is
doing for the colored people. " Ef I only had the

larnin' my brother has I'd be satisfied." The
brother is younger than " Mose," and conse-
quently his school-days came in later, more fortu-
nate times. Under my tuition he wrestled with the

alphabet and with the task of writing his name.
His success will be measured entirely by his per-
severance. His respect for the barometer is in-
finite. " Dem little tell-tales, — I'se seed 'em before.

It's time to hunt a harber when dey says so."
His cooking is cleanly done, and the galley is
always in order. Both of these features are much

more than mere They make yachting more
taste.
comfortable, and even make our simple fare more

homelike..
The day after the squall we started again to
go up the bay. Leaving Annapolis early in the
morning, the breeze, though ahead, was promising

enough, so far as its strength was concerned, but
on our very first tack it died away entirely, and we
drifted hopelessly. About two o'clock it revived
just a little, and we headed for Magothy River.
By dint of hard rowing, we at last rounded Sandy
Point, and then reached the mouth of the river.
Then turning south into Deep Creek we anchored

for the night. For small craft, a more desirable
haven than this could not well be found. Later
in the evening I discovered that the water was as
well stocked with pickerel as the shore was with
wood-ticks. The channel had from six to eight
feet of water in it, but along-shore it was shallow
and muddy. In the shoal water the interesting
"water-weed" {Anacharis Canadensis) was grow-

ing in the greatest profusion, and as we rowed
through the tangled mass the startled pickerel
could be seen darting on all sides of us. The

plant was in full bloom. Female flowers could be
found in abundance, but no male flowers, though
we made most diligent search for them. Though
one of the commonest plants, this shows some of
the most striking vital phenomena. It is hardly
a fanciful statement to say that we can see it in
the very act of living. Place a single fresh leaflet

under a microscope which magnifies about five
hundred diameters, and you can plainly see the

fluids in the cells rotating up one side and down
the other, showing that the very foundation — or,
rather, essence — of life is motion. It is a fresh

illustration of Ritter's celebrated statement, that
" life is simply a change of relation." In the ex-
pansion of this generalization he did not limit
himself to what we call living things, but, with a
more than poetic truth, applied it to the action and
reaction of one portion of the globe upon another.
The male flowers of this plant are so rare that it
is evident its increase is not limited to the usual

mode by seeds. Apparently, wherever its joints
G k 13
—
touch the earth new root may be taken. Years

ago it was introduced into Europe, where it has
become a serious pest by its rapid growth and by its
tendency to choke up the water-courses. It even

impedes navigation on the European canals. Dur-
ing the middle of July you see, as I have said,
abundance of the female flowers. They attract
attention by their long, thread-like tubes and ex-

serted, knob-like stigmas. But the male flowers,
where are they ? Seldom seen, but, when found,

are usually separated from the plant which pro-
duced them. Chance floats, perhaps one out of
many, past a female flower of another plant, and
so by the accomplished act of fertilization the life
and vigor of the species are maintained. We like

to believe, with most of the botanists, that a cross-
ing of the sexual elements of different individuals

of the same plant species is the condition upon
which a long-enduring vigor depends. So, doubt-
less, it is in most instances. But how are we to
explain the amazing reproductive power of the

plant in European waters, where no male flower
has ever been found ? The eel-grass is a much
more conspicuous example of this separation and
floating of the male flowers. Yet, uncertain as
such a mode of fertilization must be, I was amazed

at the number of fecundated, seed containing ova-
ries which I found among Anacharis.

The chief productions of the region appeared
to be melons, peaches, and " garden truck." Prox-

imity to Baltimore doubtless made such interests
very lucrative there. The busy freighting-season
for these productions was just coming on, and it
was with difficulty that I convinced one farmer

that I could not be induced to do his carrying for
him.
The morning of July 14 was clear, and gave
no indication, by barometer or otherwise, of an
impending storm. By five a.m. we were well
started, —that is, in the absence of the wind we

went out, like Barkis, " with the tide." But we
were no sooner in the bay than a nice breeze
sprang up. It bore promise on its wings, for it
was none of those puffy winds which we had felt
so often before, but a steady, constantly strength-

ening one that intimated its full intention of re-
maining with us for the day. It increased as the

sun rose. Before ten o'clock, however, dark
clouds were in the west, and the barometer gave
undoubted signs of a coming storm. As far as
we could see to the south the vessels were " hold-

ing the wind." This encouraged us to think
that this same friendly breeze would last until we
reached Still Pond Harbor before the storm came.
Swan Point was left behind us, and in a couple of

hours more we passed Worton's Creek ; then we
rounded the point and stood in for Still Pond.
We had the usual difficulty in getting over the
bar, and working through the narrow inlet to the
pond. But we succeeded, and by one o'clock we

had two anchors out and sails all snugly stowed.
—
Then we went below, " Mose" to preparing din-
ner, and we to preparing for an " afternoon fish'*
after the storm was over. So far as the ordinary

dangers of navigation were concerned, we had
passed out of them when we entered our harbor.
It was astonishing to see how little impression the
wind made on the boat where she lay ; but, look-
ing outside, we could see others tossing furiously
on the waves. The rain was severe, and the wind
too, though the latter was nothing like that of
two days before. During the afternoon we had

a succession of thunder-storms. The play of the
lightning was very grand. Both zigzag and
sheet lightning illuminated the heavens. As we
watched, we could see tall spires and ruined build-

ings, even, represented in the fiery shapes on the
sky. Afloat or ashore, it matters not : man lives
more during an hour of storm than during any

other equal period. His own utter weakness and
the unlimited power of the elements, both, force
themselves upon his mind. There is no escape
from either. He need not be an abject, cringing
coward to realize both to the fullest extent. On

the contrary, he may be a brave man, and one full
of good faith and of good deeds, and still these

feelings will rise and overwhelm him. A thunder-
storm is a rich experience, — one well worth living
through.
On our way up from Magothy we met the
"John McClintock Yacht Club," bound down the
bay. As they were from Philadelphia, we could
not refrain from saluting them, though our ves-
sel was very diminutive alongside of theirs. The
salute was returned in the most cordial and gen-
tlemanly manner. Wishing each other a successful
voyage, we held our courses and were soon out
of sight. These yachting-parties, where congenial
friends hire a good vessel and at a minimum of
expense get a maximum of rational recreation,
13*
ISO VACATION CRUISING IN
are becoming much more frequent. They are
also creating a just public sentiment in favor of
aquatic sports. There was a time, not many-

years ago, when to be a yachtsman was entirely
synonymous with being a blackguard, in the eyes
of many well-thinking persons ; and, to tell the

truth, this imputation was too often deserved.
He who Rob Roy on the Jordan" did
wrote "
missionary work, both when he distributed tracts

and alms among the poverty-stricken souls, and
when he sailed his little yacht, — no less in the
one case than in the other. He preached salva-
tion to soul and body both.
There is needed, now, a book describing the
models of small craft peculiar to our American
coast, with a clear statement of the merits and
defects of each. It should also give descriptions
of the most suitable waters for sailing in at each
season, along with some statements concerning

the historical and other attractions of each harbor
likely to be visited. To the above might be added
a very interesting chapter on the most important

voyages undertaken in small vessels. The fact is,
that in this age of huge ships size has come to

be regarded as the sole measure of safety. We
forget, however, in what small vessels the men

of earlier days made the most notable maritime
discoveries. Leaving out of sight the probable
discovery of this continent by the Northmen, in
open boats, long anterior to the days of Columbus,
we have Irving's statements concerning the vessels
of the great admiral :

" Three small vessels were
apparently all that he (Columbus) had requested
Two of them were light barks, called '
caravels,'
not superior to river and coasting craft of more

modern days. Representatives of this class of
vessels exist in old prints and paintings. They
were delineated as open, and without deck in the
centre, but built up high at the prow and stern,
with forecastles and cabins for the accommoda-

tion of the crew. Peter Martyr, the learned con-
temporary of Columbus, says that only one of
the three vessels was decked. The smallness of
the vessels was considered an advantage by Co-
lumbus in a voyage of discovery, enabling him
to run close to the shores, and to enter shallow
rivers and harbors. In his third voyage, when

coasting the Gulf of Paria, he complained of the
size of his ship, being nearly a hundred tons
burthen. But that such long and perilous expe-
ditions into unknown seas should be undertaken
in vessels without decks, and that they should

live through the violent tempests, by which they
were frequently assailed, remain among the sin-
gular circumstances of these daring voyages."
Of Magellan's fleet, which started to circum-
navigate the globe, the largest vessel was the

" Trinidad," of but one hundred tons. Two were
but sixty; and it was the "Victoria," one of the
smallest, which brought back the news that the
great deed had been done. Vasco da Gama's
vessels were of only one hundred and twenty
tons each. Martin Frobisher crossed the Atlantic,
and entered the sub-Arctic strait, which has since
borne his name, with two vessels which were of
twenty-five tons each, and with a pinnace of ten
tons. Now, that a steamer of less than three
thousand tons' burden has almost come to be
regarded as too small safely to cross the ocean, it
may be well to make the following extract from

the Lo7idon Times of ^ May ii, 1 8 19:
" Great Experiment. —A new steam-vessel of three hundred

tons has been built at New York^ for the express purpose of car-
rying passengers across the Atlantic. She is to come to Liverpool
direct."
This vessel, the "Savannah," started from the

city of the same name on May 22d or 25th, and
came to anchor off Liverpool on June 20th. Of
this time, she was under steam eighteen days.
That same needed book should, for the benefit
of amateurs, also give some history of the nautical

terms most in use. Their study would serve to
relieve the monotony of many an otherwise dull
hour. Many of the words now so glibly used
have come down to us through centuries ante-

dating England's rule over the waves. Some
of them were in common use from Denmark
through Scandinavia even to Iceland, and all,
without doubt, had a real meaning when coined,

even though we now fail to recognize their origin.
Take, for example, the word " starboard," which

meant originally the side of the boat on which
the steersman stood. It traces its origin to a time
so remote that, instead of a rudder, the boat was
steered with a paddle, or an oar, as much smaller
ones are to this day. " Keel," in primitive form,
appears in the old Danish and Swedish, and prob-

ably, from the former of those languages, was
taken into the English. " Kelson," or " keelson,"
is merely a derivative from " keel." Our modern

—
word " schooner" is supposed to have originated

in 17 1 3 at Gloucester, in Massachusetts, where
the first vessel of this class was launched. It is
true that the name was then given because of a
remark made by one of the witnesses to the

launch. " See how she scoons !" said he as the
vessel slid into the water. Hence our word

" schooner," or, as first spelled, " scooner." But
there is an old verb, —" scoon," which means " to
glide swiftly," and it was this which the uninten-

tional christener of the schooner used.
Angling and shooting each have a literature,
one containing volumes which are classic in our

language. Why should yachting not have?
Under title of "Yachting in Blue Waters,"
there is an article in Harper's Monthly Magazine
for the year 1877, by Mr. Warren. I cannot for-
bear quoting from it:
" Yachting is undeniably looked upon by the

mass of the community in the light not only of a
slothful and luxurious pastime, but as an actual
waste of time ;
yet it is none the less true, that
the larger number of those who cruise upon

blue water are men of positive character, who,
becoming impatient of the humdrum conven-
tionalities of society, prefer to assert their man-

hood in contention with the elements. And
these men, who may have been skirmishers on the
outposts of science, are not infrequently, by the

very nature of their new pursuit, drawn within its
charmed circle, and by their observations and
experiments become important contributors to it."
If this form of recreation has anything in it
better than the old-time regattas, and their too
often disgraceful associations (which I think it
has), then by all means let us have it out.
Sailors' expressions are often full of quaint
humor. During one of our prolonged drifts, when

there was no wind, " Mose" took our long oars
and went vigorously to work. " Cap'n Will,"

said he, addressing Mr. B., " dis is what we sailor
men calls a woodin wind ; but when we gets into
de yawl-boat and goes ahead with a line and tows

de ship, dat is a buggy-ride. You think makin' a
woodin wind is hard work, but it ain't nuthin' to a
buggy-ride."
Darkness came on at Still Pond before the net
was placed as we desired. Though the next
morning, one twenty-inch pickerel showed that
during the month between our first and second
visits to the place the supply had not been ex-

hausted.
There are fated spots sailors think. I never,
save once, have gone from Still Pond to the mouth
of the Elk that I did not have to drift, or, at most,
to sail with barely enough of wind to give us
" steerage-way." My last trip up, over the same
water, was no exception. Hour after hour the
surface of the bay was undisturbed by any
breeze whatever. Our only comfort lay in the
fact, well known to sailors, that some boats drift
better than others, and we had the satisfaction of
being among the best in that kind of navigation.

Later at night, on July 15th, we anchored in Elk
River, — still in sight of our starting-point in the
morning. The rising sun of the following day

brought with it a moderate breeze, before which
we made our way through Back Creek to
Chesapeake City.
In spite of its storms and its calms, its over-

dreaded mosquitoes, and its alleged malaria, I
have come to think of the Chesapeake Bay as my

sanitarium. I know that I come back from my
trips there stronger than when I start on them.
It is a soul-expanding process simply to gaze out
on the water, to study the features of the head-
lands, and to conjecture in what time and by what

agencies they were formed.
Who does not dread the Chesapeake and Dela-
ware Canal, if he has any regard for his own
vessel ? Mine fared probably as well as small
craft usually do in making the transit from bay to
bay. The helmsman of a canal-boat managed to
jam my yacht against the rocks of the tow-path,

much to the injury of her planking. However,
his associates remarked, by way of apology, " the
fellow is only half-witted." I did not see that the

explanation made the rent in the plank smaller.
It was a relief to be *'
locked out" into Delaware
Bay, though our welcome there was a stormy one.
Hardly were our sails up before the usual after-
noon clouds warned us to prepare. This time,

however, the barometer did not indicate anything
heavy as likely to reach us. The yacht was kept
on her course until we passed the black buoy,
midway between Delaware City and New Castle.
Rounding we dropped anchor in two and a

this,
half fathoms of water. By the time the sails were

down and stowed, the storm had reached us. It
was more severe by far than I anticipated from the
slight warning given by my barometer. This was

the only time that I was ever misled by its indica-
tions in the slightest degree ; and it should be said

that it did fall some, though not in proportion, I
thought, to the severe "blow" which followed. The

wind came from the west, and the tide was running
out very rapidly; so we lay in a direction diagonal
to the two forces, and, as a consequence, were con-

siderably tossed by the waves. Our big anchor,
which had always held well hitherto, was dragged,

and to prevent being carried out into the channel
we were obliged to let the other one go also.

Together, the anchors held us firmly, and we went
below to dine and ride out the storm.
My somewhat tempestuous trip up the Chesa-

peake had made certain points more clear to me.
As between the English yacht and the American,
we may say that the former is an infinitely better
sea-boat. The English vessel is characterized by

greater draught of water and by correspondingly
less beam. It carries its ballast as low down as
possible, and much of it in the form of a keel of
lead or iron outside. The American vessel, on the
contrary, is characterized by less depth and greater
beam, with but little ballast as compared with the

deeper boat. It is simply astonishing with what

impunity the Englishman goes to sea in his very
small craft. On the mere score of safety in rough
water, sudden squalls, and in "clawing off" a lee-
shore, beyond doubt, the English model is the
safer one. The Englishman sails where he will
in safety ; the American goes where he can, often

at considerable risk. It is to be remembered,
however, that our shoal vessels come, to a certain
extent, from the character of the waters in which
we sail. Many of the most desirable places, to
me at least, could only be reached in a vessel draw-
ing less than four feet of water.
But, then, have we not gone from one extreme
to another? Is there no compromise possible
between English depth and narrowness, on the
one hand, and American shallowness and breadth,
on the other ? Whatever else may be justified in
the model, the prodigious spars and sails under

which most of our yachts stagger are absolutely
dangerous, and should be discountenanced by all
yachtsmen who would do more than limit them-

selves to an occasional regatta. The question of
"rig" appears until very recently to have been
limited, with us, to one of two kinds for small
—
l6o VACATION CRUISING IN
boats, i.e.y the sloop and the cat-boat. For any-

thing over twenty feet keel the latter of these may
be regarded as about the worst possible form,
sacrificing every other good quality to simple
convenience. The sloop will still have many
stanch friends, in spite of the signal victories
which the cutter has so recently won among us.
Were I yachting in waters where great draught

was no objection, I should, beyond all question,
prefer the cutter rig; but in either Delaware or
Chesapeake Bay I think the yawl is to be the
small boat of the future. So far as I know, there

is but one yawl on the Delaware waters. Of
course, he who introduces such a rig must expect
to bear the cheap wisdom of " the rule o' thumb"
men. The sufficient answer to all their objections
is, that in England, in Boston, in New York, and

in San Francisco, the yawl rig has been tried, and
its merits too fully tested and too widely ap-
proved to leave any doubt as to its safety, con-
venience, and ease of working. We might define

the yawl to be a modified schooner, whose fore-
boom came aft as far as the rudder-stock, and that
aft of the rudder-stock was inserted a mast for a
sail whose area should not be greater than that of
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. i6l
the jib. The special advantages of this rig are,
first, safety in case of sudden squalls, for by letting
the mainsail {i.e., foresail) come down on the run,
the mizzen and jib still set, leave you under storm
canvas at once, with which the boat can be readily

managed ; or, second, if either of the other sails
be damaged, the boat under foresail alone, does

well ; or, third, if the rudder be unshipped at sea,
the boat can be worked into harbor by slacking,
or hauling the mizzen aft. It should be said that

this has been done more than once.
The illustration (p. 162), from Forest and Stream^
will show at a glance the whole plan and mode
of working. A yawl of thirty feet deck need not

draw over three feet and a half of water, and still
be a thoroughly safe boat. Add to this, the fact
that in most cases, if absolutely required, one man

could manage her. If the yawl had no other ad-
vantage than the ease with which her sails can be
reefed, that alone would compensate for, the very
small loss of speed which is alleged to exist when
compared with the sloop.
The great mission of single-hand yachting is to

take a legitimate, healthful recreation out of the
hands of hirelings and " professionals," and make
I 14*
1 62 VACATION CRUISING IN
it tributary to the growth of character and strength
in the yacht-owner. It is interesting to read in
this connection the following extract, taken at
CRUISING RIG OF *' CANNET YAWL.
second hand from what Dr. Waldstein, of the

University of Cambridge, had to say on a closely-
related subject before his institution :
" The same causes which led to the growth of individualism

affected the great change in the spirit of athletic institutions.
While before they were a means to a great political and social

end, they now become ends in themselves to which all other con-
siderations become subservient. While before athletic exercise
was a part of the daily occupation of the Greek youth, which was
meant to contribute its share to the great end of making him a
sound and normal being, harmoniously developed both in mind
and body, and thus a serviceable citizen to his state, it now, step
by step, becomes itself the great aim to which time, life, and aspi-
rations of the youth are devoted, and to which they are made
subservient. It is the step recurring in the history of athletic
games in all times, —the step from the gentleman athlete to the
professional athlete. In art we see the signs of the loss of propor-
tion in such works, which increase in the next period. We hear

from ancient authorities how pugilists and pancreatists were fat-
tened up and made bulky, how muscular development was exag-
gerated even to ugliness. In the mythical figure most imme-

diately influenced by athletic art, in Hercules, we see this in
later instances, where the muscular development is abnormal and

repulsive. The germs of the rapid decline of this great institu-
tion are to be found in the fungus growth of its own importance,

growing till it obscured the great aim which gave it life and char-
acterized its highest development. It leads to degeneration, or,
as the pathologist would more accurately term it, to hypertrophy.
Let me only bring before you one interesting instance to illustrate
this step towards professional athleticism. This coin of Amyntas

III., of Macedon, who reigned from 389 to 369 B.C., representing
a horse with its rider, is typical in one respect of all similar repre-
sentations before the middle of the fourth century b.c, namely,

in respect of the relation of rider and horse, and of the corre-
sponding importance of both in the mind of the people of that
time. Like all representations of riders down to the middle of
;
l64 VACATION CRUISING IN
the fourth century, the rider is here large in comparison with the
horse. If now we turn to this coin of Philip of Macedon, there
is a striking difference in this respect, the horse being dispropor-
tionately large, while the rider has dwindled down to an under-

grown jockey. The whole matter is explained by the fact that this
coin of Philip represents his racer whom he sent to Olympia, and

who there came out the winner. Now, in the previous periods
it was for the rider's sake that horse -racing existed ; it was to show
and encourage his skill in horsemanship, and he got the glory
there existed no jockeys. In the time of Philip the horse became

the great centre of interest, and the gentleman rider and warrior
of the Parthenon frieze is no longer to be found at Olympia. In

the course of this natural or unnatural selection the horse, too, has
altered its form, merely to excel in fleetness. It is curious to
consider how similar the action of these * laws' has been in
ancient and in modem times. Thus, not only with the human
form, but even with animals, the course taken by the athletic
games in the later periods tended to destroy the ideal of form
established, during the great age of Greek culture, by art through
the earlier influence of the same institution. . . .
" The history of the Greek boxing-gloves, the l/xdvrec, typifies
and illustrates the three chief phases in the history of the palsestra,
from its height to its decline. The earliest form were the /iet?ix<î,
which were to soften the blow to the striker and the one struck,
and were thus subservient to the exercise. The second f«rm was
the Ifiug b^q, a leather thong wound round the hand, protecting
the hand of the striker, but increasing the severity of the blow.
This belongs to the period when professional athleticism was be-

ginning to be introduced. The third form, marking the period
of decline, the Graeco-Roman and Roman age, was the brutal
csestus, garnished with leaden balls, which produced disfiguring

blows, sometimes leading to death."
The application of the above extract is neither
"far-fetched" nor difficult to see. We desire a
generation of men and citizens with the physical
proportions and mental qualities of the Greek in

the days of Amyntas, instead of the jockey who
dwarfed the master to less than his own size, or
instead of the beast who wore the caestus for the
pleasure of a patron of worse morals even than
himself.
CHAPTER IV.
CRUISING ON THE DELAWARE RIVER AND BAY.
This chapter is intended not as a mere "log"

of our trips up and down the Delaware, but
rather as a general statement of such facts of
interest as came under the author's observation.
It will also give some points which may be of
service to other amateurs who undertake to man-
age their own boats when sailing in the same
waters. It is, it is true, only amateur advice, but
then, for that reason, is likely to touch the very
points upon which the holiday cruiser wants in-
formation most, and which a veteran sailor would

be most likely to pass over in silence.
Comparing the Chesapeake with the Delaware,

each bay has peculiarities of its own. If the
former has heavier squalls, the latter has swifter

tides, which prevent your going against the current,
unless the wind is fair. But the Delaware has its

full share of squalls, for, as already stated, the first
hour we sailed in it, after coming through the

canal, we encountered a heavy " blow."
The Delaware, though all harbor, so far as
good -sized vessels are concerned, has but few

of the cosey nooks which characterize the Chesa-
peake, and into which small vessels may creep
for a night of quietness and safety. True, there
are many small rivers and numberless small
sloughs opening into the Delaware, where we
could go and be out of harm's way, but they
did not attract me as did the little resting-places
of the other bay.

On July 2 1st we ran up the river to Camden,
and by two p.m. were at anchor at Cooper's Point,
from which we had started more than a month

before. Our good little boat was cordially wel-
comed back among the others of the same class.
No one, of course, cares to contemplate what

may happen after he has seriously determined
upon a trip. It was a satisfaction to be back
again at our starting-point. It was, furthermore,
a greater satisfaction to think that the trip was

made under circumstances which certain wise
heads had regarded as unfavorable. I only refer

:
to this to point the moral that risk is determined

as much by the individual as by the circum-
stances. A better sailor could have gone to the
James and back in a much smaller boat ; a worse
one (if he could be found) might have been lost
in a much larger vessel, in no worse weather than
we encountered. Next to having a tight, strong,
well-ballasted vessel, and one obedient to her

helm, the yachtsman must be temperate and
prudent if he expects the air and exercise to do
their best for him.
I clip the following from the Philadelphia Ledger

for July 24th
[Special Dispatch to the Public Ledger^
A VIOLENT STORM AT ASBURY PARK.

AsBURY Park, N. J., July 23. —A violent storm burst over
this place at half-past three o'clock this p.m., doing damage to

the extent of tv/enty thousand dollars. The rain fell so heavily
that the air seemed filled with spray, and it was almost impossible
to distinguish objects twenty feet ahead. Tin roofs were carried
away like so much paper, and shingles and trees were blown in
every direction. The Howard, Gilsey, Barrett, and Sunset

Hotels were entirely unroofed, and the Madison and Princeton
Hotels were badly damaged. Six tents and some outbuildings
at Ocean Grove were levelled to the ground. Boats were lifted
from the water of Sunset Lake and blown some distance upon
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. i6q
the land. Seven teams were upset near the lake. Lamp-posts
were wrecked everywhere, and chimneys were blown down on
many private cottages. It was bathing-hour, and hundreds of
people were in the surf. There were several narrow escapes
from drowning, but only one life was lost, — that of a colored
waiter at one of the hotels, who was blown out to sea. A boat
containing two boys was capsized, but they were rescued. The
telegraph wires were blown down between this place and Ocean
Grove. Windows were broken everywhere, and the streets are
littered with broken limbs of trees. The storm lasted about half
an hour.
My object in making this extract is because

of its association with certain somewhat unusual
phenomena, —that is, unusual from the popular
way of looking at them. For several days past
my aneroid barometer on the yacht had been
unusually high. On the morning of the 23d it
had gone down to 30 inches ; by noon it stood

at 29.95. At three p.m. it began to rise slightly,
and in two hours there was a calm. During the

height of " the blow" at Asbury Park the yacht
was anchored a few miles above Chester, waiting
for the wind to subside.
We had left Camden at ten a.m. of that day

with a strong, but somewhat puffy, wind from the
northward, and hence astern of us. In three-
H 15
IÔ VACATION CRUISING IN
quarters of an hour it had gone around enough

to have become a head-wind, and as such it con-
tinued the rest of the day, —so long, at least, as
it blew at all.
West Chester (Pennsylvania) is situated, say
fifteen miles in an air-line from Chester, and my

friend. Dr. George Martin, residing in the former
place, has kindly furnished me the mean standing
of his barometer (after it was reduced to the sea-
level) for several days before the storm. Thus, for
July 17th it was 29-943 inches.

a 1 8th « « 30.108 ((
te
19th " ((
30.133
it
20th " « 30.178
<c
t<
2ISt " 30.198
((
22d " ((
30.062
t(
23d " ((
29.929
These figures bring out very forcibly a fact well
known to scientific men, but not sufficiently ap-
preciated by many who have barometers in their
houses, or on their yachts, — that a marked sudden

rise, as well as a fall, may be the precursor of a
storm. In other words, to speak more generally,
it indicates an atmospheric change, which is

usually followed by more or less of a storm about

the time that the index or mercury has fairly com-
menced to fall to a lower figure. This, too, is true
even if a figure not lower than the mean standard

of the place is reached.
It may be noted that the storm, the account of
which I have taken from the Ledger^ was not
associated with a great fall at Philadelphia, Ches-
ter, or West Chester. It would be interesting to
know the readings of the instrument at Asbury

Park the day of, and a few days previous to, the
storm there.
There is apt to be somewhat of excitement
connected with yachting on the edge of a storm.
One may fail to recognize how heavy the wind is,
so long as his boat behaves well. I was under no

apprehension, but, remembering now how fiercely
the wind whistled through the rigging, I am per-

suaded that most people would have regarded it
as quite strong. At all events, it blew hard

enough to make us drag our best anchor more
than half-way across the river ;
yet, there was
no marked fall in the barorneter where we were.*
*So thoroughly am I impressed with the importance of this
subject that I make the following clear extract from "The

:
1^2 VACATION CRUISING IN
Up to this point not a single word has been

said about the mistakes made in sailing. Possibly
the reader might be deluded into the idea that the

writer is an accomplished practical sailor. As a
matter of fact, he is nothing of the kind. My
object in buying and in owning a boat was to be-
come a more practical waterman. Day after day

I blundered on, making mistakes both numerous
and humiliating ; but there is virtue in persistency.
These blunders became less frequent as the season

went on. Occasionally a mud-bank would get on
the wrong side of the yacht, and we would stick
fast there until liberated by the friendly tide.
This occurred at Chester when two friends were
Sailor's Handy Book and Yachtman's Manual," by E, F.
Qualtrough, Master, U.S.N. :

" A sudden rise of the barome-
ter is very nearly as bad a sign as a sudden fall, because it shows

that atmospherical equilibrium is unsteady. In an ordinar)- gale
the wind often blows hardest when the barometer is just begin-
ning to rise, directly after having been very low."

" Besides these rules for the instrument, there is a rule about
the way in which the wind changes which is very important. It
is well known to every sailor, and is contained in the following
couplet
" « When the wind shifts against the sun,
Trust it not, for back it will run,'

"
along, who charitably held their peace, even

though they must have thought hard things of
the awkwardness which deprived them of several
hours of fine sailing. To be sure, these were

tribulations ; but I count the ability to manage
my own yacht cheaply earned, even through such
blunders. There is no position more pitiable than
that of the boat-owner who must become the

servant of a sailing-master. Therefore, command
your own boat, and inform the professional water-
man, who applies, that what you want is not a cap-
tain, but a cook. It might fairly be assumed that
any educated man can soon learn as much as one
of less education, and that to sail a yacht it is not

absolutely requisite to forget all else besides. The
one great charm in single-handed yachting is that
whatever you want done, you must do for yourself,
even if you have first to learn how.

After six or seven weeks of sailing I found that
I had been so completely fascinated by my vaca-
tion freedom as to have neglected to keep the run
of events. There had been several murders and

defalcations, and the Pennsylvania Republican
Convention had been held since I had read a
newspaper. I knew nothing whatever of these
15*
affairs ; in which I was probably just like the great
mass of mankind. So I came to understand how

the world and its inhabitants can continue to exist,
the one as serene in its motion, and the other as

happy and as pure in their morals, even if the
flood-gates of human iniquity are not opened for
them daily by the early newsboy.

The ravages of the cholera in Egypt first came
to my knowledge on the 26th of July. Anchored
above Chester, we could see the quarantine " Vis-
itor" come down the river, and could watch the
health-ofiicer board the in-coming vessels. That
boat is the thin wall which cuts Philadelphia off
from the contagion of tropical and unclean re-
gions. To protect the million of people lying

back of it, that " Visitor" should be armed with
authority as solid as adamant. Brooklyn's great
preacher once wisely said, " Cholera is God's
opinion of the filth in your streets." Truly a
brave statement, but only half of the truth ;
good
and saving so far as it went, but needing the sup-
plementary idea, that if the quarantine keeps the
germs of disease out, the Divine opinion may not
be openly expressed in terms of mortality.
Egypt's agony awakens fear in the cities of the
New World, just as the waves starting on the

shores of the Mediterranean ultimately leave their
weakened impress on the sands of our coast.
These periodical pests, bad as they are, do have a

mission. The loss of a hundred lives may awaken
a wholesome fear of the causes of disease, and
thus lead to such care as will shear pestilence of
its dreadful power.
Here is an extract from an official letter written
by a distinguished physician. It shows that even

in so great a city as New York, cholera can be
controlled :
On Wednesday, when the epidemic was at its height, the ist
of August, 1866, I gave my pledge to the Board of Commission-
ers and to Mr. Schultz, president of the Board of Health, in

your presence, that I would drive the cholera from the work-
house in from three to five days. I said this in no spirit of boast-
ing, but in the simple reliance on the well-known and estab-
lished laws of hygiene. The commissioners executed literally
and promptly every order which was given by the committee.

The epidemic began to decline from the day they were fully
carried out, and on Monday last the pledge was redeemed.*
As nations become bound together more closely
* Flint's " Practice of Medicine," second edition, page 476,
foot-note.
in their commercial relations, so also do the dan-

gers of intercourse increase.
The quarantine which now exists at Tinicum,
about thirteen miles below Philadelphia, is the

outgrowth of the act of April, 1700, which was
passed by the Colonial Assembly, William Penn
being Proprietary Governor. Quarantine is but
one form of restraint which individual interests
and inclinations must endure for the public good.

National or State and City health boards would act,
if authority as full were given them, with no less
beneficent results; but their existence is perpet-
ually threatened by the power which should be

their support. Ignorance, or worse than ignorance,
is constantly appealed to, to thwart their measures
and to limit their usefulness. We tolerate the
quarantine because the disasters which it helps to
avert are so sweeping in their character, and force
themselves upon us in so conspicuous a manner,

that no expediency or mere political necessity dare
interfere with its operation. Yellow fever, cholera,
and other scourges of like character carry an inex-

orable logic in their death-rates. But the diseases
with which local or general health boards (inland)
have to do, —scarlet fever, diphtheria, and the
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, lyy
like, —may In a decade number more victims than

either or both of the other plagues, which we allow
the quarantine to stop outside of our doors.
It is just in the domain of sanitary science that
modern medicine, whose essential character is pre-
ventive rather than curative, has wrought its most

signal triumphs. To prevent an epidemic, is of
vastly greater importance than to arrest it, after its
work of decimation has been largely accomplished.

To fully understand the problem which preventive
medicine, through health boards, proposes to itself,
it would be well to compare the ravages of a dis-
ease like smallpox two centuries ago with the

relative immunity we now possess. Before the
time of Jenner, Great Britain and Ireland lost
from this loathsome plague, each year, out of

their population, forty-five thousand souls. When
that sublimely simple prayer for those in the perils
of maternity was placed in the Episcopal Church

service, about one sufferer in fifty perished in
performance of a natural function. Probably the
mortality to-day would not exceed one in three
hundred. True, improved treatment has had a
full share in this shortened roll of doom but
when we consider what hygiene has done to-
;
wards the same end we can see how great is its
credit.
That the quarantine precautions are no mere

sham, or useless parade of zeal, is fairly to be con-
cluded when we remember that in 1762 an infected
vessel from the West Indies brought the yellow
fever to Philadelphia, and that out of the then
small population — less than forty thousand —there

were a thousand lives lost.
In the perfected republic towards which we are
growing, neither the ward politician nor his master,

will dare to lay his hands upon the measures which
belong to the public health, any more than he
would dare to touch individual religious opinion.
There will be no party or clique allegiance stronger

than the allegiance a man owes to the health of
his family and of his neighbor, and the success of
the one will come to be largely measured by what

it does for the other. The present drum-majors
of election day will be recognized as those who

make the display, but who originate no good or
useful measure simply because it is good or useful
and in their stead will come men of better motives

and larger deeds.
For a yacht the size of mine, the Delaware
—
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, lyg
River anywhere above Fort Delaware may be re-
garded as all harbor. It was my custom at night
to run in along shore as closely as I dared to, and

then to anchor in about a fathom, or a fathom and
a half (according to the tide) of water. This gave
me room to get away at any hour I desired to, and
still me
kept out of the way of boats large enough
to harm me or mine by collision. Then, with a
reliable anchor-light out, we could sleep without
anxiety. Such, at least, was my comforting way
of looking at it. One night, however, I remember
we laid down in firm assurance that things were
all as safe as could be. But before morning I
found we had anchored in a spot where, between

wind and tide, the^ boat had tossed enough to put
her light out, and there in darkness we had waited
for some other shore-loving vessel to run into us.
The useful lesson was not lost, and in future we
were never found without proper safeguards. The
risk run then became a healthy episode in the
cruise.
The Delaware Bay, by which I mean all below

Fort Delaware, is a more turbulent sheet of water,
one, too, which is whimsical sometimes besides.
It may, almost without provocation, so far as wind
l8o VACATION CRUISING IN
goes, be quite rough enough for any small boat.

In less than half an hour I have seen a very ugly
sea " kicked up" by opposing wind and tide, and
one against which it was exceedingly difficult to
beat. Two harbors offer at the upper end of the

bay, —Salem Creek, on the New Jersey side, and
the channel between Reedy Island and the Dela-
ware shore. The latter, however, furnishes only a
partial protection. They are good starting-points
for a long run down the bay. It should be said

that Salem Creek is a hard place to get out of, if
the tide be against you, unless the wind enables

you to run tolerably " free."
Almost due east from the light on the lower

end of Reedy Island is the entrance to Alloway's
Creek, on the Jersey shore. This can be entered
directly by a vessel drawing four feet of water.
Run within, say, two or three hundred yards of the

shore, and the creek-mouth cannot well be missed.
It affords a safe and most desirable anchorage for

small craft in heavy weather.
About a quarter of a mile above Duck Creek
light, on the Delaware side, is Duck Creek. The
water here is shoaler, and, unless he knows the
way in, the amateur had better use his lead-line
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, jgl
pretty freely. From this, east by south, nine miles

distant, is the Cohansey light, which marks the
entrance to the creek of the same name. Here is
an admirable harbor, which any one with a chart

before him may easily enter. From this light,
south by west, out in the middle of the bay, stands

Ship John light. I have called attention to these
lights particularly because, fir^t, above the Cohan-
sey light about a mile, and extending out into the
bay nearly as far, there is a shallow spot or bar,
which is in daytime often, if not usually, indicated
by the " tide rip." Beware of this if drawing over

two feet and a half of water. Caught there with
a heavy sea running, one would be uncomfortable
enough. My second reason for speaking particu-
larly of Ship John light is, that, unless you are
acquainted with the water there, it is well not to
attempt crossing from the western side until Co-
hansey light is about east of you, and it were
better to go still more to the south, so that in
crossing you would go to the north of and about

a mile from " Ship John." This, of course, all
implies that I am writing for amateurs who have to
feel their way. There is a third reason for men-

tioning that light; it is this: after you have en-
i6
tered Cohansey you may desire, for some reason,
to find a particularly safe, quiet anchorage. Fol-

low the river up, say about a mile from its mouth,
and on the south side, around the first bend, just
when you have Cohansey light and Ship John in
range, you will see a little creek, not over thirty
or forty feet wide. There is water enough there,

at all times, for a vessel drawing three and a
half to four feet. I have abundant reason for
remembering that place, for we lay there quietly
through a storm of more than average severity.
Rail-birds were abundant in the last of August,
but out of season.

Were I seeking a place on the bay where I
could go and spend a couple of weeks in Sep-

tember in my yacht, I should, I think, select the
Cohansey. It is accessible, safe, within easy

reach of Sea Breeze, which has daily communi-
cation with Philadelphia, and affords good sailing,
while there is good fishing only a few miles to the
south. Besides this, the water is salt, and the

beach is very good. So far as I know, there are
but two serious objections to the place, — first, the
green-head flies during the heat of the day are
numerous and hungry ; the second is, the number
of mosquitoes at night. I suppose one must en-

dure the former if he would go bathing, but the
second were most effectually excluded from my
cabin by a double thickness of mosquito netting.
I have made no allusion to the western shore

of the lower Delaware Bay for two reasons, — first,
because I know nothing of it; and, second, be-

cause my friends, who have cruised there, do not
speak of it as being so attractive as the eastern
shore.
Below Sea Breeze, the chart shows a conspicuous

landmark, Ben Davis's Point. Using the line and
following the shore into the depths of the little
bay around the point [i.e., south of it), one may

easily run into Back Creek, if he draws no more
than three feet. We found a schooner on the
shoals at its mouth, and were told by the crew
that there were some ugly cross-bars there. Here,
however, a caution is requisite. Going out of this
creek to the south, give the shore a wide berth

until you have passed the black buoy about two
miles to the southward. Between this and the
shore an ugly bar " makes out." We crossed it
in a very heavy sea, and had only a fathom of

water on the hard bottom.
Once the buoy is passed, the yachtsman may

take the shore down to the next resort, Fortescue.
Above this, about a quarter of a mile, there is
another creek, which is safe enough, once the

bar is crossed. I was " brought up" there at half-
tide in a vessel drawing only three feet of water.
From Fortescue to Egg Island Point light

there is enough of water for ordinary yachting
along-shore. If one is familiar with the place, he
may take a pretty direct course from Fortescue to

the light just named. Rounding this point, if
the wind be favorable, even a stranger may keep

a couple of hundred yards from the shore (not
more), and steer north of east to the light-house
south of Maurice River, until the mouth is just
a very little west of north, when he may run past
the buoy on the shoals and into the river. The

landmark for the river-mouth is the ships' black-
smith-shop, which stands a little way up in the
river. There is no building with which it can

be confounded north of the buoy on the shoal.
By following this course I always have entered
Maurice River in a light-draught vessel, but it
must be remembered that, unless you are able to
take the channel close to the shore as you round

Egg Island Point light, then you must give it a

wide berth to avoid a bar, on which I saw a yacht,
drawing only three feet of water, strike last sum-
mer. Wd could only tender sympathy to the un-
fortunates, but it was the crowning mishap to a
long series which they had experienced. There

are other creeks forming good harbors on either
side of the bay from Fort Delaware down to

Maurice River Cove. But the amateur yachtsman
should learn to enter all that I have named, and,
of course, as many more besides as he can.
From Maurice River Cove south, I should say,
no amateur should go until he has become a toler-
ably good sailor, or has one with him, and then

only in a strong, safe, well-provided boat. To
point this statement I would say that in one of
my trips to Maurice River, a boat' several feet
longer than mine came in there and ran ashore.

It was the only thing left for her to do. There
was a very heavy wind and high sea outside.
The captain, who had been hired by the party,
was said to have a chart, and yet, coming up from

Cape May, he managed to get aground, though
drawing but three feet of water ; besides this, he
split his jib and lost his only anchor, and then
16*
;
ran by accident into Maurice River. I say " by

accident," for we were assured that even if he
knew of the place he did not know the way in.
Here was a combination of blunders, — first, to
go out in a boat any part of whose rigging or
ground-tackle was weak, and with but one anchor

second, to trust to a man who was not known to
be a competent navigator in all weather, and who

proved to be wholly unacquainted with the bay.
I wish I could think such trips were rare, but, on
the contrary, I think they are only too common.
There should always be at least two "good-
holding" anchors on board, and, no matter how
heavy the cable may be, it will pay amateurs to
memorize the aphorism that " No chain is stronger
than its zveakest link.''
The sudden coming of squalls in June and July

and part of August tannot be too strongly im-
pressed on the mind ; it may serve as a check on
foolhardiness. Even with a barometer, one cannot

ahua^s predict the severity of a coming squall.
Besides this, too, it should be remembered that the
blackness of the clouds is not necessarily in pro-
portion to the force of the wind. I have observed
that the " saltest" navigators can guess very wide
of the truth on such matters. I have seen the

line of the coming squall on the water, but half a
mile away, look so threatening that I lowered all
my sails and let both anchors go ;

yet when the
wind reached us its force was gone. On the other
hand, I have seen a very severe " blow" where the
previous indications were not in the least alarm-
ing. Sailors have learned to watch the vessels
to the windward, if there be any, and to regulate
their own conduct by the effect of the wind on
the vessels which it first strikes. So far as any
rule for general guidance can be given, this is
about as good as any. But, after all, the one

cardinal precept for such circumstances is. Be
sure you have plenty of ballast, securely fastened,
and as low down as possible. Next to this, never
carry more sail than you actually need. Racing-

rig is no part of a cruising outfit ; and the sooner
we all learn to subordinate speed entirely to
safety, the sooner will the drowning-list be short-

ened enough to make even amateur yachting a
perfectly legitimate and safe way of spending a
vacation.
But this list of platitudes is long enough for

any one man to inflict on his readers. It is to be
hoped that some one else more competent will
complete the needed category.

A genuine water-spout is among the meteoro-
logical phenomena rarely seen by us. Probably
they are not often seen by any one. Lying in
Maurice River, during the storm to which we have

already alluded, we saw a moving column over
the water, rotating just as whirlwinds do. Like
them, too, it was dust-colored (but what colored
this ?). It had the usual hour-glass shape. We
did not see any sign that water was drawn into it
from below, nor did we see any fall from above.

It was not a very dreadful-looking thing, though
what it might have been to a passing vessel is
more than I can conjecture.

Maurice River and the Cove into which it opens
are full of strange life, visible to those who seek
for it. In fact, they are little worlds with, to a
certain extent, characters of their own. The Cove
proper may be said to cover an area of probably
thirty-five square miles. Besides this, there is, ex-
tending south, toward Cape May, and on the same
side of the bay, another shallow area of more than
double this size. The average depth of water in
both of these areas is, at low tide, about eight

feet, in some places becoming as low as three
feet, and in others reaching as much as eighteen
feet.
It is, as most lovers of oysters are aware, a spot

celebrated for "the quality of those bivalves ; and
the trade in them has produced a peculiar class of
vessels, shallow and swift, as well as a peculiar
class of men to sail them.
A few years ago one of a party with which I
was yachting there brought to the surface on his
hook a fish, the like of which our " skipper" and his
associates declared had never been seen in those
waters before. It was a Reinora^ doubtless a wan-

derer from warmer seas. This one was about a
foot long, rather slender, dark-colored, and had
a curious sucking-disk covering the head and the
forward part of the back. The group to which
the Remora belongs has been made the subject of
an enormous weight of encyclopaedic knowledge.
This we present in hope that some one of more
than ordinary comprehension will be able to say
what it really does mean :
" Remora, a genus of
*Some of these species do sometimes get as far north as

Labrador on our coast.
fishes which Cuvier placed among the Discoboli,

but which constitutes an entire family, Echinidse,
near the Scombridae, among Acanthopteri." That
should be lucid enough ; though, on the whole,
we would almost rather accept the ancient notion
that this same Remora was nothing but a fish
whose sucking and adhesive capacity was entirely
out of proportion to its size. Those of long ago

coined the name from the word remorari, because
the nondescript group was alleged to retard sail-
ing-vessels by using the sucking-disk to adhere to
I
their bottoms. Group, we say, because there are
several species of them, some edible, and others
useful in another way, —that is, by attaching them-
selves to turtles, and holding on until Remora and
turtle both, are pulled to the surface by a ring and
line fastened to the tail of the fish and leading to
the hand of a fisherman above.
The sucking-disk on our specimen was about
three inches long. The margin was slightly
raised, thick, soft, and flexible. In the interior of
the inclosure was a series of transverse ridges,
which anatomists assure us are simply modified
parts of the first fin on the back. These have
muscles attached to them, and may be elevated so
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, igi
as to increase the depth of the cavity on the cen-

tral surface of the disk. Thus the vacuum was
formed on which the adhesive power of the disk
depended.
The ancient Romans had the idea that this
fish retarded the progress of ships, as we have
already said ; and this became woven into their
history, and possibly, also, to a certain extent, into
sea-side mythology. Did Antony's vessel fail
to come up in time to the battle of Actium ? It
was, because the Fates had fixed a Rcmora to the

commander's vessel. It is almost a sin to doubt
the tale, but it is probable that Egypt's queen at-
tracted Antony's ships more than the Remora did.
However, to give the fish its due, it does use

this disk to fasten itself to vessels. Stranger still,
it thus attaches itself to other, larger fish, and so

escapes their attacks, — a mode of defence which
appears to be almost unique.
Familiarity with common objects induces a cer-
tain disregard for them, — I do not say contempt,

for the old adage is probably too strong. To my
unaccustomed eyes the external growths on the
shells of living oysters were a source of perpetual
wonder. Sponges and diatoms, one will almost cer-
tainly find, and much more besides. For objects

large enough to be handled, and down to those
visible only through the magic tube which increases

vision a thousand-fold, the oyster-shell furnished
life and foothold. I know it is a great risk for one,

in this science-ridden age, to write about anything
with so hard a name as diatom, to say nothing of
the still larger names with which men of learning

insist on ticketing these little organisms. But if
the public do not care enough for them to ex-

amine and name them, men should not complain
if the universal language of science lays hold on
them. At all events, the long name is no fault
of the little plants, and it were surely hard if the
name should sound so large as to prevent their
case being heard. These diatoms are wonderful

plants, microscopic in size, thriving alike in fresh,
or in salt water, and found in the oceans about

either pole, as well as under the equator. During
their life, in a small way, they render signal ser-
vice to their animal neighbors by giving off

oxygen to the water for them, and by making
•food upon which they may live. When dead,
they leave a solid memorial behind. This memo-

rial is, indeed, the most characteristic thing about
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 1^3
them, and is made of the purest silica, —that sifted,
as it were, by the organs and processes of life,
and then deposited as a shell around the living

part within. The green interior of the diatom
dies, decays, and disappears; but the sandy shell
remains for all time, and may, when in vast numbers,

even serve as a foundation to build cities upon, or
may choke up harbors. It may pass unchanged
in shape, unaltered in its wonderfully delicate
markings, from the depths of the ocean, through
the base of a volcano, and be thrown out in an
eruption, and finally be found, bleached, beautified,
and perfect, thousands of feet above the sea on
the flanks of the fiery peak. This is no fable, but
sober, scientific fact; for on the sides of Mount
Erebus, as near to the south pole as men care to
go, these skeleton memorials may be found now.
Histories, too, these same little plants may be-
come : those of to-day recording for the future the
advance or retreat of ocean, just as those of the
past have, by their sandy shells, declared the re-
treat of the waves from what are now inland spots.
So they tell us of a retreat from Richmond, when,

inch by inch, before man was, the waves in which
the diatoms lived, retired and left the soil on which
in 17
the human hosts contended so recently. The

skeletons of men, the skeletons of diatoms, lying
on the same spot, each tell of strife.
" There rolls the deep, where grew the tree.
O earth ! what changes thou hast seen !

-
There, where the long street roars, hath been

The stillness of the central sea."
Diatom life, whether on, or in the oyster, or

wherever found, is a strange tale, — one which
should hardly be started save in the presence of a
good microscope. Take up some standard work
on botany, and learn how curiously they are re-
produced : by one individual dividing its interior,
living portion into two parts, and then each half

secreting a new shell around its outer face, so that
when these perfected halves become independent
individuals, each is made up of one old and one
new shell. But sooner or later the succeeding

generations become too small to represent the
species, by this mode of reproduction. A new

process now comes in to reproduce full-sized in-
dividuals. Two distinct plants unite, and their
contents grow to maximum size, then take on

their characteristic sandy coat, and begin again
the first mode of reproduction. There is infinite
variety in almost infinitesimal size among these

plants. Look them up, find their illustrations in
Carpenter's work on the Microscope, and be con-

vinced how wonderful they are. Meanwhile let
me ask my fi-iend, Professor Macloskie, to tell, in
his clear way, what hints they furnish. "The

shells (or shields, as they are termed) are chiselled
and ornamented with markings which are charac-

teristic of the twelve hundred or more species
known. Some of them are circular, some ellip-
tical, and so on through varying forms, as tri-
angles, squares, lozenge-forms, fans, boat-forms,
sigma-curves, stars, spiders' web, and the radiant

sun. Fancy may detect all sorts of beautiful
forms in their shields, and artists in the precious

metals may here find an inexhaustible mine of
new suggestions for elegant designs. The shields
are adorned with systems of hollow pyramids or
intersecting lines and bands. High powers of the

microscope, with special arrangements of oblique
illumination, are required to show these, and new
advances in microscopic constructions are signal-
ized by success in resolving diatoms that had
baffled former efforts. Many forms are supposed
to have markings which have not yet been dis-
iq5 vacation cruising in
covered, and there is reason to believe that our

interpretations of some parts are erroneous, be-
cause the light which we employ is made up of
waves which are too coarse for such fine work.

Thus it is not by the fault of the microscope, but
by the clumsiness of light, that we find ourselves
bewildered." * Had Hans Christian Andersen

been fascinated by these small things as much
as some men of less genius are, he would have
clothed their whole life with the charms of a fairy
tale, and made their history plain enough to have
been read in the nursery.
Squids' eggs are those half jelly-like, olive-
shaped bodies which one finds so often in Sep-

tember adhering to the shells of the living oyster.
Some people call them sea-grapes, but the oyster-

men have fearful names for them. They are little,
if any, heavier than water, and hence, when agi-
tated by a heavy storm, the water sweeps over the

cove bottom, and the light bunches of sea-grapes
float away bodily along with the oysters, which
they help to buoy^ up. The oyster-farmer may
* " Macloskie's Botany," p. 220, et seq., a work furnishing exact

information in a most readable form.
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, jg^
thus find his whole crop carried away by the wind

and waves. To be sure, it is almost an unheard-of
thing among landsmen, but the oysterman knows
it; is only too true and too common. " Dumb as
an oyster" is a remark often heard ; but whatever
their intelligence may be, there is no doubt as to
their extreme sensitiveness. A heavy clap of
thunder, or a hard jar received by the vessel car-
rying them, it is affirmed, may kill a whole cargo.
The dip of your oars in the water as you approach
an oyster-bed may cause every one of the thou-
sands of shells, over which you float, to close.
Among the foes with which the oyster has to con-

tend is the crab. Indeed, there comes to us from
the Middle Ages a tale that the crab dropped a
pebble between the open shells, which prevented
their closure, so that, without danger to himself,
he was enabled to capture the animal he was after.
But the little crab which we find inside the

oyster-shell, and which we eat as a luxury, is quite
another animal. Naturalists designate it as Pinno-
theres. One might suppose that so hard a name

was in some way intended as a punishment but ;
the oyster crab is a friend, not a foe, to his host.

This crab is a real nursery, on which multitudes
17*
:;
iq8 vacation cruising in
of still smaller animals, with still larger names,
live, —Zoothamium. It is too bad, but that is
the fact. Now, the whole tale appears to be this

the Zoothamium is on the Pinnotheres, and the
Pinnotheres lives inside the oyster, which, in turn,
eats the Zoothamium. This is all very strange
but that when so insignificant a thing as a Zootha-
mium happens to die, and fall off from the stalk
which supported it, still smaller and less consequen-
tial things
— " rod-like vibriones" —should grow out
of the stalk, is still stranger. It is almost past-
belief that there should be so much besides the
oyster inside the shell ; but as the official docu-

ment, which was prepared with infinite care, says
so, we must believe it to be true. It would be
a very long chapter if we were to tell all that can
be told about the friends and foes of the oyster.

Not only is animal life leagued against it, but the
elements conspire to destroy it. The wind agitates
the water, this stirs up the fine mud and sand,

which, entering the open shell, fill the oyster's
respiratory organs, and it dies from suffocation.
The statement would be incredible, if it were not

made on the best authority, that not one out of a
million eggs spawned becomes an adult, edible
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, jgg
oyster. The very process of fecundation in our

American oyster involves a chance against the
species ; for the eggs and the male elements are
left to meet as best they can after extrusion from
the animal, and can only complete the reproductive
function if wind or tide bring them in contact.
Hence appears the urgent need of such investi-
gations as those undertaken by the general and

by some of the State governments. The impor-
tance of this oyster trade, now in its infancy, may
be estimated, when it is known that the value,
at first hand, of the Delaware Bay crop each

year is about ^2,425,000. Our young life on
this continent has produced marked deviations in
our way of looking at things as compared with

Old World views. Older nations have learned by
experience to husband national, as well as indi-
vidual, resources. But two and a half centuries
ago our ancestors landed on these Western slopes,
and found them so prolific in forest wealth that
before an acre could be cultivated it must be
cleared. Just about two hundred years back, good
William Penn wrote most enthusiastically con-
cerning the food which the waters contained.
Abundance in flood and in forest, induced habits

of extravagance, which have become so deeply-
instilled that we can hardly recognize the tradi-

tional wisdom of older countries, even when it is
pointed out. We have come to regard our pam-

pered habits of life and thought as the normal
ones. Now, in the full vigor of early youth, with
high hopes of an unexampled prosperity before
it, the nation finds it has squandered the good
things of its heritage. The forests are disappear-
ing from the land and the fish from the sea. By
great good fortune, prophets came to warn and
masters to teach. Baird, Hough, Price, Sargent,
Brooks, and Ryder are names that will be better

known half a century hence, even than now, be-
cause the importance of their present work will
appear greater as time passes. Because a wise
man, who was a power in the land, and who but
lately left us to join the " silent majority," said he
had no heart for scientific investigation after it
became useful, other weaker ones, without his

genius, have emblazoned his watchword on their
banners.
Let it be known, then, that the names recorded
above, are of those, who do not scorn to make
their knowledge useful, however much they value
CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 20I
it in the abstract. The streams restocked with

fish, the beds replenished with oysters are practi-
cal illustrations of the value of science, worth as
much as ever was or ever can be written on the
morphology of the star-fish. I do not disparage
the value of the latter, either. All abstract scien-
tific studies confer standing and power on the
nation, but their extreme advocates must not re-
veal to the world how one-sided their studies may

have made them, or they will bring all science
into contempt. Scientific arrogance is the spirit
which, of all others, the culture of succeeding
generations will least tolerate. Even abstract sci-
ence may come to be regarded in the future much

as we regard some learned pursuits of earlier
times, though I sincerely hope not.
One out of a million oyster eggs reaches ma-

turity ! It was somewhat so once with fish spawn.
But now these dwellers in the deep appear to be
transplanted and hatched, one is tempted to say,
wîth about the same certainty as chickens. Within
the year, the daily papers have told us that John
Ryder had succeeded in raising young oysters,
after artificial fecundation of the eggs, in natural
inclosures. This is one of the great achievements

of the age. It is a food-producing conquest over

the thousand causes which conspired against starv-
ing men and women. Let it be told all over the
land, that towards this end, that patient investi-
gator has worked when others slept ; worked when

others saw no reward for his labors ; worked year
in and year out with a persistency which was
sublime. It is just such studies that the govern-
ment does well to encourage. The following ex-
tract comes from the American of November loth,
1883:
OYSTER-BREEDING FROM ARTIFICIALLY-FERTIL-

IZED EGGS.
Mr. John A. Ryder, embryologist to the United States Fish
Commission, to whose labors in oyster culture we had occasion to
refer in the columns of a recent issue of this journal, thus briefly
summarizes the results of his latest researches in this important
branch of economical biology : " While it is too soon to affirm
that artificial breeding may be profitably available on an extensive

scale in practical oyster culture, our experiment has demonstrated
a number of very important facts. These are : (i) Oyster spat
maybe reared from artificially-fertilized eggs; (2) the spat will
grow just as fast in such inclosures [artificially-excavated ponds,

connected by a guarded passage-way with the open water of the
sea] as in the open water; (3) food is rapidly generated in such
inclosures ; (4) the density of the water in the ponds is not ma-
terially afi'ected by rains or leaching from the banks ; (5) ponds
are readily excavated in salt-marsh lands, and can in all prob-
ability be used for fattening and growing Ostrea Virghiica for
market just as successfully as Ostrea edidis and angulata are

grown by a similar method on the coasts of France. Pond cul-
ture where there are salt marshes adjoining arms of the sea, the
waters of which have a density below 1.020, can doubtless be
carried on profitably in connection with intelligent use of simple,
cheap collecting apparatus placed in both open and confined

waters to catch a 'set' of spat, which can then be transferred to
ponds or open beds."
When we were in Maurice River there was

nothing to indicate the activity which the first
day of September would bring to those waters.
Then a hundred sail, or more, of trim sloops and

schooners, manned by hardy, enterprising sailors,
would move to and fro across the dredging-
grounds, plying a vocation which promises to
grow into still more stupendous proportions.
It is a source of regret that the child-like, but

not too moral sailor of a generation ago is disap-
pearing from our wharves. He of the old type,

who made the hour of the young ebb tide wildly
melodious with his songs as he " hove the anchor

short," or hoisted sail for departure to " furrin
parts," may have gone with the advent of the un-
welcome, alien, steam " ocean tramps" that carry
—
our produce away, when we should do it ourselves.
But in a measure, this new race, landsmen in
summer and oystermen in winter, has taken his

place. Go among them, and you will find them a
class by themselves, who have theirown language
and their own views of life. They may be as
rough and as hard-shelled as the bivalve they
capture, but, then, like it, they are good enough
within. Sharp at a bargain, mayhap suspicious
of new-comers, you will 'find them generous to a
friend.You can trust them in the hour of need, and
may feel sure that a favor is never lost on them.
On our inland waters there is no harder life than
that which they lead in winter. So long as their
vessels " can live" and carry sail there is no

weather in which they do not go. Their business
is fairly remunerative, — at least, enough so to make
them stick to it from early manhood on. There
is no " easy berth" on their boats, and one would
find, that life through they
" Tugged at it night and day,
Till each was a saint in glory,
If he happened to go that way,"
I cannot help admiring the persistent fortitude

with which they work and sail when even the

decks and rigging are covered with ice, and always
think of them as a sort of subdued Vikings, with
all the hardihood of the prototype, and none of
the viciousness which Taine has so vigorously
portrayed.
This oyster-dredging is very suggestive, and a
person wonders, when he sees the vessels dragging
their great iron rakes over the oyster-beds, and
finds the men amid the filth and discomfort of the
business, that so many are willing to engage in it.
But, then, take our ship of state. See her sail-
ing over the shoals and dragging a host of rakes

that stir up more mud and dirtier than all the
dredges of Maurice River Cove, fouling as they
go, the surroundings in which quiet folk must live.
Probably, after all, hunting oysters is a cleaner,

more reputable profession than hunting office.
There is one peculiarity about the inhabitants
of Central and Southern New Jersey. I say pe-
culiarity because I have nowhere else seen the
characteristic so marked. I mean their rational
enjoyment of life. Busy as the busiest at times,

yet, again, say in August, you may find them,
sometimes by thousands, often by hundreds, at the
2o6 VACATION CRUISING IN
shore of the bay, near Maurice River, engaged in

a thoroughly old-fashioned picnic. Such a time as
they have refreshes a whole neighborhood, and

brushes away the gloom and business monotony
from an entire community. I have somewhere
read that once a year the Laplander brings his
reindeer from off the mountains and moorlands to
the sea-shore, and allows them there to drink and
to bathe in the salt water to their full content, that
they may go away invigorated for the rest of the

year. Just so these sensible folk gather at the
bay from miles and miles away to renew their
youth, meet their friends, and to wash the burden
of daily care from off their souls. Some come in
wagons, some in vessels by water, some tent on the

mosquito-plagued shore, but all enjoy themselves.
Wet, stormy days, when one does not sail, are
not wholly lost time. There is some quiet enjoy-
ment, if not, indeed, a sort of education^ gained by
lying in the berth and listening to the rain patter-
ing on deck. It may be that in some corner of
the brain lurks a cell or two whose characteristics
are inherited from agile ancestors that swung by

prehensile tails under the palm-leaves of tropical
forests, and enjoyed such shelter because they had
no better. How else can we explain the pleasure

with which men listen to the falling rain-drops on
the tent ? I suppose those were what most active
men would call lazy days ; but this term is quite
too hard. They were, rather, recuperative days,

in which animal energy was stored, until its very
excess obliged us to break out into some exercise
of mind or body.
In " Mose" this explosion was usually retro-
spective in character. He was not exactly " rocked
in the cradle of the deep," but he began " goin' to

sea when he cudn't do nuthing but run roun' de
deck." His brain is full of stormy remembrances,
and I suppose it is pleasant when one is in a good,
quiet harbor to call back to mind the storms when
there was no such resting-place available. " Mose"
meditates a long time, then he breaks out suddenly
with, " Cap'n, dis heah 'minds me." " Of what,
Mose?" I like to encourage yarns in the cabin
when the wind is me

whisthng outside. They make
content to stay where I am and await more peaceful
weather. " Dis heah 'minds me ob de nite I was a
comin' out'n de Potomac in January. It was a
snowin' and a blowin', and we was loaded down
deep, and had a big deck-load on. Cap'n, he put
;
2o8 VACATION CRUISING IN
de schooner in Cornfield Harbor, and jis when he

was a goin' to let de anker go, de wind cum round
fi-om de sou'east. *
Dis heah ain't no good place
fur us, boys,' sais de cap'n. We hauled de sheets
aft, and headed de schooner cross de Potomac fur
Yeocomico River ; but afore we got dere de wind

hauled round, first one way, den anoder way, and
it jist howled and blowed all it knowed how.
Did you say dark ? Yes, you cudn't see yur hand
and itsnow'd till it cudn't snow no harder. I
reckin we was half-way acrosst when we split our
jib ; den we parted our main-sheet. Dis heah is *
dangersum, or wuss, boys,' says cap'n. Fust a

gust wud hit her, till you'd a thought everything
would go den a back flaw wud
; strike her, and way
wud go de boom, till we spected it wud jist carry
de masts out. Twicet we boys went into de rig-
gin' ; but den dat wusn't no good place, fur suah.

Sartin as dem sticks went out'n her we'd gone, too.
All on a sudden cap'n sings out, '

Boys, dis head-
wind's gwine to cum steddy out'n de sou. Hard a
lee !'
sais he. De schooner cum up into de wind
and looked out into de bay. Reckin was 'bout
midnite wen we headed north, and I tell you it was
squally, fur suah. We shuk a reef out'n de main-
!
s'l, and started fur Patuxent. We know'd drivin'
her so hard was openin' de ole schooner's seams J
but we was goin' sumwere wen we did git started.
I tell you, de decks was wet and slippery w.id

slush. Purty soon de wind settled down and cum
from sou'east, and den it jist screamed ; but we
kep' her goin'. I tell you we give her all de can-
vas she'd stand. 'Twas a sin how we made her
carry sail. Reckin 'twas 'bout three o'clock in de
mornin' wen we let her anker go in Patuxent.
Wen I went below dat nite I kinder made up my
mind dat I'd quit de bisness. Dat was nigh on't
seven years ago ; and here I am, on de water yit."
" And what a vision greets their weary gaze
What realms of wonder, chaos of wild dreams

Out-chaosed, kingdoms and seas of tumult!"
Watching the " fiddler"— that is, the " fiddler

crab" {Gelasimus pugilator) —was a sort of kill-
time employment for a wet day. In what one-

sided currents the thoughts of men run ! How
many profound memoirs our naturalists have
written upon bilateral symmetry as illustrated in
the animal kingdom ! yet not a single paper has
been produced on the quadrilateral awkwardness
of this betwixt-tide nondescript. Some friends of
18*
mine have, by eavesdropping and spying in his
muddy domain, been inquiring into his habits ; but

it is little they have discovered concerning him,
save that, come day or come night, when the tide
is out, he is most industriously engaged in carry-
ing dirt out of the depths of his burrow. So far,
THE FIDDLER CRAB.
then, as known, his highest ambition is to dig his
cellar deeper. Go ashore and see the flying troop

darting towards the shelter of their homes, and
then stopping outside, to see if you will come
closer. They do have a use, however, that of
serving to illustrate certain human peculiarities,
— crabbcdness as associated with cowardliness.

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS, 2II
Sometimes, when approached, that one overshad-

owing claw is raised in a warning and in a " come-
if-you-dare" spirit ; but walk one step nearer, and
it is instantly lowered to where the back and
shoulders ought to be, while the whole ungainly
anatomy trundles hastily away under the burden
of that same threatening arm. Amphibious, — well,
one must neither think nor say things too hard

about an animal whose hold on life is limited to
the narrow strip of earth between high- and low-
water. Long before this, most of those who
started with him must have gone for good to one
element or the other. If he does excite our sym-

pathy for the hardness of his lot, he, at the same
time, awakens our-âdmiration when we see the
fleet-footed, multitudinous progeny he has raised
on this undesirable, abandoned shore-line.
When we left Camden we started with an in-
dustrious colony of ants on board. How they

came was always a mystery, for the boat had
never once been alongside of a wharf during our
stay there. We were no sooner started than they
appeared, and then disappeared. Where they
went was equally a mystery, and one which we
never solved ; but before long we learned to as-
sociate their reappearance with a falling barometer.
V/hen a storm threatened, these ants (and along

with them the flies) came out in force ; but a more
harmless set of stowaways than they never stole
passage on any vessel. They neither troubled our
provisions, nor came about us by day, or by night.
Man's inhumanity has been well denounced;

one sees it everywhere, sometimes absolutely
needful, sometimes pardonable, sometimes inex-
cusable, but always and everywhere unpleasant to
contemplate. It is not in the mere destruction

of life that its greatest iniquity lies, but in the
torture inflicted upon animals which are small and
of but little use as food. I can hardly think that
the slaughter of an ox brings with it the pain that
a fractured limb does to an unlucky bird. There

were places along the Delaware (and elsewhere)
where bird-murder was at its height in August.
Early in the morning, and at dusk in the evening,
when the birds were flying most actively, the
guns were heard constantly. All available places

where the passing flocks could alight, were
chosen by "pot-hunters" for their blinds, whence,
the instant the birds stopped, the contents of one
or both barrels were poured into them. At
many places along the usual lines of flight in the

marshes, dead bushes were raised to aflbrd resting-
places, and thus to tempt the weary birds to stop
and meet their fate. It is not for those killed
outright that I raise this "hue and cry." That
may all be justified by the mouthful of nutriment
each small body furnishes. It has, too, a market
value. But how about the scores of maimed
victims, with broken wings and legs, that each
day of such sport, or such business, leaves suffer-
ing or starving in the marshes? If there were

a single element in such shooting which could
take away the curse of cold-blooded torture, it
might be looked upon with toleration. Is there
no more sportsmanlike, less horrible, and equally-

lucrative manner in which this business can be
carried on ?
One is likely to be regarded as super-sensi-

tive for finding fault with such deeds. The
charge may be true enough as public opinion
goes, and if it is, then I hasten to accept it with
all the demerit which attaches to it. I am in full
sympathy with those maimed victims, and utterly

out of sympathy with their destroyers. At the
same time, I was and still am fond of the rod and
the gun and of all the legitimate uses that these im-
plements imply. It should be a cardinal doctrine
among genuine sportsmen never to kill game
simply for the sake of killing it, and never to
shoot at a game-bird or quadruped without the
chance of killing it outright, or of finding it when
wounded.
I never saw so few brilliant, nocturnal phos-
phorescent displays in the water as this year (1883).
There is a pleasure in listening to the sound of
distant steamer-paddles. It is almost past belief
how far they can be heard. More than once we rec-
ognized the solid beat of the " Republic's" wheels

before she was in sight. On one occasion this same
steamer gave us a remarkable illustration of the
interception of sound. We were then lying on
the New Jersey side, a few miles below Fort Dela-
ware. The steamer passed down on the western
side, perhaps a mile away ; every stroke of her pad-

dles could be distinctly heard. Suddenly she ran
behind a large sailing-vessel, and (making allow-
ance for passage of sound over the intervening dis-
tance) the sound ceased almost absolutely, to begin
again at the proper moment after she came out

from behind the sailing-vessel. I think I never
before had so striking an illustration of intercepted

sound.
It is astonishing what a wealth of sounds there
is about us in the night-time, when we are camp-
ing out in the forest, or when we listen for them
on the water. True, there are some nights, when

the stillness of death is everywhere, but on the
average night, the air is full of sounds, which we
only recognize when we listen for them. The
rain-drops on the oak-leaves, the stealthy tread of
some prowling animal, or the murmur of the water
as it comes rippling against the boat-sides are
all musical in my ears. I cannot understand or
enjoy the music of Wagner: I am not sure that
I ever could find anything in it which would
strengthen me ; but that of the rain-drops, or the
murmur of the water within a foot of my head,
is full of healthy influences for me. All the music
of the masters is in its very youth compared with
these.
If one is only in the secrets of nature, he will

find that there is no wind but has its own distinct
character. The south wind in early spring-time
is very different from that of the dog-days. It
brings with it other ideas, and touches our faces,

— —
2i6 VACATION CRUISING IN
or plays with our hair, awakening other emotions.

Then the east wind is as full of gloom as it is
of fog. It darkens and depresses until the sufferer

no longer wonders that Holmes inquired whether
it ever reached Paradise. Euroclydon has a bad
character. But full of promise and of exaltation
is the west wind. It comes laden with healing
powers gathered from all the plants of prairies and
of plains, and these purified by sifting through the
hemlock boughs on our mountain-tops. No one
can mistake that which comes from the north. It
is so sincere and earnest that, lying in the berth

below deck, one may recognize its whistle in the
rigging. In homely phrase the western poet
describes its doings truly and pathetically when
he tells what it does in autumn,
" They's somepin kind o' hearty like about the atmosphere
When the heat o' summer's over and the coolin' fall is here.
Of course, we nuss the flowers and the blossoms on the trees,

And the mumble of the hummin' birds and buzzin' of the bees ;
But the air's so appetizin', and the landscape through the haze
-Of a crisp and sunny morning of the early autumn days
Is a picture that no painter has the colorin' to mock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock."
The rapidity of the tide in Delaware Bay is a

revelation to one who has been accustomed only

to sailing on the Chesapeake. When two cur-
rents meet, a well-marked " tide-rip" is produced,
which in the Chesapeake would certainly be re-
garded as indicating shoal water. In the Dela-

ware Bay, however, this may be found over very
deep water, as may be seen where the ebb tide from
Salem Creek meets with that in the Delaware.
Of course, there are places in the Delaware where
shoals are indicated by just such rips. One ap-
pears at certain stages of the water on the bar
between Delaware City and the head of Reedy
Island, and another just above Cohansey light, on
the New Jersey side.
Following down along the " rip" formed by the
ebb from Salem Creek, I was surprised to find
how sharply the line was maintained for miles be-
low where the currents making it, first met. This
was clearly shown by the floating staminate (male)
flowers of the Zizania, or water-rice, —the tall grass

which forms the mass of the reed-like vegetation
along the muddy shores of Salem Creek. No
doubt, a little later we should have found that
some, at least, of the matured seeds were being
transported from their place of growth to a new
K 19
2i8 VACATION CRUISING IN
point at which they might begin a young colony

of water-rice. It was a good illustration of the
means by which the geographical distribution of
plants -is effected now and has been for, no one

knows, how many centuries. From some chance
seed the new island, just emerging from beneath
the surface, might receive its first vegetation.
Under such circumstances it would probably grow
and speedily cover the whole marshy spot. If, on
the other hand, this water-rice seed had been
drifted to shores already occupied, even if it
reached there with the germ in healthy condition,

there would have still been doubt as to its success
in obtaining a foothold. It must then have con-
tended with the other occupants of the soil, and
the victory would have been decided by, first, the
inherent fitness of each of the contending plants
for the place ; and, second, by the capacity each
had for adapting itself to new conditions of life as
they might arise. (As a matter of fact, the seed of

the water-rice, along the Delaware, is pretty sure to
be successful.) This struggle for existence every

observer knows to be more than a Darwinian
dream. It has been active ever since earth be-
came a life-crowded surface; and in all places
where soil and climate furnished the rations upon

which the hves of the battling armies depended,
the struggle has been kept up. What the floating
flowers of the Delaware suggested, then,îs no
narrow problem limited to the waters on which we
sailed. It might be comforting to our pride if we
could think that mankind was exempted from the
limitations imposed by this relentless law. But it
is all-embracing, and man, as a link in the food-

needing chain of life, has written his own struggling
history, in conquest, over other living links in the
same chain. Our cleared acres and our tunnelled

mountains are eloquent witnesses of the contests
we have had, and of the victories we have won in
competition with each other and with the soil from

which our bread must come. But high over the
curse comes the blessing; the strengthened sur-
vivors are themselves better fitted to enjoy what
they have gained, and to transmit a full vigor to
those whom they beget. Natural selection is in-
flexible. Competition, vigor, and perpetuity are

joined in the eternal order.
Our larger plants have well-defined geographi-
cal areas over which each particular species may

range. Only a few are really cosmopolitan in
character. But this year I encountered a small

lichen, growing upon the trees at the water's edge,
which, from some starting-point, has encircled the

globe. It is known to inhabit every continent,
and the islands of Polynesia as well. Still, it is a

wee thing, seldom growing an inch long, with
branching, gray or greenish-gray stem, and a small
golden-colored cup on the end of its branches.
Botanists have called it TJidoschistes clDysopthal-
imis. They have other names for it, but this one
is hard enough, so I will not allude to the others.
I cannot give it an English name, for I do not
know that it has one. This only shows how very
little it has been noticed by common folk yet it is ;
older probably than any race of men on earth, and

has reared a thriving colony in every quarter of
the globe. We speak of our Anglo-Saxon as the
greatest colonizing race, but it seems we must
rest that claim upon other ground than mere dis-
persion, and occupation of territory ; for this little
lichen has planted more colonies, reared more

and larger generations, and endured more than
our noble English stock.
The particular species I have named has a near
relative, more dwarfed still, — one which crouches
down closely to the surface of rock, or bark, to
which the winds have carried its spore (seed), and

on which the rain has nourished its growing tissue.
Almost anything, living or dead, serves as a start-

ing-point for its humble life. I have it from the
moss-banks of Unalaska, from the trees of Massa-
chusetts and New Brunswick, from the bones of
some unfortunate sailor, whose remains were found
bleaching on the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and
from the wreck of the cedar boat which lay
by his side. I have gathered this same species
where it grew more than two hundred feet up in
air, on the stones in the spire of the Strasburg

Cathedral, in Southern Germany. Let me ask,
What is the purpose in creation of this lichen, so

widely diffused, thriving under circumstances so
different, resisting the intense glare of the sun on
the one hand, and the cold of the polar winter on
the other ? Evolutionist that I am, I can see in
development nothing which contravenes Divine in-
tention. Say, if you will, that I am sodden in
sentiment ;
yet, I will still confess that I never see
these rough, slow-growing things without wishing
to sit down and question them on their own his-
tory and on the history of men that has been

! —
enacted around them. Lichens though they be,

humble, repulsive, rejected by men, for all that,
they have sensibilities so refined that amid the at-
mospheric impurities where factory chimneys pour

forth their black volumes they produce less fruit
than where sunshine, shower, and clouds take the

place of smoke.
These and the larger plant- wanderers we can
trace by the unassisted vision ; but there exists a
class so small as to defy our poor eyesight,
germs, microscopic in size, that float in the air,
nestle on and in living or dead plants, penetrate

into our lungs, or find their way into our very
blood and marrow, there to breed disease which

may decimate a community. These are the true
cosmopolites of the vegetable kingdom. Strange
that the smallest, apparently most delicate, living
things should be most ubiquitous, and actually the

most hardy
It is a strange, dual life that lichens possess.
Cut them through, making a section so thin

as to be transparent, and when you have placed
this under a microscope you will see two dis-
tinct anatomical elements in their structure,
first, a set of colorless, branching, hollow threads;

and second, some round green bodies, whose size
might be stated as about the one-thousandth of an

inch in diameter. There is concerning each of
these elements a long history : on the one part, a
tale of theft, and on the other, one of servitude.*
The colorless threads are almost identical with
those which we find making the mould on our
bread and cheese, or with those which in a more
compact form make up the ordinary mushroom.
These green bodies are just such as one may find
on cold,damp brick walls, or occasionally forming

a green scum on the surface of stagnant pools. It
is a strange marriage, this, between the colorless
threads and the green bodies, but certainly, so far
as the threads are concerned, it is a union for life.
As a rule, only such parts of plants as possess

green color are capable of making their own food
out of the inorganic elements around them. The
threads must be helpless but for the green bodies
to which they unite themselves, and from which
they draw their sustenance.
Hence it appears that these fungal-like threads
* In giving this version of lichen life, I am not ignorant of

Mink's researches, but do n^t adopt them, because I cannot set
'
aside so easily the observations of Schwendener and Stahl.

cannot live without the green algae, for such the

round bodies are, though the latter are quite capa-
ble of an independent existence. When did these
algae begin their life on this globe ? It must have
been in early geological time, —so long ago that
when we attempt to reduce the intervening period
between then and now to years, the mind staggers

under the effort to grasp the vast interval. Prob-
ably we never shall know when they first came.
Their tender tissues are so poorly adapted to
preservation that they might have existed from all
time and never have left a trace among the fossils

to testify as to their being. If one is ever found
here or there among the pages of the rocky
record, it will be simply by rare good luck. That
they began life exclusively as water-plants there
can be no doubt. Now they are, in one form or an-
other, present everywhere in places where sunlight
and dampness exist. Often either the mature alga
or its spore is caught up by the wind and carried
away to a pond, or, may be, it to the limb of a
tree, or possibly to a damp wall. It is often of small

importance to the plant on which of these places
the wind drops it. The chances are that it will
grow, though to a certain extent the character of

its growth, its final shape, may depend on the loca-

tion which accident has given Freedom in a flow-
it.
ing stream, or even space on a damp wall, may allow

it to grow into a chain of small cells, which at least
serves to illustrate the first steps toward a compli-
cated organism ; but let the fungal threads seize

upon that stray cell or spor^, cramp its energy, and
dwarf its growth, and throughout its whole career
it may remain in the simplest form, —that of a
single cell. Fed upon by a parasite, nothing can
become so great or noble as when master of its
own resources. Still, there is even for the impris-

oned alga one honor: it does the best possible
under the circumstances, and by yielding to an in-
exorable fate, produces the lichen which in its own

way serves many useful purposes. More than
once the lichens of Arctic regions have furnished
food to starving men. And habitually they are
the staple food of the Laplanders' reindeer in
winter. There is much more which one might
say even of so inconspicuous a group of plants as
the lichens, all of which, too, would be suggested
by the yellow-capped specimen we found on the
trees by the bay-side ; but this is not a treatise on
botany.
—
The vessels seen on the Delaware are as char-

acteristic of their work as any vehicles seen on
land can be. You may recognize the oyster-boats
not more by the large black figures on their main-
sails, than by their shoal, sharp character. Then,
here and there you meet one of the canal schooners
with short bowsprit and with masts made to lower.
They have high, straight sides, but little shoulder,
and are about as hideous models as one can see

anywhere. Besides this, they are dangerous in
heavy weather. There still linger a few of* the
sloops built thirty years ago as freighters. They

have great beam, light draught, and immense
spars, with not a trace of the clipper-bow. The
type seems to be disappearing very fast, only
lingering in the form of sloops destined to carry
stones or other equally heavy material. The hay-

vessel, when you see her loaded, is a phenomenon.
The illustration shows one I found lying along-
side a " Jersey marsh." A person might well ask
whether those who sailed in her had any remem-
brance of what " centre of gravity" meant. Two
days after the picture was taken she passed down
Maurice River. Her deck-load of hay was then so
high that the boom and sail could just clear it^
that is, the hay was about twice as high as the pic-
ture shows. It was a threatening evening when
she went out into the bay. Fortunately she found
a quiet bit of water behind the Egg Island light,
and there awaited calmer weather. I have seen

these great masses out where the water was so
rough that I could hardly help inquiring whether
the law of gravitation was suspended in their
favor ; if it was not, then what force kept them

from capsizing? The disparity in size between
the hay and the vessel was so great as to call to

mind the Hindoo notion that the earth was carried
on the back of a tortoise.
These large three-masted schooners which are

now so common, but a few years back were almost
a novelty. Coasting appears to be their chief oc-

cupation, not because they are unable to under-
take longer voyages, — for they could circum-
navigate the globe, —but because the increased
coastwise trade of the nation has grown enough
to give occupation to that large and enterprising
fleet. At the same time, too, our railroads have
largely increased their own tonnage. Day after day,

as we lay in, or near Salem Creek, we could see
the Reading steam colliers passing up and down.
Probably there were on the average daily two each

way that passed in the day-time. Besides them,
however, there was a fleet of these large schoon-
ers engaged also in coal-carrying. Ten years ago a
schooner of over three hundred tons was regarded
as a large vessel ; now it is not unusual to find
one three times that size. In fact, it is said to
be hardly worth while for a vessel of less than five
hundred tons to attempt to compete in the carry-
ing trade to any important port.

So far as we could see, the American Line
(proper) of four ships were the only steamers
going to Europe that carried the American flag.
Not a day passed, however, that several large

foreign steamers, bound in, or out, did not go by.
They were mostly of that unpopular class known
to sailors as " ocean tramps," —that is, they be-
longed to no regular line, and were bound to no
regular port, but took whatever offered and to
whatever destination it was consigned, provid-
ing it paid. Of course, they were mainly Eng-
lish.
There is, in the abstract, something very fasci-
nating in the idea of " ocean tramping," — that is,
in going where one wills, as a citizen of the world.

But looked at from a practical, patriotic, or selfish
stand-point, those same tramps are, or ought to

be, to every American the objects of utter abom-
ination.
Their large aggregate tonnage represents just

so much of our own products taken hence by-
others, when we should carry most of it in our
own vessels. They represent fearful odds against

ourselves in any contest we might have with a
foreign power. They indicate how many seamen
some other nation has, and how few we soon will
have, if we continue to extend all aid and comfort
to foreign vessels. They tell of our decline as a
naval power, and of all that is implied in possible

marine dominion.
Aside from the direct importance as a means
of living to a considerable portion of our popula-
tion, foreign trading in our own ships is still, and
always has been, justly regarded as furnishing a
school where, in time of peace, we should train
and encourage those who were to uphold the

honor of the flag on the high seas in time of war.
Even yet, in an emergency, just a few such char-
acters as Paul Jones might be sharp thorns in an
enemy's side that would require a good many
vessels to be kept in the safe shelter of home

waters by a foe.
Finding fault is a sorry feature in any book.

Still, itmay not be regarded as unpardonable to
ask how long before the assembled wisdom of the
nation, meeting in Washington, can devise some
means of encouraging home maritime enterprise ?
The lost industry and the lost revenue should be

restored to us. It is probably a safe political prin-
ciple to act upon, that every productive interest
or business should be made as large and as per-

manent as possible. Passing up and down the
Delaware, I see the great ship-yard of Roach, at
Chester. It alone has, since 1871, turned out

over one hundred and sixty-seven thousand tons
of carrying capacity in the vessels built there.
What would be the effect upon the nation, if this
and the other well-known yards along the same

stream were furnished constant employment in
building vessels for our own sailors to carry our

own produce to foreign marts ?
Without indorsing or denying the validity of
the arguments, I insert the following from the

New York Herald of December 28th, 1883. If
XhQ facts are as stated, they alone should awaken

; : ;
the most serious thought, whatever be the remedy

required
In pursuance of the same subject the following is a passage
from the interview with Mr. Grace
" What influence has the tariff on American shipping ?"

" It has done all in its power to destroy it. In 1855, 75
per cent, of our carrying trade was done in our own ships.
I have not a dollar invested in shipping, and cannot therefore be

accused of partiality in the matter. Well, when our civil war
broke out our merchants in self-defence sold out or put their ships
under foreign flags. When the war closed we found ourselves
under a law forbidding us to buy our ships back, or to have any
ships whatever except such as we built here ourselves. Our com-
merce then began to dwindle. In 1867 we had but 34 per cent,
of the carrying trade, in 1878 we had 22 per cent,, in 1880 we

had 17 per cent., in 1881 we had 16 per cent., and if we keep on
as we have begun we will soon have to hire foreign vessels to dis-
play an American ensign for us, in order to assure the world that
there was once an American flag upon the high seas."
" Do you think we can ever build ships here?"

" Yes, and iron ones, too, if you will only abolish the duties on-
all the materials that enter into a. ship. It may surprise you to
know that at this moment I have on hand a contract to have a

couple of American steamers built for South American rivers.
Now, we cannot build these steamers as cheaply as they can on
the Clyde. Everything we use is taxed so highly that it would be

absurd to hope to do so. The duty on hemp and tow, for instance,
is ^20 a ton ; the duties on chemicals and stuffs that go into paints
are from 20 to 25 per cent. ; iron is taxed from 60 to 75 per cent.
steel, 45 per cent, now; machinery and tools pay a duty of 45 per
cent. ; copper pays nearly ^90 a ton duty. In short, if you run
over a ship from truck to keelson, you can hardly touch an article
that is not made dearer by our protective tariflf." *
* This abstract is reliable beyond question, and comes from the

American of January 26th, 1884. The tonnage list from 1874
down makes a sad showing.
Among the details furnished by the report from the Bureau of
Statistics upon the commerce and navigation of the United States
for 1883 are those relating to the ship-building of the country last
year. They show that there were constructed in all 126S vessels
of all sorts, with a tonnage of 265,429.91 tons. Of this number,

829 were sailing- and 439 steam-vessels; 881 were built on the Atr
lantic and Gulf coasts, 91 on the Pacific coast, 171 on the Northern
lakes, and 125 on the Western rivers. The comparison made by
this showing with that of other years is presented in the following
table. It gives the number and tonnage of vessels of all classes.
both sail and steam, built n the United States in the years stated
Years. Number. Tonnage.

1874 . 2147 432,725
1875 I30I 297,638
1876 . III2 203,585
1877 1029 176,591
1878 1258 235,503
1879 1 132 193,030

1880 902 157,409
1881 1 1 08 280,458
1882 1371 282,269
1883 1268 265,429

What we want first of all is a hearing of the

facts throughout the land ; their statement should
not be limited to Washington. The sooner they
are everywhere known, the sooner will a remedy
grow out of public pressure. " The power behind
the throne" is here, if anywhere, "mightier than
the throne." This much is clear, that when
there are so many foreign vessels engaged in
our trade, and so few of our own, something is
wrong which should bejnade right.
Aside from this legitimate discontent with the

existing condition, on the nation's account, Phila-
delphians might be pardoned for much dissatisfac-
tion on their own account. Granting the fact that
New York's easy access to the ocean has placed

her ahead of all competition as the chief port
of the nation, yet as a great manufacturing city,
whose growth and prosperity will be largely meas-

ured by the condition of the Delaware River,
Philadelphia can hardly be long contented with
The whole number of iron vessels built in the United States in
1883 was 35, of which only one was a sailing-vessel. These were
nearly all built at the yards along the Delaware, —twenty-three at
Philadelphia and Chester, eight at Wilmington, —the others coming,

one from Baltimore, one from Buffalo, and two from New York.
20*
the wretched channels in the stream between her-

self and the ocean. A better idea of Philadel-
phia's claims in this respect may be had on re-
membering that the last (tenth) census places her
invested manufacturing capital at ;î 87, 148,857,
yielding a product to the value of ;^324,342,955.

The only classes who can in any way be content
with such narrow water-ways are pilots and tug-
boat owners, and we are willing to credit them with
an honest desire to see wider and deeper channels.
Besides the other evident signs of suffering which
Philadelphia's commerce shows, comes (at latest
hour) the rumor that several of her tug-boats are

to be taken (for want of remunerative employ-
ment in the Delaware) to New York. It should
also be said (in an undertone) that so long as our
government is willing to leave New York Harbor
in its present defenceless condition, so open to
foes, it should be the more unwilling to leave the
next important sea-port so difficult of access by
friends.
There was, but a few years ago, a righteous in-
dignation throughout the country over the vast

sum squandered in improving inland, unnavigable
streams. The fault lay, not in the sum appro-

priated, so much, as in the use to be made of it.
There are scores of places in the Delaware where

it would, in the long run, be a true economy to
expend more than the most liberal Congress has
ever granted for it.
The wrecks inside, or in sight of, the Delaware

Breakwater are eloquent witnesses to the insuffi-
ciency of what has been done there. The next
generation will wonder that it was reserved for
it to afford at that point something better than

a snare for the storm-stayed mariner. Shoals and
wrecks have often gone too long unbuoyed. In
Maurice River Cove, for a long time, a wreck,
which was covered at high-water and partly un-
covered at low-water, was left without anything
to mark the spot. Yet, during all that time, it
was a danger to the small "strange craft" that

might be in that neighborhood. That no lives
or vessels were lost (if there were none) on that

wreck was less by the grace of the government
than by the grace of God. It is now buoyed.
Then, again, take the channel for small craft,
which exists close by Egg Island light, into
Maurice River Cove ; there is nothing to mark

that. To assume, which is true, that but few
;
Strangers use the channel, hardly diminishes the

responsibility of the government, for more would
use it, if it were marked, and in heavy weather it
is often more than a convenient short-cut into
Maurice River harbor. Our charts are drawn up

too largely without regard to the wants of small
craft. The entrances to unimportant harbors
should be laid down more clearly and more fre-
quently than they are. It is true that, from

choice, such places are seldom visited by
strangers; yet it is also just as true that they
would be much more frequently utilized in times
of danger if the stranger were sure how much

water the channel of entrance afforded. Those
blocked by shifting bars could easily be indicated.
I am radical enough to wish that the most elo-
quent opposer of liberal appropriations in behalf
of life-saving stations, and of harbor opening and

buoying, might find himself, in some one of the
many wild December nights, out with the crew of
a small trading-vessel off the shore between the
mouths of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays
I should like, then and there, to have his candid
opinion as to whether Machipongo, Wacha-
preague, Matomkin, Gargathy, and Chincoteague
Inlets should not be watched, lighted, and buoyed

in the best and most efficient manner known to
modern science. Furthermore, after his conver-

sion, I should like, if he were an honest man, to
hear him make his plea in Washington in behalf
of such and many other inlets along the coast
into which small craft might " creep" and be safe.
The statement that the channels leading to these
inlets shift with every storm, instead of relieving

our authorities of the responsibility of establishing
an efficient watch, only adds weight to it.
It may be a mere visionary notion, but I am

convinced that among the many, now unthought-of,
applications which the next generation will make
of our newly-acquired knowledge of electricity
will be to have buoys lighted by electric lights,
which will mark the way into every such harbor
on the coast, making their entrance thus as easy
by night as by day. If so, in a better sense than

we have yet understood the phrase, " the sea
will give up its dead."
CHAPTER V.
WHO SHOULD GO CRUISING.
There are many very hopeful signs now in our

social life. It is the custom to look at the gloomy
rather than the bright side of things ; but, with
all this, our pessimist friends must admit that as a

nation we are a larger, more influential, and prob-
ably a better, people, than one hundred years ago.
As to individuals, the average longevity has in-
creased notably during the same period. These

are very hopeful indications.
Somehow, along with these changes, we can find
other notable ones in social and in moral ideas. In

fact, an idea must have something more than the
savor of antiquity to make it venerable now. If
it has outlived its usefulness, we cease to venerate

it. Social ideas and political creeds have come
to be looked at very much from the same stand-
point, — as good things to threaten the existence of,
as soon as they get strong enough to domineer.

I hold it to be an element of Christian faith that
a man should care for his physical well-being,
and can never think of those old ideas which

led men to wrong the body, to benefit the soul, ex-
cept as being monstrous. Henry Ward Beecher

is said to have attributed his success in hfe to the
fact that he was a good animal. If he ever made

the remark, it was among the very wisest of his
utterances. Emerson had hit upon the same ex-

pression. Herbert Spencer, in the most absolute
cold-blood, engendered by his philosophy, puts
the idea in still more distinct and telling shape :
" We hear a great deal about the '

vile body ;'
and
many are encouraged by the phrase to transgress
the laws of health. But Nature quietly suppresses

those who treat thus disrespectfully one of her
highest products, and leaves the world to be
peopled by the descendants of those who are not
so foolish." Surely the above opinions come from

a most unorthodox trio, so far as matters of faith
could have been judged by the creeds of twenty
years back. But just now these men are most re-
spectable because they were among the pioneers
in the special ruts in which our higher culture and

civilization are running. During June, July, and
—
August I have been upon the water, loitering here

and there, as the wind and weather made necessary,
or as my whims suggested. It was not simply
waste time, but time devoted to search for physical
vigor. And the result justified my course. In my
boyhood, however, the most familiar moral maxim
concerned the work which an unpopular individual,
once an angel, found for idle hands to do.
The cooler nights, as well as the matured corn-
blades, which were yellow and dry, attested that
the vacation was over, and that the work of a new
college year must begin. All that remains is to
take my boat to her winter-quarters. But before

doing this, let us inquire,
Who should go Cruising? There is a con-
stantly-increasing number of young and middle-
aged men who, under the exactions of daily duty,
find themselves each spring physically below par.
Many of them cannot afford the cost of a pro-
longed trip by the ordinary means of travel, even
if it be undertaken in the interest of health. In-
deed, it is by no means certain that such a vaca-
tion would yield the largest return, for the simple
reason that there is nothing for the individual to

do, save to pay his bills and be taken care of Thus
the stimulus of personal activity and of responsi-

bility is missed, and with it, also, that complete
change in mental occupation which a cruise is sure
to afford, if it be such as I have tried to describe.
The essential substratum upon which health
must rest is muscular exertion. Muscular fibre
comes only when earned. However valuable as
aids, I doubt whether all the tonics of the shops,

alone, ever created an ounce of muscle. Cruising
affords not only the incentive to, but the opportu-
nity for, healthful exercise.
The trips I have described were made in a small

vessel (six tons). A party of, say, four congenial
companions could make such, or more distant ones,

in a larger boat, spending a month in doing so,
and, after paying for the vessel, hiring a captain

and a cook, purchasing the provisions, still find
that the expense for each man did not exceed

fifty dollars for the whole trip. They could do
this, I have said, if they were congenial com-
panions. If they were not, the first week would
probably end the cruise. Is there any other way
in which so much health and pleasure could be
had for so small a sum ?
Probably this never would have been written
but from the fact that no one here has yet tried
to write up a cruise as the author of " Rob Roy

on the Jordan" has done for England. That it
was needed in that water-loving land, and that

it was acceptable, is shown from the fact that
the book speedily passed through several edi-
tions. No such success is anticipated for this
effort. It will have accomplished its work if it
stimulates some one else to do better.
Who should not go Cruising? First, those

who expect nothing but comfort, and who can-
not endure plain living, or those to whom monoto-
nous drifting one day, with possibly a tempest-
tossing the next, is a greater annoyance than a
week of pleasant sailing and free, open-air life can
compensate for. Second, those whose education
has been so neglected that they have never been
taught to enjoy exposure for the manhood which
it brings. This feeling is to some a natural gift,
or, if you prefer, an unconquerable longing; to

others it must be an acquisition. Physicians know
that a very great trouble they have in dealing with
ailing ones is, that to order them to a camp or to

a cruise, would be to make life so intolerable that
no good could come of it. Hence, then, in the
interest of health, it is part of a liberal education

to love the winds and the waves, as well as the
mountain-glens. The most profound thinker of
this age says, when in one of his lighter moods,
" Exclusive devotion to work has the result that
amusements cease to please ; and, when relaxation

becomes imperative, life becomes dreary from lack
of its sole interest, — the interest in business. Life
is not for learning, nor is life for working, but
learning and working are for life." An early and
a retained fondness for yachting and for angling
has prolonged, no one knows how many years,
Herbert Spencer's active, useful career.
There is a third class who should not go cruising.

I mean such as enjoy being weak, —those creatures
to whom bronzed skins and excessive vitality are
an abomination. To such we would say. Stay at
home, by all means ! In the whole world out of

doors there is no place for you.
" Still breathe we this high air with rapture, still
See earth dilated to a palace large,
Roofed with blue bravery of the cloud-sailed sky."
A fourth class should be named as unfit for
cruising, —those who are confirmed invalids, who

have passed the point at which they can make

strength faster than such a vacation, or such an
occupation, would use it. To advise these to leave
comfortable homes is a moral wrong which admits
of no justification.
Within a few years " the canoe" has awakened
a profound interest in the United States. The
constantly-increasing number of those who yield
each summer to the fascination of the paddle

shows that there must be, as we know there is,
infinite pleasure in skimming our inland waters.

Nothing that has been written in advocacy of
yachting is to be construed as against " canoeing."
They belong together as forms of the same recre-

ation, each having its sphere, and each yielding a
full return for the time and money expended,
providing discretion rules the individual.
Caution : Cruising in fresh water remember your
^
quinine-bottle. In the South, whether on fresh or

salt water keep in mind the same injunction.
y
CHAPTER VI.
TO WINTER-QUARTERS IN THE CHOPTANK.
Nothing more clearly indicates the unsettled
character of the human mind than that we tire of

our pleasures. Nothing shows more strongly the
discipline of life than the patience with which well-
ordered minds toil on, until the hour comes when
they may fairly enjoy the freedom of doing'as they
will. I had waited and worked for my vacation.
I enjoyed the pleasure it brought until, sated, I
longed again for work.

Salt air and water, physical labor and mental
rest, had done much towards renewing my youth,
and promised to do more. Even a yachtsman may
realize that life has duties more important than
cruising. Autumn was approaching, as the rus-
set blades of corn plainly indicated. This meant
work.
On August 27th, when the tide began to ebb,
21*
we heaved our anchor up and hoisted sail. The

wind was as fair and as strong as we could wish.
In an hour the sister-cities of Camden and Phila-
delphia were receding from view. There appears

to be a spell associated with the river from Cam-
den to Chester, so far as my sailing is concerned.

Save once, I do not remember ever to have had a
fair wind for the whole distance ; on all previous
occasions, it either died away entirely, or changed
its direction. On the trip I now write of, it be-
came weaker, then baffling, coming first from one

quarter, and then from another. Four hours were
consumed in reaching Chester. So we drifted
with the tide until what was ebb, and in our favor,
changed to flood, and opposed us. With this
change there came just enough of wind, and from

such a direction, as to keep hope alive, by setting
us forward very slowly. It was ten o'clock at
night before we were fairly inside of the canal at
Delaware City.
Tired and hungry and sleepy, after a very has-

tily-prepared supper, the crew of the " Martha" laid
down to await daylight. Nothing of ordinary

gravity could have awakened us. In fact, it was
not until next day, when we saw how roughly the
little boat had been used, that we realized the
force with which a large schooner ran into the
yacht, while we slept.
Accepting it as inevitable, I was glad to have

my boat in the canal again, and on her way to the
Chesapeake waters. This time we fared rather

better than when we came through en route for
the Delaware Bay though, where so much was
;
changed, I was rather surprised to find the bad

condition the canal was in at one point. Still, to
do them the fullest measure of justice now, I am

bound to say the employes were at work dredg-
ing near where my boat found less water and
more rock than safe navigation required. There
is one set of men employed on the canal of whom
I can speak, without any reserve, as being kind
and disposed to render any service they could:
I mean those on the tug-boats. Such, at least, is
the statement I must make so far as my three
trips entitle me to have an opinion.

I think in early autumn a trip through the canal
is far from uninteresting. Between locks —that is,
when not too busy —there was much to interest an

observer. The air of comfort and of prosperity
about the farm-houses was very marked. The

dykes and embankments on the eastern end sug-

gested Holland, save that the Dutch had not
covered it with red-roofed houses and lazy, long-
armed windmills. The well-tilled corn-fields at-
tested a vigorous, pushing community, just as

strongly as the large peach-orchards suggested
late frosts and high prices for their fruit each re-
turning season. The canal itself was well filled
with a thrifty growth of eel-grass. I have already

alluded to its somewhat strange way of having
the female flowers fertilized by the floating male
flowers. This plant was in full bloom at the time
of my previous trip. Its graceful, waving leaves
are an interesting study as you see them in a
moderately swift current.

Out of the water, as well as in it, were sources
of enjoyment. After passing Saint George's the
country became more hilly. Two centuries of
cultivation had only changed the surface, re-
moving the trees and leaves, but substituting

smaller growths and a dense sward. Save here
and there, two feet below the surface, everything
was exactly as left by natural forces. The cuts
made by the canal revealed great deposits of
gravel, with occasional large, water-worn stones.

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS.' 249
The very first glance told plainly enough that

neither of these was made there, but that both
had come as immigrants from remote parts. So far
as their presence is concerned, there is no accepted

hypothesis which is not wonderful enough. The
first chapters of their wandering were written far
back in the past, and they were separated from
their birth-place with labor-throes, under which
the whole region must have groaned. This may
have been long before man appeared on earth.
Whether they were carried to the spot where we

now find them by single icebergs, floating over
what is now dry land, or whether they were car-

ried by the great glacial mass, which it is sup-
posed once overspread the Northern United States,
is a question geologists must determine. Prob-
ably if one could remove the water from the Banks
of Newfoundland, we should find just such rocks
and gravel. These are supposed to have been car-
ried there by bergs from the Arctic Ocean, and

thawed loose when the ice came into the water
warmed by the Gulf Stream. Humboldt has said

" the forces of nature are practically illimitable."
Nothing illustrates this more strikingly than an

attempt to conceive of the power implied by
glacial movement, when, over hill and down dale,
the vast ice-fields, pressed upon from the north

swept resistlessly and directly forward without
regard to the trend of the hills which they ground
under their weight. At all events, be the explana-
tioil of the present position of the rocks and gravel

on the line of the canal what it may, one thing is
sure : they suggest travel, cold, and long-ago.

There has been no frost since the peach-trees
blossomed in early spring, yet we found the leaves

were changing color in advance of the coming
cold. They were a study, each having its own
characteristic hue, and they have left to this hour
the impressions then produced, photographed in
my mind. The leaves have fallen, and their
tender tissues are in decay, but the mental image

is as fresh as ever. Thoughts often outlive the
causes which produced them. Hence one might
well suppose that, such "things of beauty" are
naturally enough intended to be " a joy forever,"
and that the pleasures of the mind are equal in
value to, and as legitimate as, those which spring

from the product of the mint. What besides them
do we take with us at last ?
The Liquidambar, or sweet-gum, foliage, was

red-brown, the sassafras was orange-red, and the

tupelo was scarlet. Other shades, as those of the
red oak and scarlet maple, and Ampelopsis, were
appearing and blending with the more pronounced
ones already named, to complete a perfect picture.
Botanists do partly divest this of interest, when
they remind us these bright colors are caused
by simply a worthless residuum in the leaf, after
all the important living colors have been removed.

This may suggest that the summer's work is
past, but then fancy only stretches forward to

another spring, when warmth and shower will
deck the same trees again, after the rest which

autumn colors promise. I do not care to reduce
life to mere chemical and vital force. It robs
being of love, of poetry, of personal protection,
and substitutes simply the chilling reign of objec-
tive law. After all, in whatsoever new channel
of evolution we start, or however far we drive
back the bars which shut out the sunlight of ulti-
mate truth, we do inevitably come at last to the
unknowable and the infinite. If men are content
with the comfort they derive from considering these

in terms of physical force, I can find no fault with
them, though I can claim that my dim notion of
that power as a spirit is no less real than theirs,

which regards it as force.
The flowering fern {Osimtnda regalis), or, as it is
better called, royal fern, mingled its delicate, peer-
less foliage with that of the wild grape as they
grew along the narrow line where land and water

met. The vegetation on the canal banks taught
me some lessons of interest concerning the dis-
tribution of plants. Quei'ctis falcata, or Spanish

oak, was no longer rare, though in Chester County
(in Pennsylvania), but a few miles to the north, it
is not common. The Liquidambar told the same

tale. Larger generalizations still, come to light,
when we read the history of the Scotch broom

[Cytisus). This plant is a native of the sandy
woods of Western Europe. How came it here ?
Clearly, it was introduced by human agency along

the lines of human traffic. It is a low, dark-green
shrub, with a profusion of angular, slender, wiry
branches, which compensate for lack of leaves.
Its chief glory is the mass of large, bright-yellow
flowers, which spring out from slender foot-stalks.
On the southern bank of the canal it grew in all
its rugged luxuriance. At Yorktown, too, it was

about all that remained of British origin after
Cornwallis left. It is, however, too firmly fixed on

the dry, gravel hill-sides there, ever to abandon the
position. Again I saw it flourishing on the gravel
banks where the railroad cuts had been made
above Chester, in Pennsylvania. In all these
places it has come to remain, and to win, by its
superior hardiness, a victory over our native plants.

It is one of the naturally-selected which succeed
in the struggle for existence. Just so, too, the
wild carrot and the ox-eye daisy have done. But
there is some principle of justice in the retribu-
tion our American weeds, such as the common

fleabane {Erigeron), are wreaking in European
soil.
There is, however, a broader meaning than ap-

pears on the surface in these plant colonies, which
become so strong in new soil as to crowd out
the original flora. Its resemblance to human mi-
gration and conquest is too plain to escape notice.
Races of men and plants both are invigorated by
change of home. Rotation of crops and rotation
of races are associated in thoughtful minds.
One might be expected to moralize when out
on the Chesapeake, for there is inspiration in the
region ; but think of ethics, or equity, or anything

else good or grand, rising out of the muddy waters

of a canal ! It is absurd.
No excuse is needed for introducing the ba-

rometer again, as those who go down in small
ships cannot be too well prepared, or too fully

warned. When we left Philadelphia on Monday
morning it stood in the cabin of the " Martha" at
30.35 inches. On Tuesday morning, as we left the
canal at Chesapeake City, it registered 30.25. The

wind, which for a few hours had blown from the
east, became again unsettled, — more so, even, than
on the previous day. We did succeed in getting
down Back Creek into Elk River, but with much

difficulty. What was surprising enough was that
in the open water, as we approached the bay, the
wind was more baffling than in the river. Most

of the time it came from the northeast. In an in-
stant our sails would be taken " aback" by a west-
erly wind. For two hours we sailed, first, " on the
wind," then free ; then we had to trim our sails to
meet the wind as it " bounced out upon us" from

some new At one p.m. we were off Sassa-
quarter.
fras River. The barometer was still lower than

in the morning. It now was beyond doubt that a
storm was brewing. Still Pond and Worton Creek

were soon passed, both tempting harbors; but

we were sailing against time, and desirous of
making as speedy a trip as possible.
The wind was now strong, steady, and from the

east, or possibly east-northeast. Hence, I made
up my mind to follow the eastern shore down, and
to abandon the idea of going into Magothy harbor
for the night. So long we had an off-shore
as
wind, it was of small moment how hard it blew.

'^y the time
large schooners that

we reached (folchester
had been chasing us

Beach two
all day
^
passed us, on their way south._. They were carry-
ing sail enough to crowd their scuppers under.
My own little boat was fairly staggering from the

canvas we made her carry. She never showed to
better advantage. Every boat, like every man,

has an individuality. I had become acquainted
with mine, and whatever was in her I was by
this time able to get out. Night caught us as we
crossed the mouth of Chester River, and the wind
then hadmoved more towards the south, so that
we were obliged to take in some of the sheet.
This, with the rough water in the mouth of the
river, delayed us greatly. But we held our course
down the eastern shore. By nine p.m. Kent Island
light became visible, and then we had a safe guide.
It furnished a striking illustration of the rotundity

of the earth : when we stood up, it was plainly-
visible; when we sat down, the light could not be

seen. Clearly, then, the height of a man made the
difference by removing the intervening obstacle.
Two hours later Sharp's Island light furnished

another illustration of the same thing.
From Kent Island light we had a tedious beat
in, over the bar and " sunken island," to a com-
fortable harbor near Poplar Island. We had to
feel our way through the intense darkness, and it
was well towards midnight before we came to

anchor. In daytime this harbor is easily reached,
and I am surprised that so few of our yachtsmen

in light-draught boats frequent it. I have always
found it a safe harbor in any weather.
Our run for the day, after leaving the canal, was
about seventy miles.
By five A.M. we were up and off. The fog was
as dense as it well could be. Fortunately, we had
our bearings, and ran through the narrow channel
between the mainland and the island without
trouble. The tide at first was against us, but it
turned as we entered the Choptank. It was, how-

ever, a clear " beat" from the mouth of the river

up to Cambridge, which we reached about one
P.M. The barometer then stood at 30.15.
Hardly were our sails down and everything
made snug before the threatened storm burst. It
reached us mainly as rain; elsewhere it came as
wind.
Here, then, is the lesson so well known to me-
teorologists, but which I wish more and more to
impress on my amateur friends, that whether above
or below the mean, at the sea-shore, when it starts
to go down rapidly^ a ^'falling barometer'^ means

atmospheric disturbance either ^ wind or rain.
This storm was general. And I here insert two

newspaper notices to show it. The first is taken
from the Philadelphia Public Ledger of September
1st:
THE LATEST NEWS.
There was a violent storm on the Great Banks of Newfound-
land, on Sunday last, which drove hundreds of dories away
from their trawls. It is estimated that 100 dories and 80 men
were lost. Scores of the dories were capsized, and the ocean
was strewn with wreckage.
The second extract is from the Philadelphia

Evening Bulletin of August 30th :
T 22*
—
FIERCE WINDS.
THE EXPERIENCES OF A STEAMER IN A CYCLONE.
The New York Tribune of this morning says :

" The steamer
* Britannia,' Captain Jauffret, from Marseilles, with a cargo of fruit
to Seager Brothers, arrived at Prentice's stores, Brooklyn, yester-
day, with her sails and sail-covering carried away and her boats
badly damaged, in conseqvience of a cyclone which struck the
vessel on August 25th, in latitude 38 deg. 15 min., longitude 63
deg. 10 min. Captain Jauffi-et said of his experience,
" ' I never before encountered such a storm. At 8 P.M. on
August 24th. the atmosphere was calm, though heavy, and the ba-
rometer stood at 30.2. The wind was southwest, but towards
morning it shifted to south. I ordered all sails set, as I did not
anticipate danger. At 6 A.M. the next day the sky began to

darken, and the barometer at 7 A.M. had fallen to 29.4. Half an
hour later a terrific gale suddenly struck us with the force of a
vast volume of steam suddenly let loose, carr}ang the sails away
and badly damaging the boats. The sky became black, and the
heavens and the water seemed to mingle together. We could not
see ten feet. We were thrown into a pitchy night in almost a
moment of time. The men lashed themselves to the ship, and the
35 passengers awaited the result in comparative calm. Indeed,
officers and passengers both acted with wdnderful coolness. The

vessel was placed under full steam, but this had no effect. She
was completely at the mercy of the elements. The wind seemed
to come from every direction at will, the water swirled over us,
and the steamer was carried around with them. There was a
terrific rumbling at the same time, which did not resemble any-
thing I had heard before. In the mean time the rain fell in lor-
rents. Indeed, it seemed as if all the powers of earth and air
had 'combined to produce the most disastrous effect. The light-
ning flashed vividly and appeared to leap from the waters to the
clouds in a most erratic manner. The cyclone passed away as
suddenly as it had come, the sky began to brighten, and the heavy
sea fell away. In the height of the storm one of the marble slabs
of the sideboard in the saloon was detached, and this struck
Joseph Modul, the chief steward, inflicting injuries from which

he died on the next day. He was buried at sea. The boatswain
had two of his ribs broken, but is about now. The rest of the
voyage was uneventful.'

" The * Britannia' is of 1838 net tons burden, and she has a double
bottom and double sides. For this reason Seager Brothers account
for her standing the storm so well. She had 6000 boxes of fruit
as cargo, and was only in ballast trim."
August 29th will long be remembered at At-

lantic City as the date of a fearfully destructive
tidal-wave.
During our fastest sailing at night, on our way

down, we would occasionally run over a jelly-
fish, which became, under the irritation, a beau-

tiful ball of phosphorescent light. It is well
known that this light, which is so striking, de-
pends upon a variety of animals. Among the
most perfect producers of it are the so-called
Noctilucse, —microscopic animals which, when the
water is agitated by an oar, will leave behind the

blade a blue or silver streak, or reveal themselves
in bright drops of the same color, as they fall
from the lifted oar. In the waters about Cape

Cod I have often seen this condition of the water
more marked than I ever observed it in Chesa-
peake Bay. As a rule, the phosphorescence of
the water is greater in warm than in cold lati-
tudes, which fact Darwin attributes to the greater
abundance of life in the tropical than in the polar
seas. In some instances, however, he thought it
came from particles of decaying organic matter,
and that the ocean was thus purifying its waters.

The words of Humboldt combine truth with
poetry: '**... So also in the torrid zones,
between the tropics, the ocean simultaneously
develops light over a space of many thousand
square miles. Here the magical effect of light
is due to the forces of organic nature. Foaming

with light, the eddying waves flash in phospho-
rescent sparks over the wide expanse of waters
where every scintillation is the vital manifestation
of an invisible animal world."
This ended the cruising of the " Martha" for

— ; ; 1
the season. The stanch little sloop, now laid
up for the winter in Cambridge harbor, awaits

new duties in the coming season, — 1884.
Who that reads Tarn o' Shanter can fail to
see an overflowing genius in every line? Burns
must have been placed among the poets, though
he had written nothing save,
" But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed

Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever
Or like the borealis race.
That flit ere you can point their place ;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form

Evanishing amid the storm."
Though every idea there is a genuine reflec-

tion from nature which inspired the poet, still,
whei^ I look back over my three months of quiet

cruising, those glowing lines do not express the
facts to me. True, the pleasures departed with
the days, but the memory of them remains as
part of me ; and is as truly a mental treasure to
me, as if derived from the pages of any author.

— ;
262 VACATION CRUISING.
Far more real and full is the stately verse of

Tennyson,
" But in my spirit will I dwell,
And dream my dream, and hold it true

For tho' my lips may breath Adieu*
!'
!"
I cannot think the thing * Farewell
THE END.

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CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE

Herbert Spencer, New York Address.

Copyright, 1884, by J. B. LiPPINCOTT & Co.

I. Description of the Yacht, and Reasons for

II. Down the Chesapeake and Up the James . • iS

III. Down the James and Up the Chesapeake . . 50

IV. Cruising on the Delaware River and Bay . 166

V. Who Should Go Cruising 238

VI. T9 Winter-Quarters in the Choptank . . 245

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS.

DESCRIPTION OF THE YACHT, AND REASONS FOR

The plan of spending this vacation on the

of health, and promised as complete a change in

the time by such natural history studies and

These conditions were most fully met by making

tail-end of a long list of good points.

* Much greater depth and less beam in proportion to length

are now regarded as important elements of safety, and doubtless

not prevent my entering harbors where I particularly desired to

go. An old waterman expressed his opinion of my boat by

No more sail was carried than was absolutely-

required. The spars were shorter and stronger

Before the vacation began every seam had been

fect order. Not once during the entire summer

A good aneroid barometer held a place so

and line, side-lights, anchor-light, and cabin-light

Next came comfort. First of all, every avenue

Food. — Canned corn, tomatoes, and baked

ham and the best breakfast bacon, tea, coffee,

and sugar, I purchased for the season at wholesale

there was no want of nutritious plain food. The

fellow. There is a comfort in giving help without

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. n

and brightening his own joys. Hence, then, by

easier than to become an adept in the use of the

instrument. Let me suggest, however, that each

tourist contemplating a prolonged trip purchase

base of supplies. I have no complaints to make

We can hardly as yet guess how important a

book-making of the future. Neither can we meas-

quiet beauty or the sublime grandeur which our

possible effect may be a century hence, study

garded as filled with the zeal of a neophyte, I

can hardly avoid counting this art in as one of the

readers down to the level of those everlasting

themselves higher and higher, his own inner self

CHESAPEAKE AND DELAWARE BAYS. 13

fill the little space left for reading matter as

which, if not under the head of comfort, comes

blood ; or that some disease-germ, vigorous in

the absence of fumigation, is nursing in his veins

a progeny that shall work him unknown harm.

associated with a hired vessel. But then there

vessel should be cleaned every day. This rule

two weeks very early in the season. The yacht

Within the shadow of the sail

The cooling sense

Glides down my drowsy indolence." Drifting.