Voyage of The Paper Canoe
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N. H. Bishop >> Voyage of The Paper Canoe
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There was no undertow; the seas being driven
over shoals were irregular and broken. At last my
sea came. It rolled up without a crest, square
and formidable. I could not calculate where it
would break, but I pulled for life away from it
towards the beach upon which the sea was
breaking with deafening sound. It was only for
a moment that I beheld the great brown wave,
which bore with it the mud of the shoal, bearing
down upon me; for the next, it broke astern,
sweeping completely over the canoe from stern
to stem, filling it through the opening of the
canvas round my body. Then for a while the
watery area was almost smooth, so completely
had the great wave levelled it. The canoe
being water-logged, settled below the surface,
the high points of the ends occasionally
emerging from the water. Other heavy seas followed
the first, one of which striking me as high as my
head and shoulders, turned both the canoe and
canoeist upside-down.
A Capsize in Delaware Bay (100K)
Kicking myself free of the canvas deck, I
struck out from under the shell, and quickly
rose to the surface. It was then that the words
of an author of a European Canoe Manual came
to my mind: "When you capsize, first right the
canoe and get astride it over one end, keeping
your legs in the water; when you have crawled
to the well or cockpit, bale out the boat with
your hat." Comforting as these instructions
from an experienced canoe traveller seemed
when reading them in my hermitage ashore, the
present application of them (so important a
principle in Captain Jack Bunsby's log of life)
was in this emergency an impossibility; for my
hat had disappeared with the seat-cushion and
one iron outrigger, while the oars were floating
to leeward with the canoe.
The boat having turned keel up, her great
sheer would have righted her had it not been for
the cargo, which settled itself on the canvas
deck-cloth, and ballasted the craft in that
position. So smooth were her polished sides that it
was impossible to hold on to her, for she rolled
about like a slippery porpoise in a tideway.
having tested and proved futile the kind
suggestions of writers on marine disasters, and
feeling very stiff in the icy water, I struck out in an
almost exhausted condition for the shore. Now
a new experience taught me an interesting
lesson. The seas rolled over my head and
shoulders in such rapid succession, that I found I
could not get my head above water to breathe,
while the sharp sand kept in suspension by the
agitated water scratched my face, and filled my
eyes, nostrils, and ears. While I felt this
pressing down and burying tendency of the seas, as
they broke upon my head and shoulders, I
understood the reason why so many good
swimmers are drowned in attempting to reach the
shore from a wreck on a shoal, when the wind,
though blowing heavily, is in the victim's favor.
The land was not over an eighth of a mile away,
and from it came the sullen roar of the breakers,
pounding their heavy weight upon the sandy
shingle. As its booming thunders or its angry,
swashing sound increased, I knew I was rapidly
nearing it, but, blinded by the boiling waters, I
could see nothing.
At such a moment do not stop to make vows
as to how you will treat your neighbor in future
if once safely landed, but strike out, fight as you
never fought before, swallowing as little water
as possible, and never relaxing an energy or
yielding a hope. The water shoaled; my feet
felt the bottom, and I stood up, but a roller laid
me flat on my face. Up again and down again,
swimming and crawling, I emerged from the
sea, bearing, I fear, a closer resemblance to Jonah
(being at last pitched on shore) than to
Cabnel's Venus, who was borne gracefully upon
the rosy crests of the sky-reflecting waves to
the soft bed of sparkling foam awaiting her.
Wearily dragging myself up the hard shingle,
I stood and contemplated the little streams of
water pouring from my woollen clothes. A new
danger awaited me as the cold wind whistled
down the barren beach and across the desolate
marshes. I danced about to keep warm, and for
a moment thought that my canoe voyage had
come to an unfortunate termination. Then a
buoyant feeling succeeded the moment's
depression, and I felt that this was only the first
of many trials which were necessary to prepare
me for the successful completion of my
undertaking. But where was the canoe, with its
provisions that were to sustain me, and the charts
which were to point out my way through the
labyrinth of waters she was yet to traverse?
She had drifted near the shore, but would not
land. There was no time to consider the
propriety of again entering the water. The struggle
was a short though severe one, and I dragged
my boat ashore.
Everything was wet excepting what was most
needed, -- a flannel suit, carefully rolled in a
water-proof cloth. I knew that I must change
my wet clothes for dry ones, or perish. This
was no easy task to perform, with hands
benumbed and limbs paralyzed with the cold. O
shade of Benjamin Franklin, did not one of thy
kinsmen, in his wide experience as a traveller,
foresee this very disaster, and did he not, when
I left the "City of Brotherly Love," force upon
me an antidote, a sort of spiritual fire, which my
New England temperance principles made me
refuse to accept? "It is old, very old," he
whispered, as he slipped the flask into my coat-
pocket, "and it may save your life. Don't be foolish.
I have kept it well bottled. It is a pure article,
and cost sixteen dollars per gallon. I use it only
for medicine." I found the flask; the water
had not injured it. A small quantity was taken,
when a most favorable change came over my
entire system, mental as well as physical, and I
was able to throw off one suit and put on
another in the icy wind, that might, without the
stimulant, have ended my voyage of life.
I had doctored myself homoeopathically under
the old practice. Filled with feelings of
gratitude to the Great Giver of good, I reflected, as
I carried my wet cargo into the marsh, upon the
wonderful effects of my friend's medicine when
taken only as medicine. Standing upon the cold
beach and gazing into the sea, now lashed by
the wild frenzy of the wind, I determined never
again to do so mean a thing as to say a
word against good brandy.
Having relieved my conscience by this just
resolve, I transported the whole of my wet but
still precious cargo to a persimmon grove, on
a spot of firm land that rose out of the marsh,
where I made a convenient wind-break by
stretching rubber blankets between trees. On
this knoll I built a fire, obtaining the matches
to kindle it from a water-proof safe presented to
me by Mr. Epes Sargent, of Boston, some years
before, when I was ascending the St. Johns
River, Florida.
Before dusk, all things not spoiled by the
water were dried and secreted in the tall sedge
of the marshes. The elevation which had given
me friendly shelter is known as "Hog Island."
The few persimmon-trees that grew upon it
furnished an ample lunch, for the frosts had
mellowed the plum-like fruit, making it sweet and
edible. The persimmon (Diospyrus
Virginiana) is a small tree usually found in the middle
and southern states. Coons and other animals
feast upon its fruit. The deepening gloom
warned me to seek comfortable quarters for the
night.
Two miles up the strand was an old gunners'
inn, to which I bent my steps along Slaughter
Beach, praying that one more day's effort would
take me out of this bleak region of ominous
names. A pleasant old gentleman, Mr. Charles
Todd, kept the tavern, known as Willow Grove
Hotel, more for amusement than for profit. I
said nothing to him about the peculiar manner
in which I had landed on Slaughter Beach; but
to his inquiry as to where my boat was, and
what kind of a boat it was to live in such a
blow, I replied that I found it too wet and cold
on the bay to remain there, and too rough to
proceed to Cape Henlopen, and there being no
alternative, I was obliged to land much against
my inclination, and in doing so was drenched to
the skin, but had managed to get dry before a
fire in the marshes. So the kind old man piled
small logs in the great kitchen fireplace, and
told me tale upon tale of his life as a
schoolmaster out west; of the death of his wife there,
and of his desire to return, after long years of
absence, to his native Delaware, where he could
be comfortable, and have all the clams, oysters,
fish, and bay truck generally that a man could
wish for.
"Now," he added, "I shall spend my last
days here in peace." He furnished an excellent
supper of weak-fish or sea trout (Otolithus
regalio), fried oysters, sweet potatoes, &c.
This locality offers a place of retirement for
men of small means and limited ambition. The
broad bay is a good sailing and fishing ground,
while the great marshes are the resort of many
birds. The light, warm soil responds generously
to little cultivation. After a day of hunting and
fishing, the new-comer can smoke his pipe in
peace, to the music of crackling flames in the
wide old fireplace. Here he may be
comfortable, and spend his last days quietly vegetating,
with no criticisms on his deterioration, knowing
that he is running to seed no faster than his
neighbors.
The wind had gone to rest with the sun, and
the sharp frost that followed left its congealed
breath upon the shallow pools of water nearly
half an inch in thickness by morning. From
my bed I could see through the window the
bright flashes from Cape May and Cape
Henlopen lights. Had not misfortune beset me, a
four-hours' pull would have landed me at Lewes.
There was much to be thankful for, however.
Through a merciful Providence it was my
privilege to enjoy a soft bed at the Willow Grove
Inn, and not a cold one on the sands of
Slaughter Beach. So ended my last day on Delaware
Bay.
CHAPTER VIII. FROM CAPE HENLOPEN TO NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
THE PORTAGE TO LOVE CREEK. -- THE DELAWARE
WHIPPINGPOST. -- REHOBOTH AND INDIAN RIVER BAYS. -- A PORTAGE
TO LITTLE ASSAWAMAN BAY. -- ISLE OF WIGHT BAY. --
WINCHESTER PLANTATION. -- CHINCOTEAGUE. -- WATCHAPREAGUE
INLET. -- COBB'S ISLAND. -- CHERRYSTONE. -- ARRIVAL AT
NORFOLK. -- THE "LANDMARK'S" ENTERPRISE.
My first thought the next morning was of the
lost outrigger, and how I should replace
it. My host soon solved the problem for me.
I was to drive to the scene of the late disaster in
his light, covered wagon, load it with the canoe
and cargo, and take the shortest route to Love
Creek, six miles from Lewes, stopping on the
way at a blacksmith's for a new outrigger.
We drove over sandy roads, through forests of
pine and oak, to the village of Milton, where a
curious crowd gathered round us and facetiously
asked if we had "brought the canoe all the way
from Troy in that 'ere wagon." The village
smith, without removing the paper boat from her
snug quarters, made a fair outrigger in an hour's
time, when we continued our monotonous ride
through the dreary woods to a clearing upon the
banks of a cedar swamp, where in a cottage
lived Mr. George Webb, to whom Bob Hazzle,
my driver, presented me. Having now reached
Love Creek, I deposited my canoe with Mr.
Webb, and started off for Lewes to view the
town and the ocean.
Across the entrance of Delaware Bay, from
Cape Henlopen Light to Cape May Light on the
southern end of New Jersey, is a distance of
twelve statute miles. Saturday night and
Sunday were passed in Lewes, which is situated
inside of Cape Henlopen, and behind the
celebrated stone breakwater which was constructed
by the government. This port of refuge is much
frequented by coasters, as many as two or three
hundred sails collecting here during a severe
gale. The government is building a
remarkable pier of solid iron spiles, three abreast, which,
when completed, will run out seventeen
hundred feet into the bay, and reach a depth of
twenty-three feet of water. Captain Brown, of
the Engineers, was in charge of the work. By the
application of a jet of water, forced by an
hydraulic pump through a tube down the outside of
the spile while it is being screwed into the sand,
a puddling of the same is kept up, which
relieves the strain upon the screw-flanges, and
saves fourteen-fifteenths of the time and labor
usually expended by the old method of inserting
the screw spile. This invention was a happy
thought of Captain Brown.
The government has purchased a piece of land
at Lewes for the site of a fort. Some time in the
future there will be a railroad terminating on the
pier, and coal will be brought directly from the
mines to supply the fleets which will gather
within the walls of the Breakwater. Here, free from
all danger of an ice blockade, this port will
become a safe and convenient harbor and
coaling station during the winter time for government
and other vessels.
At dusk on Sunday evening the collector of
the port, Captain Lyons, and his friends, took
me in their carriage back to Love Creek, where
Mr. Webb insisted upon making me the
recipient of his hospitality for the night. A little
crowd of women from the vicinity of the swamp
were awaiting my arrival to see the canoe. One
ancient dame, catching sight of the alcohol-stove
which I took from my vest-pocket, clapped her
thin hands and enthusiastically exclaimed, "What
a nice thing for a sick-room-the best nuss-lamp
I ever seed!" Having satisfied the curiosity of
these people, and been much amused by their
quaint remarks, I was quietly smuggled into Mr.
Webb's "best room," where, if my spirit did not
make feathery flights, it was not the fault of the
downy bed in whose unfathomable depths I now
lost myself.
Before leaving Delaware I feel it an
imperative duty to the public to refer to one of her
time-honored institutions.
Persons unacquainted with the fact will find
it difficult to believe that one state of the great
American Republic still holds to the practice of
lashing men and women, white and black.
Delaware -- one of the smallest states of the Union,
the citizens of which are proverbially generous
and hospitable, a state which has produced a
Bayard -- is, to her shame we regret to say, the
culprit which sins against the spirit of civilization
in this nineteenth century, one hundred years
after the fathers of the Republic declared equal
rights for all men. In treating of so delicate a
subject, I desire to do no one injustice; therefore
I will let a native of Delaware speak for his
community.
"DOVER, DELAWARE, August 2, 1873.
"EDITOR CAMDEN SPY: According to
promise, I now write you a little about Delaware.
Persons in your vicinity look upon the 'Little
Diamond State' as a mere bog, or marsh, and
mud and water they suppose are its chief
productions; but, in my opinion, it is one of the
finest little states in the Union. Although small,
in proportion to the size it produces more grain
and fruit than any other state in the country, and
they are unexcelled as regards quality and flavor.
Crime is kept in awe by that best of institutions,
the whipping post and pillory! These are the
bugbear of all the northern newspapers, and
they can say nothing too harsh or severe against
them. The whipping-post in Kent County is
situated in the yard of the jail, and is about six
feet in height and three feet in circumference; the
prisoner is fastened to it by means of bracelets,
or arms, on the wrist; and the sheriff executes
the sentence of the law by baring the convict to
the waist, and on the bare back lashing him
twenty, forty, or sixty times, according to the
sentence. But the blood does not run in streams
from the prisoner's back, nor is he thrown into a
barrel of brine, and salt sprinkled over the lashes.
On the contrary, I have seen them laugh, and
coolly remark that 'it's good exercise, and gives
us an appetite.' But there are others who raise
the devil's own row with their yells and horrible
cries of pain. The whipping is public, and is
witnessed each time by large numbers of people
who come from miles around to see the culprit
disgraced.
"A public whipping occurred not very long
ago, and the day was very stormy, yet there
were fully three hundred spectators on the ground
to witness this wholesome punishment! A
person who has been lashed at the whipping-post
cannot vote again in this state; thus, most of the
criminals who are whipped leave the state in
order to regain their citizenship. The newspapers
can blow until they are tired about this 'horrible,
barbaric, and unchristian punishment,' but if their
own states would adopt this form of punishment,
they would find crime continually on the
decrease. What is imprisonment for a few months
or years? It is soon over with; and then they
are again let out upon the community, to beg,
borrow, and steal. But to be publicly whipped
is an everlasting disgrace, and deters men from
committing wrong. Women are whipped in the
same manner, and they take it very hard; but, to
my recollection, there has not been a female
prisoner for some time. I did not intend to
comment so long upon the whipping-posts in the
state of Delaware.
"The pillory next claims our attention. This
is a long piece of board that runs through the
whipping-post at the top, and has holes [as per
engraving] for the neck and arms to rest in a
very constrained position. The prisoner is
compelled to stand on his toes for an hour with his
neck and arms in the holes, and if he sinks from
exhaustion, as it sometimes happens, the neck is
instantly broken. Josiah Ward, the villain who
escaped punishment for the murder of the man
Wady in your county, came into Delaware,
broke into a shoe-store, succeeded in stealing one
pair of shoes, -- was arrested, got sixty lashes at
the post, was made to stand in the pillory one
hour, is now serving out a term of two years'
imprisonment, -- and he never got the shoes!
The pillory is certainly a terrible and cruel
punishment, and, while I heartily favor the
whipping-post, I think this savage punishment should be
abolished.
"Since writing the above, I have heard that a
colored woman was convicted of murder in the
second degree last May, and on Saturday the
17th of that month received sixty lashes on her
bare back, and stood in the pillory one hour.
"What do you think of Delaware law, after
what I have written? I have written enough
for the present, so I will close, ever remaining,
Yours very truly, P. P."
For twenty years past, Delaware and
Maryland farmers have given much attention to peach
culture, which has gradually declined in New
Jersey and states further north. There are said
to be over sixty thousand acres of land on the
peninsula planted with peach-trees, which are
estimated to be worth fifty dollars per acre, or
three million dollars. To harvest this crop
requires at least twenty-five thousand men, women,
and children. The planting of an acre of
peach-trees, and its cultivation to maturity, costs from
thirty to forty dollars. The canners take a large
portion of the best peaches, which are shipped
to foreign as well as to domestic markets.
The low lands and river-shores of the
peninsula exhale malaria which attacks the inhabitants
in a mild form of ague. During the spring,
summer, and early fall months, a prudent man
will not expose himself to the air until after
the sun has risen and dispelled the mists of
morning. The same caution should be observed
all through the low regions of the south, both
as to morning and evening exercise. Chills and
fever are the bane of the southern and middle
states, as this disease affects the health and
elastic vigor of the constitution, and also
produces great mental depression. Yet those who
suffer, even on every alternate day, from chills,
seem to accept the malaria as nothing of much
importance; though it is a well-known fact that
this form of intermittent fever so reduces the
strength, that the system is unable to cope with
other and more dangerous diseases for which it
paves the way.
Upon a little creek, tributary to St. Martin's
River, and near its confluence with the Isle of
Wight Bay, a long day's pull from the swamp of
Love Creek, was the old plantation home of a
friend of my boyhood, Mr. Taylor, who about
this time was looking out for the arrival of the
paper canoe. It was a question whether I could
descend Love Creek three miles, cross Rehoboth
and Indian River sounds, ascend White's Creek,
make a portage to Little Assawaman Bay, thread
the thoroughfare west of Fenwick's Island Light,
cross the Isle of Wight Bay, ascend and cross St.
Martin's River to Turval's Creek, and reach the
home of my friend, all in one day. But I
determined to attempt the task. Mr. Webb roused his
family at an early hour, and I rowed down Love
Creek and crossed the shallow waters of
Rehoboth Bay in the early part of the day.
From Cape Henlopen, following the general
contour of the coast, to Cape Charles at the
northern entrance of Chesapeake Bay, is a
distance of one hundred and thirty-six miles; from
Cape Charles across the mouth of Chesapeake
Bay to Cape Henry is thirteen miles; from
Henlopen south, the state of Delaware occupies
about twenty miles of the coast; the eastern
shore of Maryland holds between thirty and
forty miles, while the eastern shore of Virginia,
represented by the counties of Accomac and
Northampton, covers the peninsula to Cape
Charles.
Commencing at Rehoboth Bay, a small boat
may follow the interior waters to the Chesapeake
Bay. The watercourses of this coast are
protected from the rough waves of the ocean by
long, narrow, sandy islands, known as beaches,
between which the tides enter. These passages
from the sea to the interior waters are called
inlets, and most of them are navigable for
coasting vessels of light draught. These inlets are so
influenced by the action of storms, and their
shores and locations are so changed by them,
that the cattle may graze to-day in tranquil
happiness where only a generation ago the old skipper
navigated his craft. During June of the year
1821 a fierce gale opened Sandy Point Inlet with
a foot depth of water, but it closed in 1831.
Green Point Inlet was cut through the beach
during a gale in 1837, and was closed up seven
years later. Old Sinepuxent Inlet, which was
forced open by the sea more than sixty years
ago, closed in 1831. These three inlets were
within a space of three miles, and were all north
of Chincoteague village. Green Run Inlet,
which had a depth of about six feet of water for
nearly ten years, also closed after shifting half a
mile to the south of its original location. The
tendency of inlets on this coast is to shift to the
southward, as do the inlets on the coast of New
Jersey.
Oystermen, fishermen, and farmers live along
the upland, and in some cases on the island
beaches. From these bays, timber, firewood,
grain, and oysters are shipped to northern ports.
The people are everywhere kind and hospitable
to strangers. A mild climate, cheap and easily
worked soils, wild-fowl shooting, fine oysters and
fishing privileges, offer inducements to
Northerners and Europeans to settle in this country;
the mild form of ague which exists in most
of its localities being the only objection. While
debating this point with a native, he attacked my
argument by saying:
"Law sakes! don't folks die of something,
any way? If you don't have
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