Voyage of The Paper Canoe [62]
their heads, will see a few dark specks approaching them in this beam of radiance. These specks are birds, confused by the bright rays, and ready to fall an easy prey to the eager keeper, who, quickly levelling his double-barrelled gun, brings it to bear upon the opaque, moving cloud, and with the discharge of the weapon there goes whirling through space to the earth below his next morning's breakfast of wild-fowl.
I found Mr. W. R. Jennett and his first assistant light-keeper, Mr. A. W. Simpson, intelligent gentlemen. The assistant has devoted his time, when off duty, to the study of the habits of food-fishes of the sound, and has furnished the United States Commission of Fisheries with several papers on that interesting subject.
Here also was Mr. George Onslow, of the United States Signal Service, who had completed his work of constructing a telegraph line from Norfolk along the beach southward to this point, its present terminus. With a fine telescope he could frequently identify vessels a few miles from the cape, and telegraph their position to New York. He had lately saved a vessel by telegraphing to Norfolk its dangerous location on Hatteras beach, where it had grounded. By this timely notice a wrecking-steamer had arrived and hauled the schooner off in good condition.
A low range of hills commences at Cape Hatteras, in the rear of the light-house, and extends nearly to Hatteras Inlet. This range is heavily wooded with live-oaks, yellow pines, yaupons, cedars, and bayonet-plants. The fishermen and wreckers live in rudely constructed houses, sheltered by this thicket, which is dense enough to
protect them from the strong winds that blow from the ocean and the sound.
I walked twelve miles through this pretty, green retreat, and spent Sunday with Mr. Homer W. Styron, who keeps a small store about two miles from the inlet. He is a self-taught astronomer, and used an ingeniously constructed telescope of his own manufacture for studying the heavens.
I found at the post-office in his store a letter from a yachting party which had left Newbern, North Carolina, to capture the paper canoe and to force upon its captain the hospitality of the people of that city, on the Neuse River, one hundred miles from the cape. Judge I.E. West, the owner of the yacht "Julia," and his friends, had been cruising since the eleventh day of the month from Ocracoke Inlet to Roanoke Island in search of me. Judge West, in his letter, expressed a strong desire to have me take my Christmas dinner with his family. This generous treatment from a stranger was fully appreciated, and I determined to push on to Morehead City, from which place it would be convenient to reach Newbern by rail without changing my established route southward, as I would be compelled to do if the regular water route of the Neuse River from Pamlico Sound were followed.
On this Saturday night, spent at Hatteras Inlet, there broke upon us one of the fiercest tempests I ever witnessed, even in the tropics. My pedestrian tramp down the shore had scarcely ended when it commenced in reality. For miles along the beach thousands of acres of land were soon submerged by the sea and by the torrents of water which fell from the clouds. While for a moment the night was dark as Erebus, again the vivid flash of lightning exposed to view the swaying forests and the gloomy sound. The sea pounded on the beach as if asking for admission to old Pamplico. It seemed to say, I demand a new inlet; and, as though trying to carry out its desire, sent great waves rolling up the shingle and over into the hollows among the hills, washing down the low sand dunes as if they also were in collusion with it to remove this frail barrier, this narrow strip of low land which separated the Atlantic from the wide interior sheet of water.
The phosphorescent sea, covered with its tens of millions of animalcula, each one a miniature light-house, changed in color from inky blackness to silver sheen. Will the ocean take to itself this frail foothold? -- we queried. Will
I found Mr. W. R. Jennett and his first assistant light-keeper, Mr. A. W. Simpson, intelligent gentlemen. The assistant has devoted his time, when off duty, to the study of the habits of food-fishes of the sound, and has furnished the United States Commission of Fisheries with several papers on that interesting subject.
Here also was Mr. George Onslow, of the United States Signal Service, who had completed his work of constructing a telegraph line from Norfolk along the beach southward to this point, its present terminus. With a fine telescope he could frequently identify vessels a few miles from the cape, and telegraph their position to New York. He had lately saved a vessel by telegraphing to Norfolk its dangerous location on Hatteras beach, where it had grounded. By this timely notice a wrecking-steamer had arrived and hauled the schooner off in good condition.
A low range of hills commences at Cape Hatteras, in the rear of the light-house, and extends nearly to Hatteras Inlet. This range is heavily wooded with live-oaks, yellow pines, yaupons, cedars, and bayonet-plants. The fishermen and wreckers live in rudely constructed houses, sheltered by this thicket, which is dense enough to
protect them from the strong winds that blow from the ocean and the sound.
I walked twelve miles through this pretty, green retreat, and spent Sunday with Mr. Homer W. Styron, who keeps a small store about two miles from the inlet. He is a self-taught astronomer, and used an ingeniously constructed telescope of his own manufacture for studying the heavens.
I found at the post-office in his store a letter from a yachting party which had left Newbern, North Carolina, to capture the paper canoe and to force upon its captain the hospitality of the people of that city, on the Neuse River, one hundred miles from the cape. Judge I.E. West, the owner of the yacht "Julia," and his friends, had been cruising since the eleventh day of the month from Ocracoke Inlet to Roanoke Island in search of me. Judge West, in his letter, expressed a strong desire to have me take my Christmas dinner with his family. This generous treatment from a stranger was fully appreciated, and I determined to push on to Morehead City, from which place it would be convenient to reach Newbern by rail without changing my established route southward, as I would be compelled to do if the regular water route of the Neuse River from Pamlico Sound were followed.
On this Saturday night, spent at Hatteras Inlet, there broke upon us one of the fiercest tempests I ever witnessed, even in the tropics. My pedestrian tramp down the shore had scarcely ended when it commenced in reality. For miles along the beach thousands of acres of land were soon submerged by the sea and by the torrents of water which fell from the clouds. While for a moment the night was dark as Erebus, again the vivid flash of lightning exposed to view the swaying forests and the gloomy sound. The sea pounded on the beach as if asking for admission to old Pamplico. It seemed to say, I demand a new inlet; and, as though trying to carry out its desire, sent great waves rolling up the shingle and over into the hollows among the hills, washing down the low sand dunes as if they also were in collusion with it to remove this frail barrier, this narrow strip of low land which separated the Atlantic from the wide interior sheet of water.
The phosphorescent sea, covered with its tens of millions of animalcula, each one a miniature light-house, changed in color from inky blackness to silver sheen. Will the ocean take to itself this frail foothold? -- we queried. Will