As I rested upon my blankets, which were
spread upon the floor of the only comfortable
room in the house, at intervals during the night
the large form of the black stole softly in and bent
over me to see if I were well covered up, and he
as noiselessly piled live-oak sticks upon the dying
embers to dry up the dampness which rose from
the river.
He brought me a basin of cold water in the
morning, and not possessing a towel clean enough
for a white man, he insisted that I should use his
wife's newly starched calico apron to wipe my
face and hands upon. When I offered him
money for the night's accommodation and the
excellent oyster breakfast that his wife prepared
for me, he said: "You may gib my wife
whateber pleases you for her cooking, but nuffin for
de food or de lodgings. I'se no nigger, ef I is
a cullud man."
It was now Saturday, and as I rowed through
the marsh thoroughfare called New Tea Kettle
Creek, which connects Mud River with Doboy
Sound near the southern end of Sapelo Island, I
calculated the chances of finding a resting-place
for Sunday. If I went up to the mainland
through North and Darien rivers to the town of
Darien, my past experience taught me that
instead of enjoying rest I would become a forced
exhibiter of the paper canoe to crowds of people.
To avoid this, I determined to pass the day in
the first hammock that would afford shelter and
fire-wood; but as the canoe entered Doboy
Sound, which, with its inlet, separates Sapelo
from the almost treeless Wolf Island, the wind
rose with such violence that I was driven to take
refuge upon Doboy Island, a small marshy
territory, the few firm acres of which were occupied
by the settlement and steam saw-mill of Messrs.
Hiltons, Foster & Gibson, a northern lumber firm.
Foreign and American vessels were anchored
under the lee of protecting marshes, awaiting
their cargoes of sawed deals and hewn timber;
while rafts of logs, which had been borne upon
the currents of the Altamaha and other streams
from the far interior regions of pine forests, were
collected here and manufactured into lumber.
One of the proprietors, a northern gentleman,
occupied with his family a very comfortable
cottage near the store and steam saw-mill. As the
Doboy people had learned of the approach of the
paper canoe from southern newspapers, the little
craft was identified as soon as it touched the low
shores of the island.
I could not find any kind of hotel or
lodging-place in this settlement of Yankees, Canadians,
and negroes, and was about to leave it in search
of some lone hammock, when a mechanic kindly
offered me the floor of an unfinished room in an
unfinished house, in which I passed my Sunday
trying to rest, and obtaining my meals at a
restaurant kept by a negro.
