Hatteras And Ocracoke Inlets Admit Sea-Going
Vessels.
It is thirty-eight miles from Whalebone
Inlet to Cape Lookout, which projects like a
wedge into the sea nearly three miles from the
mainland, and there is not another passage
through the narrow beach in all that distance
that is of any use to the mariner.
Following
the trend of the coast for eleven miles from the
point of Cape Lookout, there is an inlet, but,
from the character of its channel and its
shallowness, it is not of much value.
Leaving Portsmouth, the canoe entered Core
Sound, which grew narrower as the shoals inside
of Whalebone Inlet were crossed, partly by
rowing and partly by wading on the sand-flats. As
night came on, a barren stretch of beach on my
left hand was followed until I espied the only
house within a distance of sixteen miles along
the sea. It was occupied by a coasting skipper,
whose fine little schooner was anchored a long
distance from the land on account of the
shoalness of the water. Dreary sand-hills protected
the cottage from the bleak winds of the ocean.
While yet a long distance from the skipper's
home, a black object could be seen crawling up
the sides of a mound of white sand, and after it
reached the apex it remained in one position,
while I rowed, and waded, and pulled my canoe
towards the shore. When the goal was reached,
and the boat was landed high up among the
scrub growth, I shouldered my blankets and
charts, and plodded through the soft soil towards
the dark object, which I now recognized to be a
man on a lookout post.
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