I Looked Down The Sound Six Miles To The Broad
Atlantic, Which Was Sending In Clouds Of Mist On
A Fresh Breeze.
I gazed across the mouth of the
Chechessee, and the sound at the entrance of the
port of refuge.
I desired to traverse nearly three
miles of this rough water. I would gladly have
camped, hut the shore I was about to leave offered
to submerge me with the next high water. No
friendly hammock of trees could be seen as I
glided from the shadow of the high rushes of
Daw Island. Circumstances decided the point
in debate, and I rowed rapidly into the sound.
The canoe had not gone half a mile when the
Chechessee River opened fully to view, and a
pretty little hammock, with two or three shanties
beneath its trees, could be plainly seen on Daw's
Island.
It was now too late to return and ascend the
river to the hammock, for the sound was
disturbed by the freshening breeze from the sea
blowing against the ebb-tide, which was increased
in power by the outflowing flume of water from
the wide Chechessee. It required all the energy
I possessed to keep the canoe from being
overrun by the swashy, sharp-pointed seas. Once or
twice I thought my last struggle for life had
come, but a merciful Power gave me the strength
and coolness that this trying ordeal required, and
I somehow weathered the dangerous oyster reefs
above Skull Creek, and landed at "Seabrook
Plantation," upon Hilton Head Island, near two
or three old houses, one of which was being fitted
up as a store by Mr. Kleim, of the First New
York Volunteers, who had lived on the island
since 1861.
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