At times I was lost, again
my canoe was lodged upon oyster-beds in the
shallow ponds of water, the mud bottoms of
which would not hear my weight if I attempted
to get overboard to lighten the little craft.
Alligator Lake, two miles in width, was crossed
without seeing an alligator. Saurians are first
met with, as the traveller proceeds south, in the
vicinity of Alligator Creek and the Neuse River,
in the latitude of Pamplico Sound. During the
cold weather they hide themselves in the soft,
muddy bottoms of creeks and lagoons. All the
negroes, and many of the white people of the
south, assert, that when captured in his winter
bed, this huge reptile's stomach contains the hard
knot of a pine-tree; but for what purpose he
swallows it they are at a loss to explain.
In twelve miles of tortuous windings there
appeared but one sign of human life - a little
cabin on a ridge of upland among the fringe
of marshes that bordered on Alligator Lake. It
was cheering to a lonely canoeist to see this
house, and the clearing around it with the
season's crop of corn in stacks dotting the field.
All this region is called Stump Sound; but that
sheet of water is a well-defined, narrow,
lake-like watercourse, which was entered not long
after I debouched from Alligator Lake. Stump
Inlet having closed up eighteen months before
my visit, the sound and its tributaries received
tidal water from New Topsail Inlet.
It was a cold and rainy evening when I sought
shelter in an old boat-house, at a landing on
Topsail Sound, soon after leaving Stump Sound.
While preparing for the night's camp, the son
of the proprietor of the plantation discovered
the, to him, unheard-of spectacle of a paper boat
upon the gravelly strand. Filled with curiosity
and delight, he dragged me, paddle in hand,
through an avenue of trees to a hill upon which
a large house was located. This was the boy's
home. Leaving me on the broad steps of the
veranda, he rushed into the hall, shouting to
the family, "Here's a sailor who has come from
the north in a PAPER boat."
This piece of intelligence roused the good
people to merriment. "Impossible!" "A boat
made of paper!" "Nonsense!"
The boy, however, would not be put down.
"But it is made of paper, I tell you; for I
pinched it and stuck my nails into it," he
replied earnestly.
"You are crazy, my boy," some one
responded; "a paper boat never could go through
these sounds, the coon oysters would cut it in
pieces. Now tell us, is the sailor made of
paper, like his boat?"
"Indeed, mother, what I tell you is true; and,
O, I forgot!
