380 DUCK SHOOTING. 



a quieter bay, where the boat's prow touches the marsh 

 and we have reached our ducking point. 



We had been sailing over the waters of Currituck 

 Sound, from which the low, sandy shore runs inland on 

 a dead level for many miles. Much of this land is 

 forest-covered, chiefly with tall trees of the Southern 

 pine, whose straight, clean stems stand close together, 

 often without any undergrowth, and remind one some- 

 what of the forests of the Northwest coast, if such small 

 things may be compared with great. Here and there 

 the land has been cleared and the stumps rooted out, 

 the fields for a few years plowed and sown with corn 

 or cotton or sweet potatoes, and then their cultivation 

 abandoned when new growths of seedling pines spring 

 up, and after a while the old fields start new forests 

 again. 



Most of the inhabitants of this country are to-day 

 small landholders — farmers during the summer and 

 fishermen and gunners in winter. They are a kindly, 

 well-disposed people, truly Southern in the deliberate- 

 ness of their actions, in their courtesy and in their hos- 

 pitality. Many of the most intelligent and well-to-do 

 of them barely know how to read and write. Although 

 the winter weather here is often very cold, the houses 

 are not built for cold weather, the chimneys are on the 

 outside of the house, and the edifice itself is perched on 

 stilts above the ground ; either piers of brick or sections 

 of thick pine logs supporting the timbers of the frame. 

 At intervals of a few miles, at the edge of the road may 

 be seen standing in the pine forest, churches at which 



