30 THE INLAND PASSAGE. 



began. She jammed us against the dock when we 

 were starting, banged us into the first vessel we met 

 on our way, bumped us into the banks of the canal 

 when we had entered it, dashed us into the only 

 lock there was to get foul of, and then rammed us 

 against a dredging scow so fiercely, that there was 

 a momentary doubt whether we should not be 

 dredged out as an impediment to travel. 



However, in spite of all these misadventures, we 

 made Currituck before night. We determined to 

 stay there some days for duck shooting, but I shall 

 not stop to describe the sport we had. It is enough, 

 that we loaded down our vessel with provisions, 

 which, as the weather came out cold, kept till they 

 were all consumed, and saved us from recourse to 

 those last resources of the way-farer, the insipid 

 canned meats, which, somehow, the manufacturers 

 manage to make taste so nearly alike, that one will 

 answer for the other, whether it is called mutton, 

 beef, or fowl. Then we sped away south, running 

 into Kittyhawk Bay for a harbor and a turkey, for 

 no one must imagine that it is necessary to starve 

 in the South, even amid the desolation of the deso- 

 late Eastern Shore. Not only does the proverbial 

 hospitality of the Southern people still exist as far 

 as the effect of a desolating war has left it a possi- 

 bility, but there are certain kinds of food to be got 

 there more readily than even at the North. It has 

 heretofore been a reproach to our Southern colored 

 brother, that the attractions of a hen-roost and lus- 

 ciousness of a fat turkey gobbler were too much for 



