232 PEPACTON 



shore in hopes of starting up a stray duck that 

 might possibly decoy. We saw many objects that 

 simulated ducks pretty well through the obscurity, 

 but they failed to take wing on our approach. The 

 most pleasing thing we saw was a large, rude boat, 

 propelled by four colored oarsmen. It looked as 

 if it might have come out of some old picture. Two 

 oarsmen were seated in the bows, pulling, and two 

 stood up in the stern, facing their companions, each 

 working a long oar, bending and recovering and 

 uttering a low, wild chant. The spectacle emerged 

 from the fog on the one hand and plunged into it 

 on the other. 



Later in the morning, we were attracted by an- 

 other craft. We heard it coming down upon us 

 long before it emerged into view. It made a sound 

 as of some unwieldy creature slowly pawing the 

 water, and when it became visible through the fog 

 the sight did not belie the ear. We beheld an 

 awkward black hulk that looked as if it might have 

 been made out of the bones of the first steamboat, 

 or was it some Virginia colored man's study of that 

 craft? Its wheels consisted each of two timbers 

 crossing each other at right angles. As the shaft 

 slowly turned, these timbers pawed and pawed the 

 water. It hove to on the flats near our quarters, 

 and a colored man came off in a boat. To our 

 inquiry, he said with a grin that his craft was a 

 "floating saw- mill." 



After a while I took my turn in the box, and, 

 with a life-preserver for a pillow, lay there on my 



