CHAPTER IX 



CRUISING AND CAMPING 



MY first experience with dredging was with Stimpson in the 

 summer of 1860 along the coast of Maine. This art of searching 

 the bottom was then in its infancy, but what there was of it he 

 knew well by much very intelligent practice. We never worked 

 at a greater depth than about a hundred fathoms, and at that 

 depth, by using a large sand-boat, drifting with the strong tides ; 

 practically all our work was in the lateral belt. It was in general 

 our practice to use a rowboat with a sail to get to and from our 

 ground ; but we trusted to our oars for dragging the apparatus 

 over the bottom, two of us pulling while the third Hyatt 

 was with us for a time, and for the rest a boatman "tended 

 dredge." Since he was not strong, having, like so many others, 

 consumption, Stimpson did little of the pulling, so that I had a 

 season of hard work, enlivened and more than repaid by the joy 

 of the deep and its riches. I well remember the enthusiasm with 

 which Stimpson would greet a good haul. When the dredge 

 came up well-laden, it was his custom to drink to it in rum which 

 was always aboard, and of which he partook greatly. Filling a 

 glass, he would dextrously stand with one foot on either side of 

 the boat, swaying with it as he sang : 



"I was born upon the water and had ne'er a mother fairer, 

 And for mother's milk my father gave me only old Madeira; 

 So following out my early training I wander still upon the sea, 

 But water yet I ne'er have tasted ; water is no drink for me. 

 Water, no, no, no, water, no, no, no, 

 Water is no drink for me." 



Then with "Here's to the haul" and a gulp, we would turn 

 to the business of picking out the treasures. A month of this 

 dredging took us pretty much the length of the Maine sea-front. 



