THE IJILAND PASSAGE. 29 



incognita. We knew that there were birds, and 

 beasts, and fish, in that equatorial region, but where 

 to find them, how to reach them, and by what 

 methods to catch and kill them, were wholly un- 

 known to us. No one, after reading this record, 

 will have the same complaint to make. Several of 

 the Government charts were not completed, notably 

 those of Pamlico Sound, and the corrections of that 

 from Charleston south, so as to show the inside 

 route had not been made in the year 1883, which 

 was the one I had selected for the expedition. 



We had sent the "Heartsease" to ^Norfolk, and 

 were to meet her there, as by so doing we would 

 save time that could be better utilized than by 

 going over ground with which we were pretty well 

 familiar — ^that of ISTew Jersey, Pennsylvania, and 

 Virginia. At Norfolk, after we had purchased 

 what hard-bread, cake, pies, and other stores and 

 luxuries we needed, and had been through the fish 

 market, and selected an abundance of the largest 

 "spot," which is regarded as the most delicious 

 native fish, although it is nothing more than what 

 we call the Lafayette fish at the North, we engaged 

 a tow and started on our journey. We had to go 

 through the Albemarle and Chesapeake canal, and 

 made our first mistake in supposing that a tow was 

 a necessity for the operation. The puffy, dirty, 

 fussy, little steamboat ran us against everything 

 that she came near, and were it not that she was 

 unable to attain any considerable rate of speed, our 

 journey might have terminated before it fairly 



