For Fond and Stream. 
Wv** hundred ^ftiles it\ n || Ifale 
i§ont. 
* | 'HE accounts received of Mr. Bishop’s canoe voyage 
•I along the Atlantic coast remind me of a similar 
cruise of my own, undertaken to pass over the same water. 
It was to be, however, from south to north, and the time 
was in June. The sun glistened on the roofs of the three 
houses constituting the town of New Smyrna, as we cost 
off from Major Alden’s wharf and took the ebb tide for 
the Inlet two miles away. Two weeks previously I had 
reached the Major’s as ragged and sorry looking a speci- 
men as the forests of Florida ever gave up to civilization. 
An old felt hat adorned my head, minus portious of the 
brim, burned off in fanning numerous camp fires; a ragged 
woolen shirt, and trowserloous with both legs carried away 
below the kness. My feet were encased in Indian mocca- 
sins. Spite of my rough looking dress, and in face of the 
fact that the Major had met me but once before, ho took 
me in and did for me, and half an hour later I was pad- 
dling in his bath tub and soon after sumptuously arrayed 
in store clothes. 
I bad bought during my stay a whale boat, 27 feet long, 
well supplied with oars, sails, compass, water keg, anchor' 
&e., and two men had promised to accompany me on the 
whole trip for their passage. They were good sailors— 
one a Scotchman the other a Swede. The voyage was 
nothing short of a cruise from Florida to Massachusetts 
by the inside route. The Scotchman had professed himself 
acquainted with every mile of the way, and doubted not 
that he could make the trip, as ho had come down on a 
small steamer the previous Fall. If I had known then that 
he came down in the capacity of fireman , it would have 
saved me a world of trouble at a later period. As it was 
wo set off buoyant and full of hope, our only bugbear be- 
ing Cape Cod, and this we felt sure we could weather by 
watching ou- chances. Delusive hopes! In less than two 
hours we were despairing of ever looking upon the shores 
of the old Bay State. I kept a journal for a few days, and 
from this I will quote: “Fainter and fainter grew the 
Major’s house, with its broad piazza, and fainter grew the 
high white bluff with its picturesque fringe of sisul hemp 
and century plants. Through the narrow channel and on 
toward the foaming breakers we sped, until the breeze died 
away and I took the helm while the captain (the Scotch- 
man) and Sren (the Swede) took the oars. Almost out; 
breakers on either hand; two hundred yards will find us 
through and on the waves of the Atlantic. The great 
waves toss us about like a cork and their white crests show 
above us angrily. “Keep her well on!” shouts the captain, 
and just then a snap, a sudden lurch of the rudder to lee- 
ward, and we know that the lower bolt is broken or out. 
"Pull, Sren! pull like !’’ shouts the captain, as he pulls 
in the drifting rudder and seizes the oar I pass him. Slowly 
she came about, but not before the top of a wave comes 
over the quarter and strikes me full in the cap. We go 
half a mile back and draw the boat’s stern'upon the saud 
for repairs. Meanwhile the tide is fast falling, and, Hie 
water on the bar growing shallower and rougher. /When 
we are ready no channel is visible— all is one. stretch of 
foaming water. We put her head on, shutting our eyes to 
the danger, and pull straight for the breakers. And now 
it is neck or nothing with us; a snap of un oar' another 
break like that of an hour ago and it is all up with us. 
Higher and higher roll the waves, and the thunder of their 
descent prevents the hurried orders of the captain from 
being heard, though shouted in my ear. I only know that 
I must keep the boat head on to those green waves that 
tower above us, and knowing that is all I can do, I calmly 
await the result. Sren and the captain are tugging at the 
oars. On they come, the waves. The boat quivers under 
the repeated blows but nobly tops each wave until we reach 
the most critical part, where three or lour waves decide 
our fate. They come! We can see them as they ris# far 
Away, gathering strength and volume as they rapidly ap- 
proach, and now the first one is on us. Full in tho face I 
we take it and the old boat shakes from stem to stern; but 
we riso and it passes on and in comes the next, more furi- 
ous than the one before. We hear no sound but its roar, 
and see nothing before us but its towering wall of green 
and white. I see it now, and I remember how calmly I 
gazed at it, wondering that I could watch my coming fate 
so coolly. But I find that in such cases of life and death, 
ns it were, if one is doing all ho can to save himself a des- 
perate calmness, born of the situation, takes possession of 
him. I did not think— as many others in like situation 
have thought— of all the sins I had committed. Perhaps 
they were so many that the time was too short to review 
them; anyway, I held squarely on to that rudder tiller, and 
kept the boat straight, wondering only in a vague way if 
we should pull through. Bang! It is past, and the water 
surges from bow to stern and tho boat broaches to, while 
fast and furious comes another nnd the last wave. “My 
God! Quick! Give me that pole!" nnd the captain, by 
exerting all his strength, brings her about just in time to 
save a fill. We breathe freer, but still have to keep ou the 
alert, as the waves are rougli and trenchorous. 
Now we are out on the open sea, and the long roll of the 
waves, now the excitement is past, brings me a visitation 
from my old foe— sea sickness. Taking a last look at the 
sand hills aud palmettos, at the inner bar with its crowd 
of pelicans, and at the Major’s house, just discernible, I 
lie down. A varying breeze from tho soulheiust and a 
southerly current made our progress at first very slow; but 
soon we went faster, and by nightfall had passed the last 
house on Halifax Lagoon. As I am unfit for duly, to me 
is assigned the task of bailing out every half hour,’ as the 
waves had thumped a leak in our bout. The warm suu 
revives us, and with a comparatively dry boat we sped 
along quite comfortably. The captain and Sren take 
watch and watch as night comes on, at the helm, while I 
watch all tho time, but cannot work from nausea. Impro- 
vising a binnacle of a raisin box and the compass, they pluce 
the candle in it and regulate the watches by the burning of 
the candle— one candle to a watch. We sight St. Augus- 
tine light about midnight, and do not lose it till near day- 
break. This light is in about lat. 29° 53' and long. 81 17'. It 
is distant from the St. John’s River bar about thirty-five 
miles. Our course is N. N. W. and the shore is in sight 
after daylight; wc were guided by the roar of the surf on 
the beach during the night. The shore above is whiter 
than that below, that being a yellower sand with a fringe 
of scattered palmettos aud a dark background of pine 
woods. 
I cannot help thinking of the stories of the early Spanish 
discoverers— Ponce de Leon, aud more especially the cruel 
Menendez— who cruised the very waters we then were sail- 
ing over, three hundred years before. I had intended vis- 
iting St. Augustine, but midnight was not a favorable time 
to enter its rather narrow channel. Wc may have passed 
over the boiling spring of fresh water, which is said to 
bubble up from occau depths off the island of Anastasia, 
as our boat danced about curiously at one time in the night. 
Owing to a light breeze we did not reach the bar of the St. 
Johns till noon. A long way out we see the buoys and wo 
steer just outside the breakers and make for a spar and 
iron buoy, which we can hardly mako out os they bob 
about on the big waves. We reach the channel, round the 
buoys, and steer west for the lighthouse. The waves are 
high and dash us about, but we cross the bar without acci- 
dent. Just inside the bar, with a stiff breeze blowing, the 
treacherous rudder bolt again gives way, and the boat 
comes up iu the wind. “Let go the fore sheet! Down with 
the mainsail!” We then steer with an oar until we round 
tho point of sand and then anchor at Mayport. There are 
two lighthouses here; the old one is near the Atlantic— too 
near, in fact, as it showed signs of being undermined by 
the waves, and had to be abandoned. It is an interesting 
ruin and many sketches have been made of it from time 
to time. The new light is a tall structure, handsomely 
built, and yet set far back among the sand hills. 
The village of Mayport is small and one has to scale 
mighty sand hills before he reaches it. Pilot Town, nearly 
opposite, has a more attractive appearance, with its large, 
square houses. After recuperating, we find that there is 
no blacksmith nearer than Fernandina, thirty miles, and 
consequently cannot risk our boat on the open ocean 
again; so we enter an inlet that in duo time brings us out 
to a sound, where are pelicans nnd plover without number. 
A high bluff on our left attracts us by its beauty, being 
seemingly hollowed out iuto shady glens at Its bnse” and 
well wooded. At dusk we enter a channel that brings us 
up to a bath house, and from the bath house I wend my 
way beneath stately trees to a mansion house, whence I 
can see a long row of negro quarters and a fine grove of 
trees. I find that it is St. George’s Island — tho same that 
General Oglethropo -occupied a hundred and forty years 
ago in his invasion of Florida. The proprietor (Mr. Hol- 
lins, I think) was very kind, aud I afterward had the pleas- 
ure of meeting him on board a steamer at Savannah. We 
slept in tho bath house, on the narrow ledge that such 
houses usually sport, assured that if wc fell off the water 
beneath is only six feet deep. At daybreak we depart and 
row for hours up a crooked crock, against a head wind, 
and then bring up, hard up, and uo outlet. This is one of 
the few occasions when cussin* brings relief. I can dimly 
remember that somebody— all hands and the cook, per- 
haps-looked hard into the fuces of tho rest nnd said 
something. 
We retraced our way and regained tho right channel, 
for it was indicated by stakes at long intervals, and finally,' 
after half a day of wasted effort, fetched up at a house 
whose sole inmate, a woman, after filling a corncob pipe 
and volunteering the information that she was from Georgy, 
told us that we were near Nassnu Sound, and that peoplo 
there could then direct us. A run of two miles brought 
us iu sight of a beautiful sound opening iuto the ocean, 
near which was an old plantation. The people ut this 
plantation “ ’lowed" that Fernandina was about eighteen 
miles away, and that the land across the inlet was the 
southern end of Amelia Island, upon which— its northern 
end— Fernandina is built. A fair wind drove us through a 
beautiful sound and we entered a scries of creeks similar 
to, though wider than those below. Fearing we may bo 
going wroug we run up to a solitnry shanty on a bluff and 
have pointed out to us far away the bridge of tho. Florida 
Railroad, under which wc go, and thence four miles to 
Fernandina. We had heard the screeching of the car 
wheels a long while before, and wondered at tho noise. I 
did not criticize the cars as some tourists have done, as they 
were the first I had seen for over six montlis und appeared 
very fair kind of cars, after all. At Fernandina, iuto 
whose magnificent harbor we sailed about five I*. M., wo 
found nothing but lumber; lumber ut the wharves, on 
board the many schooners, nnd in the mills. The only 
blacksmith was sick, and we could procure no chart. The 
captain swore he could do nothing without a chart; but 
without one we went, after boarding nearly every vessel in 
the harbor. The following notes, taken three yeurs ugo, 
seem to correctly describe tho condition of things there: 
“Fernandina is still in tho rough. The streets arc poor, 
and all business is done on the harbor street. Its high land 
back of the harbor, commanding extensive and beautiful 
prospect of ocean and river, is being rapidly taken up, und 
F. will be quite a resort for northern visitors, who have’nt 
courage enough to go further south. It is destined to be 
the shipping port of the South. Its harbors are spacious 
and remarkably deep, with a good depth of water over tho 
bar. Just before dusk wc set sail and run into Cumber- 
land Sound and cost unchor under the first lcc." 
Here my journal terminates; from whatever cause, it 
certainly goes no further. But our search for a black- 
smith was kept up and we sailed the next day, and some 
time, I can’t Just remember when, we sailed up to Bruns- 
wick, Ga., where we found a bluckBmith and had our rud 
der repaired. Stumping through the lovely little town in 
the captain’s boots, four sizes too large, I met and made 
friends of several gentlemen, one acivil engineer who lived 
at St. Simons, across the sound, and who kindly loaned 
me a map of the State, from which I roughly sketched a 
chart. I have it yet, that chart, drawn on any number of 
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