558 
FOREST AND STREAM 
May 3, 1913 
Along the Carolina Coast 
By WILLIAM PERRY BROWN 
I SUPPOSE there are few more deserted 
regions in America to-day than the hun¬ 
dred or so miles of coast line running 
from Virginia Beach on to Cape llatteras. 
It is as solitary as if it were a thousand 
miles from the haunts of men, instead of lying 
on the eastern edge of two populous and pros¬ 
perous States. There is a strip of sand vary¬ 
ing from one hundred and fifty yards to a mile 
in width—roughly estimated—that separates the 
Atlantic Ocean from the sounds inland, and 
along these sands, on top of the highest dunes, 
are built the life-saving stations of the coast 
guardsmen. 
It had long been my wish to vary certain 
fall and winter outing trips with something 
different from the orthodox lake, river, moun¬ 
tain, canoe and other hunting or fishing ex¬ 
peditions. I had spent days in the great Dismal 
Swam]!, had also gone a few trai)ping rounds 
amid the swamps and marshes that make the 
Pedee. Capt. Fear, and other Carolina rivers so 
popular with the hunting and fishing fraternity, 
large clubs of whom occupy yearly certain leas¬ 
ing privileges that give them and their friends 
unequaled hunting and fishing opportunities 
during the open season. 
On a trij! from my West Virginia home to 
Norfolk, one autumn. 1 met an old-time Florida 
siuirtsman whom we will call Ben Bolt, for that 
I', not his name. After confabbing together and 
finding that we both wanted something new in 
the line of outing experience, Ben said to 
me: 
“Let me tell you what we'll do. We’ve 
tried the swamps, the sounds, the poccosins and 
the pinewoods, but we've never tried the sea- 
beach.” 
“Do I understand that you-” I began. 
“You can understand this, Billy. We—you 
and I—want to go somewhere, noP too far from 
God’s country, where we can turn savages, wear 
what we like, eat as we please, fish, hunt, swim, 
booze if we wish, and all this amid a sort of 
life we have not been with before. We don't 
want it to be too darned expensive either nor 
do we want it to keep us away from home, and 
worser things, more than three or four weeks. 
What say?” 
Now Ben being, as I said, a very old friend, 
with whom I had roughed it in various parts of 
Dixie, from mountains to sea and gulf, his 
words put me to studying. Next day, on the 
street, we met a kindly spoken man whom Ben 
introduced me to as one of the Superintendents 
of the Atlantic Coast Life Saving Service. He 
invited us to lunch with him at his club. 
During the hour or two of talk that fol¬ 
lowed, he gave us more straight i)ointers ui)on 
the wild, free life led by tbe coast guard, yet 
which is allied to strict discipline in behalf of 
man’s noblest of human efforts, that of saving 
life and property along the sea, than I had ever 
listened to before. 
“Tberc’s our new next vacation all laid out, 
said Ben. “Can you get off next month?” 
! saw that the siqierintendent looked a 
little mystified. So Ben proceeded to explain 
what we both, by that time, wished to do dur¬ 
ing the autumn season, when open game shoot¬ 
ing was on. 
It met with his instant approval; in so much 
so, that he politely regretted that the exigen¬ 
cies of his office prevented his going with us, 
at least for a few days. 
“Of course we'd like to have you. Captain, 
but in lieu of that, you might give us, before 
we start, letters to the keepers on our route, 
and that will help us almost as if we had you 
alon.g yourself.” 
Ben grinned as he said this, for we both 
the best way is to jump right into the middle 
of it, especially if you are limited as to time. 
But it was rather a long jump and took us 
three days to make it from Norfolk. We 
traveled part of the way by rail, then by steamer 
to Manteo, thence by rail to Naggshead, where 
was a hotel, and from there by rowboat to 
Bodies Island, where was the first station north 
to which mv friend’s friend, the superintendent, 
had given us a letter. 
We now began to understand why tourists 
and hunters are not so plentiful in those parts, 
for of all tiresome journeys those three days of 
A NORTH CAROLINA CABIN. 
knew that a good word from the superintendent 
would smooth out wonderfully many of the 
little kinks that may occur to two wilderness 
tramps such as we already proposed making 
of ourselves. 
With an affability that was not less marked 
than his promi)t acceptance of our i)roposals, 
he the next day gave us letters to certain 
keepers along the Carolina coast; and these, 
when we later came to use them, we found quite 
as i)Otent as the ring of some far eastern po¬ 
tentate of the Arabian Nights period, in pro- 
oiring for us the welcome and entertainment wc 
hardly had hoped to find. 
In consequence of these things, some two 
weeks later, the two of us found ourselves at 
Bodies Island, well along on the North Caro¬ 
lina seaboard. We had concluded to skip the 
'.’irginia coastline as being too near the towns 
and the mainland. If you are out for wild life. 
the l(!Ug jump were about the most wearisome 
I have encountered. 
The station at Bodies Island was at this 
time manned by a negro crew, the only colored 
crew along that long stretch of beach. It was 
under command of an old-fashioned Virginia 
darkey, who called himself “Cap’n Jake,” and 
claimed to have been, as a boy, the body servant 
of a certain Major Jennings Wise, who was 
killed at Roanoke Island during our Civil War. 
I have heard since that a white crew has re¬ 
placed the darkies; but know nothing definite. 
“Cap'll Jake,” after we had read the letter 
to him. put himself at our disposal. He 
“ ’lowed” that snipe were plentiful on the lower 
end of the island, and drove us to the flats 
himself, putting us in the same blind where he 
said ex-President Cleveland had sat when mak¬ 
ing his last visits to the locality. We had but 
small luck, it being too dry; and both of us 
