The Shores Of The
Elizabeth Are Low And Are Fringed By Sedgy
Marshes, While Forests Of Second-Growth Pine
Present A Green Background To The Eye.
A few
miles above Norfolk the cultivation of land
ceases, and the canoeist traverses a wilderness.
About noon I arrived at the locks of the
Albemarle and Chesapeake Canal. The telegraph
operator greeted me with the news that the
company's agent in Norfolk had telegraphed to the
lock-master to pass the paper canoe through with
the freedom of the canal - the first honor of the
kind that had fallen to my lot. The tide rises
and falls at the locks in the river about three feet
and a half. When I passed through, the
difference in the level between the ends of the locks
did not reach two feet. The old lock-master
urged me to give up the journey at once, as I
never could "get through the Sounds with that
little boat." When I told him I was on my
second thousand miles of canoe navigation since
leaving Quebec, he drew a long breath and
gave a low groan.
When once through the canal-gates, you are
in a heavy cypress swamp. The dredgings
thrown upon the banks have raised the edge of
the swamp to seven feet above the water. Little
pines grow along these shores, and among them
the small birds, now on their southern migrations,
sported and sang. Whenever a steamer or
tugboat passed me, it crowded the canoe close to
the bank; but these vessels travel along the
canal at so slow a rate, that no trouble is
experienced by the canoeist from the disturbance
caused by their revolving screws.
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