By Two O'clock P. M. The Rain And Wind Caused
Me To Seek Shelter At Mr. J. C. Beach's Cottage,
At Markus Hook, some twenty miles below
Philadelphia, and on the same side of the river.
While Mr. Beach was
Varnishing the little craft,
crowds of people came to feel of the canoe,
giving it the usual punching with their finger-nails,
"to see if it were truly paper." A young
Methodist minister with his pretty wife came also to
satisfy their curiosity on the paper question, but
the dominie offered me not a word of
encouragement in my undertaking. He shook his head
and whispered to his wife: "A wild, wild
enterprise indeed." Markus Hook derived its name
from Markee, an Indian chief, who sold it to the
civilized white man for four barrels of whiskey.
The next morning, in a dense fog, I followed
the shores of the river, crossing the Pennsylvania
and Delaware boundary line half a mile below
the "Hook;" and entered Delaware, the little state
of three counties. Thirty-five miles below, the
water becomes salt. Reaching New Castle,
which contained half its present number of
inhabitants before Philadelphia was founded, I
pulled across to the New Jersey side of the river
and skirted the marshy shore past the little Pea
Patch Island, upon which rises in sullen
dreariness Fort Delaware. West of the Island is
Delaware City, where the Chesapeake and
Delaware Canal, fourteen miles in length, has one
of its termini, the other being on a river which
empties into Chesapeake Bay. Philadelphia and
Baltimore steamboat lines utilize this canal in
the passage of their boats from one city to the
other.
After crossing Salem Cove, and passing its
southern point, Elsinborough, five miles and a
half below Fort Delaware, the inhospitable
marshes became wide and desolate, warning me
to secure a timely shelter for the night. Nearly
two miles below Point Elsinborough the high
reeds were divided by a little creek, into which I
ran my canoe, for upon the muddy bank could be
seen a deserted, doorless fish-cabin, into which I
moved my blankets and provisions, after cutting
with my pocket-knife an ample supply of dry
reeds for a bed. Drift-wood, which a friendly
tide had deposited around the shanty, furnished
the material for my fire, which lighted up the
dismal hovel most cheerfully. And thus I kept
house in a comfortable manner till morning,
being well satisfied with the progress I had
made that day in traversing the shores of three
states. The booming of the guns of wild-fowl
shooters out upon the water roused me before
dawn, and I had ample time before the sun arose
to prepare breakfast from the remnant of canned
ox-tail soup left over from last night's supper.
I was now in Delaware Bay, which was
assuming noble proportions. From my camp I crossed
to the west shore below Reedy Island, and, filling
my water-bottles at a farm-house, kept upon that
shore all day.
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