Returning Over The Course, I Once More Faced The Four, Or Five Mouths Rather, And Taking A New Departure By

Entering the next mouth to the one I had so unsatisfactorily explored, soon entered Rogue's Bay, across which could be

Seen the entrance to Cat Creek, where I was to experience the difficulties predicted by my Chincoteague friends. Cat Creek furnished at half tide sufficient water for my canoe, and not the slightest difficulty was experienced in getting through it. The oystermen had in their minds their own sloop-rigged oyster-boats when they discoursed to me about the hard passage of Cat Creek. They had not considered the fact that my craft drew only five inches of water.

Cat Creek took me quite down to the beach, where, through an inlet, the dark-blue ocean, sparkling in its white caps, came pleasantly into view. Another inlet was to be crossed, and again I was favored with smooth water. This was Assawaman Inlet, which divided the beach into two islands - Wallops on the north, and Assawaman on the south.

It seemed a singular fact that the two Assawaman bays are forty-five miles to the north of an inlet of the same name. In following the creeks through the marshes between Assawaman Island and the mainland, I crossed another shoal bay, and another inlet opened in the beach, through which the ocean was again seen. This last was Gargathy Inlet. Before reaching it, as night was coming on, I turned up a thoroughfare and rowed some distance to the mainland, where I found lodgings with a hospitable farmer, Mr. Martin R. Kelly. At daybreak I crossed Gargathy Inlet.

It was now Saturday, November 28; and being encouraged by the successful crossing of the inlets in my tiny craft, I pushed on to try the less inviting one at the end of Matomkin Island. Fine weather favored me, and I pushed across the strong tide that swept through this inlet without shipping a sea. Assawaman and Gargathy are constantly shifting their channels. At times there will be six feet of water, and again they will shoal to two feet. Matomkin, also, is not to be relied on. Every northeaster will shift a buoy placed in the channels of these three inlets, so they are not buoyed.

Watchapreague Inlet, to the south of the three last named, is less changeable in character, and is also a much more dangerous inlet to cross in rough weather. From Matoinkin Inlet the interior thoroughfares were followed inside of Cedar Island, when darkness forced me to seek shelter with Captain William F. Burton, whose comfortable home was on the shore of the mainland, about five miles from Watchapreague Inlet. Here I was kindly invited to spend Sunday. Captain Burton told me much of interest, and among other things mentioned the fact that during one August, a few years before my visit, a large lobster was taken on a fish-hook in Watchapreague Inlet, and that a smaller one was captured in the same manner during the summer of 1874.

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