We soon
passed the hamlet of North Kinnakeet, then
Scarsborough with its low houses, then South
Kinnakeet with its two wind-mills, and after
these arose a sterile, bald beach with Hatteras
light-tower piercing the sky, and west of it
Hatteras woods and marshes. We approached the
low shore and ascended a little creek, where
we left our boats, and repaired to the cottage
of Burnett's aunt.
After the barren shores I had passed, this
little house, imbedded in living green, was like
a bright star in a dark night. It was hidden
away in a heavy thicket of live-oaks and cedars,
and surrounded by yaupons, the bright red
berries of which glistened against the light green
leaves. An old woman stood in the doorway
with a kindly greeting for her "wild boy,"
rejoicing the while that he had "got back to his
old aunty once more."
"Yes, aunty," said my friend Lorenzo, "I am
back again like a bad penny, but not
empty-handed; for as soon as our season's catch of
blue-fish is sold, old aunty will have sixty or
seventy dollars."
"He has a good heart, if he is so head-strong,"
whispered the motherly woman, as she wiped a
tear from her eyes, and gazed with pride upon
the manly-looking young fellow, and - invited
us in to tea - YAUPON.
CHAPTER X. FROM CAPE HATTERAS TO CAPE FEAR, NORTH CAROLINA.
CAPE HATTERAS LIGHT. - HABITS OF BIRDS. - STORM AT
HATTERAS INLET - MILES OF WRECKS. - THE YACHT JULIA
SEARCHING FOR THE PAPER CANOE. - CHASED BY PORPOISES.
- MARSH TACKIES. - OCRACOKE INLET. - A GRAVE-YARD
BEING SWALLOWED UP BY THE SEA. - CORE SOUND. - THREE
WEDDINGS AT HUNTING QUARTERS. - MOREHEAD CITY. -
NEWBERN. - SWANSBORO. - A PEA-NUT PLANTATION. - THE
ROUTE TO CAPE FEAR.
Cape Hatteras is the apex of a
triangle. It is the easternmost part of the
state of North Carolina, and it extends farther
into the ocean than any Atlantic cape of the
United States. It presents a low, broad, sandy
point to the sea, and for several miles beyond it,
in the ocean, are the dangerous Diamond Shoals,
the dread of the mariner.
The Gulf Stream, with its river-like current
of water flowing northward from the Gulf of
Mexico, in its oscillations from east to west
frequently approaches to within eighteen or twenty
miles of the cape, filling a large area of
atmosphere with its warmth, and causing frequent
local disturbances. The weather never remains
long in a settled state. As most vessels try to
make Hatteras Light, to ascertain their true
position, &c., and because it juts out so far into the
Atlantic, the locality has become the scene of
many wrecks, and the beach, from the cape
down to Hatteras Inlet, fourteen miles, is strewn
with the fragments of vessels.
