Voyage of the Paper Canoe

At the termination of the preacher's exhortation, I proposed to my companion that I should present the minister with a dollar for his new church, but with a look of dismay, he replied: "Oh, don't give it to the preacher. Hand it to that other negro sitting near him. We never trust the preacher with money; he always spends the church-money. We only trust him for preaching."

Monday, March 1st, opened fair, but the wind arose when the canoe reached Three Mile Cut, which connects the Darien with Altamaha River. I went through this narrow steamboat passage, and being prevented by the wind from entering the wide Altamaha, returned to the Darien River and ascended it to General's Cut, which, with Butler River, affords a passage to the Altamaha River. Before entering General's Cut, mistaking a large, half submerged alligator for a log on a mud bank, the canoe nearly touched the saurian before he was roused from his nap to retire into the water. General's Cut penetrates a rice plantation opposite the town of Darien, to Butler's Island, the estate of the late Pierce Butler, at its southern end. Rice-planting, since the war, had not proved a very profitable business to the present proprietors, who deserve much praise for the efforts they have made to educate their freedmen. A profitable crop of oranges is gathered some seasons from the groves upon Butler's Island.

From the mouth of General's Cut down Butler River to the Altamaha was but a short row. The latter stream would have taken me to Altamaha Sound, to avoid which I passed through Wood's Cut into the South Altamaha River, and proceeded through the lowland rice-plantations towards St. Simon's Island, which is by the sea. About the middle of the afternoon, when close to Broughton Island, where the South Altamaha presented a wide area to the strong head-wind which was sending little waves over my canoe, a white plantation-house, under the veranda of which an elderly gentleman was sitting, attracted my attention. Here was what seemed to be the last camping-ground on a route of several miles to St. Simon's Island.

If the wind continued to blow from the same quarter, the canoe could not cross Buttermilk Sound that night; so I went ashore to inquire if there were any hammocks in the marshes by the river-banks between the plantation and the sound.

The bachelor proprietor of Broughton Island, Captain Richard A. Akin, posted me as to the route to St. Simon's Island, but insisted that the canoe traveller should share his comfortable quarters until the next day; and when the next day came round, and the warm sun and smooth current of the wide Altamaha invited me to continue the voyage, the hospitable rice-planter thought the weather not settled enough for me to venture down to the sound. In fact, he held me a rather willing captive for several days, and then let me off on the condition that I should return at some future time, and spend a month with him in examining the sea islands and game resources of the vicinity.

Captain Akin was a successful rice-planter on the new system of employing freedmen on wages, but while he protected the ignorant blacks in all their newly-found rights, he was a thorough disciplinarian. The negroes seemed to like their employer, and stuck to him with greater tenacity than they did to those planters who allowed them to do as they pleased. The result of lax treatment with these people is always a failure of crops. The rivers and swamps near Broughton Island abound in fine fishes and terrapin, while the marshes and flats of the sea islands afford excellent opportunities for the sportsman to try his skill upon the feathered tribe.

On Monday, March 9th, the Maria Theresa left Broughton Island well provisioned with the stores the generous captain had pressed upon my acceptance. The atmosphere was softened by balmy breezes, and the bright sunlight played with the shadows of the clouds upon the wide marshes, which were now growing green with the warmth of returning spring. The fish sprang from the water as I touched it with my light oars.

St. Simon's Island, – where Mr. Pierce Butler once cultivated sea-island cotton, and to which he took his English bride, Miss Kemble, – with its almost abandoned plantation, was reached before ten o'clock. Frederica River carried me along the whole length of the island to St. Simon's Sound. When midway the island, I paused to survey what remains of the old town of Frederica, of which but few vestiges can be discovered. History informs us that Frederica was the first town built by the English in Georgia, and was founded by General Oglethorpe, who began and established the colony.

The fortress was regular and beautiful, and was the largest, most regular, and perhaps most costly of any in North America of British construction. Pursuing my journey southward, the canoe entered the exposed area of St. Simon's Sound, which, with its ocean inlet, was easily crossed to the wild and picturesque Jekyl Island, upon which the two bachelor brothers Dubignon live and hunt the deer, enjoying the free life of lords of the forest. Their old family mansion, once a haven of hospitality, where the northern tourist and shipwrecked sailor shared alike the good things of this life with the kind host, was used for a target by a gunboat during the late war, and is now in ruins.

Here, twenty years ago, at midnight, the slave-yacht "Wanderer" landed her cargo of African negroes, the capital for the enterprise being supplied by three southern gentlemen, and the execution of the work being intrusted, under carefully drawn contracts, to Boston parties.

The calm weather greatly facilitated my progress, and had I not missed Jekyl Creek, which is the steamboat thoroughfare through the marshes to Jekyl and St. Andrew's Sound, that whole day's experience would have been a most happy one. The mouth of Jekyl Creek was a narrow entrance, and being off in the sound, I passed it as I approached the lowlands, which were skirted until a passage at Cedar Hammock through the marsh was found, some distance from the one I was seeking. Into this I entered, and winding about for some time over its tortuous course, at a late hour in the afternoon the canoe emerged into a broad watercourse, down which I could look across Jekyl Sound to the sea.

This broad stream was Jointer Creek, and I ascended it to find a spot of high ground upon which to camp. It was now low water, and the surface of the marshes was three or four feet above my head. After much anxious searching, and a great deal of rowing against the last of the ebb, a forest of pines and palmetto-trees was reached on Colonel's Island, at a point about four miles – across the marshes and Brunswick River – from the interesting old town of Brunswick, Georgia.

The soft, muddy shores of the hammock were in one place enveloped in a thicket of reeds, and here I rested upon my oars to select a convenient landing-place. The rustling of the reeds suddenly attracted my attention. Some animal was crawling through the thicket in the direction of the boat. My eyes became fixed upon the mysterious shaking and waving of the tops of the reeds, and my hearing was strained to detect the cause of the crackling of the dry rushes over which this unseen creature was moving. A moment later my curiosity was satisfied, for there emerged slowly from the covert an alligator nearly as large as my canoe. The brute's head was as long as a barrel; his rough coat of mail was besmeared with mud, and his dull eyes were fixed steadily upon me. I was so surprised and fascinated by the appearance of this huge reptile that I remained immovable in my boat, while he in a deliberate manner entered the water within a few feet of me. The hammock suddenly lost all its inviting aspect, and I pulled away from it faster than I had approached. In the gloom I observed two little hammocks, between Colonel's Island and the Brunswick River, which seemed to be near Jointer's Creek, so I followed the tortuous thoroughfares until I was within a quarter of a mile of one of them.

Pulling my canoe up a narrow creek towards the largest hammock, until the creek ended in the lowland, I was cheered by the sight of a small house in a grove of live-oaks, to reach which I was obliged to abandon my canoe and attempt to cross the soft marsh. The tide was now rising rapidly, and it might be necessary for me to swim some inland creek before I could arrive at the upland.

An oar was driven into the soft mud of the marsh and the canoe tied to it, for I knew that the whole country, with the exception of the hammock near by, would be under water at flood-tide. Floundering through mud and pressing aside the tall, wire-like grass of the lowland, which entangled my feet, frequently leaping natural ditches, and going down with a thud in the mud on the other side, I finally struck the firm ground of the largest Jointer Hammock, when the voice of its owner, Mr. R. F. Williams, sounded most cheerfully in my ears as he exclaimed: "Where did you come from? How did you get across the marsh?"

The unfortunate position of my boat was explained while the family gathered round me, after which we sat down to supper. Mr. Williams felt anxious about the cargo of my boat. "The coons," he said, "will scent your provisions, and tear everything to pieces in the boat. We must go look after it immediately." To go to the canoe we were obliged to follow a creek which swept past the side of the hammock, opposite to my landing-place, and row two or three miles on Jointer Creek. At nine o'clock we reached the locality where I had abandoned the paper canoe. Everything had changed in appearance; the land was under water; not a landmark remained except the top of the oar, which rose out of the lake-like expanse of water, while near it gracefully floated my little companion. We towed her to the hammock; and after the tedious labor of divesting myself of the marsh mud, which clung to my clothes, had been crowned with success, the comfortable bed furnished by my host gave rest to limbs and nerves which had been severely overtaxed since sunset.

The following day opened cloudy and windy. The ocean inlet of Jekyl and St. Andrew's sounds is three miles wide. From the mouth of Jointer Creek, across these unprotected sounds, to High Point of Cumberland Island, is eight miles. The route from the creek to Cumberland Island was a risky one for so small a boat as the paper canoe while the weather continued unpropitious. After entering the sounds there was but one spot of upland, near the mouth of the Satilla River, that could be used for camping purposes on the vast area of marshes.

During the month of March rainy and windy weather prevail on this coast. I could ill afford to lose any time shut up in Jointer's Hammock by bad weather, as the low regions of Okefenokee Swamp were to be penetrated before the warm season could make the task a disagreeable one. After holding a consultation with Mr. Williams, he contracted to take the canoe and its captain across St. Andrew's Sound to High Point of Cumberland Island that day. His little sloop was soon under way, and though the short, breaking waves of the sound, and the furious blasts of wind, made the navigation of the shoals disagreeable, we landed quietly at Mr. Chubbs' Oriental Hotel, at High Point, soon after noon.

Mr. Martin, the surveyor of the island, welcomed me to Cumberland, and gave me much information pertaining to local matters. The next morning the canoe left the high bluffs of this beautiful sea island so filled with historic associations, and threaded the marshy thoroughfare of Cumberland and Brickhill River to Cumberland Sound. As I approached the mouth of the St. Mary's River, the picturesque ruins of Dungeness towered above the live-oak forest of the southern end of Cumberland Island. It was with regret I turned my back upon that sea, the sounds of which had so long struck upon my ear with their sweet melody. It seemed almost a moan that was borne to me now as the soft waves laved the sides of my graceful craft, as though to give her a last, loving farewell.

CHAPTER XIV

ST. MARY'S RIVER AND THE SUWANEE WILDERNESS

A PORTAGE TO DUTTON. – DESCENT OF THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. – FÊTE GIVEN BY THE CITIZENS TO THE PAPER CANOE. – THE PROPOSED CANAL ROUTE ACROSS FLORIDA. – A PORTAGE TO THE SUWANEE RIVER. – A NEGRO SPEAKS ON ELECTRICITY AND THE TELEGRAPH. – A FREEDMAN'S SERMON.

I NOW ascended the beautiful St. Mary's River, which flows from the great Okefenokee Swamp. The state of Georgia was on my right hand, and Florida on my left. Pretty hammocks dotted the marshes, while the country presented peculiar and interesting characteristics. When four miles from Cumberland Sound, the little city of St. Mary's, situated on the Georgia side of the river, was before me; and I went ashore to make inquiries concerning the route to Okefenokee Swamp.

My object was to get information about the upper St. Mary's River, from which I proposed to make a portage of thirty-five or forty miles in a westerly direction to the Suwanee River, upon arriving at which I would descend to the Gulf of Mexico. My efforts, both at St. Mary's and Fernandina, on the Florida side of Cumberland Sound, to obtain any reliable information upon this matter, were unsuccessful. A settlement at Trader's Hill, about seventy-five miles up the St. Mary's River, was the geographical limit of local knowledge, while I wished to ascend the river at least one hundred miles beyond that point.

Believing that if I explored the uninhabited sources of the St. Mary's, I should be compelled to return without finding any settler upon its banks at the proper point of departure for a portage to the Suwanee, it became necessary to abandon all idea of ascending this river. I could not, however, give up the exploration of the route. In this dilemma, a kindly written letter seemed to solve the difficulties. Messrs. Dutton & Rixford, northern gentlemen, who possessed large facilities for the manufacture of resin and turpentine at their new settlements of Dutton, six miles from the St. Mary's River, and at Rixford, near the Suwanee, kindly proposed that I should take my canoe by railroad from Cumberland Sound to Dutton. From that station Mr. Dutton offered to transport the boat through the wilderness to the St. Mary's River, which could be from that point easily descended to the sea. The Suwanee River, at Rixford, could be reached by rail, and the voyage would end at its debouchure on the marshy coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Hon. David Yulee, president and one-third owner of the A. G. & W. I. T. C. Railroad, which connects the Atlantic coast at Fernandina with the Gulf coast at Cedar Keys, offered me the free use of his long railroad, for any purpose of exploration, &c., while his son, Mr. C. Wickliffe Yulee, exerted himself to remove all impediments to delay.

These gentlemen, being native Floridians, have done much towards encouraging all legitimate exploration of the peninsula, and have also done something towards putting a check on the outrageous impositions practised on northern agricultural emigrants to Florida, by encouraging the organization of a railroad land-company, which offers a forty-acre homestead for fifty dollars, to be selected out of nearly six hundred thousand acres of land along their highway across the state. A man of comparatively small means can now try the experiment of making a home in the mild climate of Florida, and if he afterwards abandons the enterprise there will have been but a small investment of capital, and consequently little loss.

The turpentine distillery of Dutton was situated in a heavy forest of lofty pines. Major C. K. Dutton furnished a team of mules to haul the Maria Theresa to the St. Mary's River, the morning after my arrival by rail at Dutton Station. The warm sunshine shot aslant the tall pines as the teamster followed a faintly developed trail towards the swamps. Before noon the flashing waters of the stream were discernible, and a little later, with paddle in hand, I was urging the canoe towards the Atlantic coast. A luxurious growth of trees and shrubs fringed the low, and in some places submerged, river shores. Back, on the higher, sandy soils, the yellow pine forests, in almost primeval grandeur, arose, shutting out all view of the horizon. Low bluffs, with white, sandy beaches of a few rods in extent, offered excellent camping-grounds.

When the Cracker of Okefenokee Swamp is asked why he lives in so desolate a region, with only a few cattle and hogs for companions, with mosquitoes, fleas, and vermin about him, with alligators, catamounts, and owls on all sides, making night hideous, he usually replies, "Wal, stranger, wood and water is so powerful handy. Sich privileges ain't met with everywhar."

As I glided swiftly down the dark current I peered into the dense woods, hoping to be cheered by the sight of a settler's cabin; but in all that day's search not a clearing could be found, nor could I discern rising from the tree-tops of the solitary forest a little cloud of smoke issuing from the chimney of civilized man. I was alone in the vast wilds through which the beautiful river flowed noiselessly but swiftly to the sea. Thoreau loved a swamp, and so do all lovers of nature, for nowhere else does she so bountifully show her vigorous powers of growth, her varied wealth of botanical wonders. Here the birds resort in flocks when weary of the hot, sandy uplands, for here they find pure water, cool shade, and many a curious glossy berry for their dainty appetites.

As the little Maria Theresa sped onward through the open forest and tangled wild-wood, through wet morass and piny upland, my thoughts dwelt upon the humble life of the Concord naturalist and philosopher. How he would have enjoyed the descent of this wild river from the swamp to the sea! He had left us for purer delights; but I could enjoy his "Walden" as though he still lived, and read of his studies of nature with ever-increasing interest.

Swamps have their peculiar features. Those of the Waccamaw were indeed desolate, while the swamps of the St. Mary's were full of sunshine for the traveller. Soon after the canoe had commenced her river journey, a sharp sound, like that produced by a man striking the water with a broad, flat stick, reached my ears. As this sound was frequently repeated, and always in advance of my boat, it roused my curiosity. It proved to come from alligators. One after another slipped off the banks, striking the water with their tails as they took refuge in the river from the disturber of their peace. To observe the movements of these reptiles I ran the canoe within two rods of the left shore, and by rapid paddling was enabled to arrive opposite a creature as he entered the water. When thus confronted, the alligator would depress his ugly head, lash the water once with his tail, and dive under the canoe, a most thoroughly alarmed animal. All these alligators were mere babies, very few being over four feet long. Had they been as large as the one which greeted me at Colonel's Island, I should not have investigated their dispositions, but would have considered discretion the better part of valor, and left them undisturbed in their sun-baths on the banks.

In all my experience with the hundreds of alligators I have seen in the southern rivers and swamps of North America, every one, both large and small, fled at the approach of man. The experience of some of my friends in their acquaintance with American alligators has been of a more serious nature. It is well to exercise care about camping at night close to the water infested with large saurians, as one of these strong fellows could easily seize a sleeping man by the leg and draw him into the river. They do not seem to fear a recumbent or bowed figure, but, like most wild animals, flee before the upright form of man.

Late in the afternoon I passed an island, made by a "cut-off" through a bend of the river, and, according to previous directions, counted fourteen bends or reaches in the river which was to guide me to Stewart's Ferry, the owner of which lived back in the woods, his cabin not being discernible from the river. Near this spot, which is occasionally visited by lumbermen and piny-woods settlers, I drew my canoe on to a sandy beach one rod in length. A little bluff, five or six feet above the water, furnished me with the broad leaves of the saw-palmetto, a dwarfish sort of palm, which I arranged for a bed. The provision-basket was placed at my head. A little fire of light-wood cheered me for a while, but its bright flame soon attracted winged insects in large numbers. Having made a cup of chocolate, and eaten some of Captain Akin's chipped beef and crackers, I continued my preparations for the night. Feeling somewhat nervous about large alligators, I covered myself with a piece of painted canvas, which was stiff and strong, and placed the little revolver, my only weapon, under my blanket.

As I fully realized the novelty of my strange position in this desolate region, it was some time before I could compose myself and sleep. It was a night of dreams. Sounds indistinct but numerous troubled my brain, until I was fully roused to wakefulness by horrible visions and doleful cries. The chuck-will's-widow, which in the south supplies the place of our whippoorwill, repeated his oft-told tale of "chuck-will's-widow, chuck-will's-widow," with untiring earnestness. The owls hooted wildly, with a chorus of cries from animals and reptiles not recognizable by me, excepting the snarling voices of the coons fighting in the forest. These last were old acquaintances, however, as they frequently gathered round my camp at night to pick up the remains of supper.

While I listened, there rose a cry so hideous in its character and so belligerent in its tone, that I trembled with fear upon my palm-leaf mattress. It resembled the bellowing of an infuriated bull, but was louder and more penetrating in its effect. The proximity of this animal was indeed unpleasant, for he had planted himself on the river's edge, near the little bluff upon which my camp had been constructed. The loud roar was answered by a similar bellow from the other side of the river, and for a long time did these two male alligators keep up their challenging cries, without coming to combat. Numerous wood-mice attacked my provision-basket, and even worked their way through the leaves of my palmetto mattress.

Thus with an endless variety of annoyances the night wore wearily away, but the light of the rising sun did not penetrate the thick fog which enveloped the river until after eight o'clock, when I embarked for a second day's journey upon the stream, which had now attained a width of five or six rods. Rafts of logs blocked the river as I approached the settlement of Trader's Hill, and upon a most insecure footing the canoe was dragged over a quarter of a mile of logs, and put into the water on the lower side of the "jam." Crossing several of these log "jams," which covered the entire width of the St. Mary's, I became weary of the task, and, after the last was reached, determined to go into camp until the next day, when suddenly the voices of men in the woods were heard.

Soon a gentleman, with two raftsmen, appeared and kindly greeted me. They had been notified of my approach at Trader's Hill by a courier sent from Dutton across the woods, and these men, whose knowledge of woodcraft is wonderful, had timed my movements so correctly that they had arrived just in time to meet me at this point. The two raftsmen rubbed the canoe all over with their hands, and expressed delight at its beautiful finish in their own peculiar vernacular.

"She's the dog-gonedest thing I ever seed, and jist as putty as a new coffin!" exclaimed one.

"Indeed, she's the handsomest trick I ever did blink on," said the second.

The two stalwart lumbermen lifted the boat as though she were but a feather, and carried her, jumping from log to log, the whole length of the raft. They then put her gently in the water, and added to their farewell the cheering intelligence that "there's no more jams nor rafts 'twixt here and the sea, and you can go clar on to New York if you like."

Trader's Hill, on a very high bluff on the left bank, was soon passed, when the current seemed suddenly to cease, and I felt the first tidal effect of the sea, though many miles from the coast. The tide was flooding. I now laid aside the paddle, and putting the light steel outriggers in their sockets, rapidly rowed down the now broad river until the shadows of night fell upon forest and stream, when the comfortable residence of Mr. Lewis Davis, with his steam saw-mill, came into sight upon Orange Bluff, on the Florida side of the river. Here a kind welcome greeted me from host and hostess, who had dwelt twenty years in this romantic but secluded spot. There were orange-trees forty years old on this property, and all in fine bearing order. There was also a fine sulphur spring near the house.