relief of mind
there were found only a few superficial scratches upon the horn-like
shellacked surface of the paper shell. To apply shellac with a heated
iron to the wounds made by the oyster-shells was the work of a few
minutes, and my craft was as sound as ever. The gunner's resort,
"Bower's Beach Hotel," furnished an excellent supper of oyster
fritters, pan-fish, and fried pork-scrapple. Mine host, before a
blazing wood fire, told me of the origin of the name of Murderkill
Creek.

"In the early settlement of the country," began the innkeeper, "the
white settlers did all they could to civilize the Indians, but the
cussed savages wouldn't take to it kindly, but worried the life out of
the new-comers. At last a great landed proprietor, who held a big grant
of land in these parts, thought he'd settle the troubles. So he planted
a brass cannon near the creek, and invited all the Indians of the
neighborhood to come and hear the white man's Great Spirit talk. The
crafty man got the savages before the mouth of the cannon, and said,
'Now look into the hole there, for it is the mouth of the white man's
Great Spirit, which will soon speak in tones of thunder.' The fellow
then touched off the gun, and knocked half the devils into splinters.
The others were so skeerd at the big voice they had heard that they were
afraid to move, and were soon all killed by one charge after another
from the cannon: so the creek has been called Murderkill ever since."

I afterwards discovered that there were other places on the coast
which had the same legend as the one told me by the innkeeper. Holders
of small farms lived in the vicinity of this tavern, but the
post-office was at Frederica, five miles inland. Embarking the next
day, I felt sure of ending my cruise on Delaware Bay before night, as
the quiet morning exhibited no signs of rising winds. The little pilot
town of Lewes, near Cape Delaware, and behind the Breakwater, is a
port of refuge for storm-bound vessels. From this village I expected
to make a portage of six miles to Love Creek, a tributary of Rehoboth
Sound. The frosty nights were now exerting a sanitary influence over
the malarial districts which I had entered, and the unacclimated
canoeist of northern birth could safely pursue his journey, and sleep
at night in the swamps along the fresh-water streams if protected from
the dews by a rubber or canvas covering. My hopes of reaching the
open sea that night were to be drowned, a