boiling waters, I
could see nothing.

[Illustration: A CAPSIZE IN DELAWARE BAY.]

At such a moment do not stop to make vows as to how you will treat your
neighbor in future if once safely landed, but strike out, fight as you
never fought before, swallowing as little water as possible, and never
relaxing an energy or yielding a hope. The water shoaled; my feet felt
the bottom, and I stood up, but a roller laid me flat on my face. Up
again and down again, swimming and crawling, I emerged from the sea,
bearing, I fear, a closer resemblance to Jonah (being at last pitched
on shore) than to Cabnel's Venus, who was borne gracefully upon the rosy
crests of the sky-reflecting waves to the soft bed of sparkling foam
awaiting her.

Wearily dragging myself up the hard shingle, I stood and contemplated
the little streams of water pouring from my woollen clothes. A new
danger awaited me as the cold wind whistled down the barren beach and
across the desolate marshes. I danced about to keep warm, and for a
moment thought that my canoe voyage had come to an unfortunate
termination. Then a buoyant feeling succeeded the moment's depression,
and I felt that this was only the first of many trials which were
necessary to prepare me for the successful completion of my undertaking.
But where was the canoe, with its provisions that were to sustain me,
and the charts which were to point out my way through the labyrinth of
waters she was yet to traverse? She had drifted near the shore, but
would not land. There was no time to consider the propriety of again
entering the water. The struggle was a short though severe one, and I
dragged my boat ashore.

Everything was wet excepting what was most needed,--a flannel suit,
carefully rolled in a water-proof cloth. I knew that I must change my
wet clothes for dry ones, or perish. This was no easy task to perform,
with hands benumbed and limbs paralyzed with the cold. O shade of
Benjamin Franklin, did not one of thy kinsmen, in his wide experience as
a traveller, foresee this very disaster, and did he not, when I left the
"City of Brotherly Love," force upon me an antidote, a sort of spiritual
fire, which my New England temperance principles made me refuse to
accept? "It is old, _very_ old," he whispered, as he slipped the flask
into my coat-pocket, "and it may save your life. Don't be foolish. I
have kept it well bottled. It is a pure article, and cost sixteen
dollars per gallon. _I use it only for