ld me that frame boats were so easily pounded to pieces on the
shoals, that dug-outs were preferred--being very durable. 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.

[Illustration: BODY ISLAND LIGHT-HOUSE.]

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 GRAVEYARD 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.

[Illustration: From Bogue Inlet, North Carolina, to Bull's Bay,
South Carolina.

Route of Paper Canoe MARIA THERESA From Bogue Inlet,
N.C. to Bull's Bay, S.C. Followed by N. H. Bishop in 1875
_Copyright, 1875 by Lee & Shepard_]

The Gulf Stream, with its river-like current