hese specks are birds, confused by the
bright rays, and ready to fall an easy prey to the eager keeper, who,
quickly levelling his double-barrelled gun, brings it to bear upon the
opaque, moving cloud, and with the discharge of the weapon there goes
whirling through space to the earth below his next morning's breakfast
of wild-fowl.

I found Mr. W. R. Jennett and his first assistant light-keeper, Mr. A.
W. Simpson, intelligent gentlemen. The assistant has devoted his time,
when off duty, to the study of the habits of food-fishes of the sound,
and has furnished the United States Commission of Fisheries with several
papers on that interesting subject.

Here also was Mr. George Onslow, of the United States Signal Service,
who had completed his work of constructing a telegraph line from Norfolk
along the beach southward to this point, its present terminus. With a
fine telescope he could frequently identify vessels a few miles from the
cape, and telegraph their position to New York. He had lately saved a
vessel by telegraphing to Norfolk its dangerous location on Hatteras
beach, where it had grounded. By this timely notice a wrecking-steamer
had arrived and hauled the schooner off in good condition.

A low range of hills commences at Cape Hatteras, in the rear of the
light-house, and extends nearly to Hatteras Inlet. This range is
heavily wooded with live-oaks, yellow pines, yaupons, cedars, and
bayonet-plants. The fishermen and wreckers live in rudely constructed
houses, sheltered by this thicket, which is dense enough to protect
them from the strong winds that blow from the ocean and the sound.

I walked twelve miles through this pretty, green retreat, and spent
Sunday with Mr. Homer W. Styron, who keeps a small store about two miles
from the inlet. He is a self-taught astronomer, and used an ingeniously
constructed telescope of his own manufacture for studying the heavens.

I found at the post-office in his store a letter from a yachting party
which had left Newbern, North Carolina, to capture the paper canoe and
to force upon its captain the hospitality of the people of that city, on
the Neuse River, one hundred miles from the cape. Judge I. E. West, the
owner of the yacht "Julia," and his friends, had been cruising since the
eleventh day of the month from Ocracoke Inlet to Roanoke Island in
search of me. Judge West, in his letter, expressed a strong desire to
have me take my Christmas dinner with his family. This ge