huge chart and
some knowledge of the Northern and Eastern seaboard led me to mark out a
course along the shore of Massachusetts and among the beautiful islands
which stud the coast of Maine.

The cruise was at that time a novel one, and many were the doubts
expressed as to the seaworthiness of my boat. She was twenty-two feet
long, nine inches high, and thirty-two wide,--canvas-covered, except
about four feet of the middle section, with sufficient space to stow
two days' food and water, and to carry all the baggage necessary for a
week's voyage. The oars were made especially strong for the occasion,
of spruce, ten feet three inches in length, and nicely balanced. In
addition to provision and clothes, a gun, a couple of hundred feet of
stout line, and a boat-hook were stowed in the bottom.

The day fixed for departure rose clear. An east wind tempered the heat
of the sun; but the tide, which by starting earlier would have been in
my favor, was dead low, and would turn before I could round the northern
point of the city. After all my traps had been put on board, seating
myself carefully, the oars were handed in, and a few strokes sent me
ahead of the raft. The tide was low, dead low, in the fullest meaning of
the word; the sea-weed slowly circled and eddied round, floating neither
up nor down; while the unrippled surface of the Back Bay reflected the
city and bridges so perfectly that it was hard to tell where reality
ended and seeming began. Passing beneath the Cambridge draw, I turned
the boat's head for the next one, and kept close to the northern point
of the city. Seven bridges must be passed ere the bay opened before me.
The boat had just cleared the last, when, remembering that no matches
had been provided, and not knowing where a landing might be made, I
decided to lay in a stock before putting to sea. With a narrow shave
past the Chelsea ferry-boat, I backed water, and came alongside a raft
of ship-timber seasoning near one of the docks, tenanted by a score
or more of semi-amphibious urchins, who were running races over the
half-sunken logs, and taking all sizes of duckings, from the slight
spatter to the complete souse. Engaging the services of one of these
water-rats, by a judicious promise of a larger sum as payment than the
one intrusted to him for the purchase, I had soon a sufficient supply,
and, resting the boat-hook on one of the logs, pushed off. East Boston
ferry was quickly passed, my boat lifting an