ut. These two estates, Weyanoke and Fleur de Hundred, having no
longer pretentious colonial mansions, are often overlooked by the
traveller on the James, who thereby loses a worthy chapter of the river
story.

When our anchors came up out of the friendly mud of Chippoak Creek, we
let the northwest wind push us across the flats and into the channel.
Then we summoned the engines to do their duty. The port one responded
promptly, but the other would do nothing; and as we ran out of the
creek and headed up the river, the Commodore was appealing to the
obdurate machine with a screwdriver and a monkey-wrench.

The tide was hurrying up-stream and the wind was hurrying down-stream,
and old Powhatan was much troubled. Gadabout rolled awkwardly among the
white-caps but continued to make headway. Pocahontas, the big river
steamer, was coming down-stream. We could see her making a landing at a
wharf above us where a little mill puffed away and a barge was loading.
Evidently, the steamer was to stop next at a landing that we were just
passing, for there men and mules were hurrying to get ready for her.
Now the starboard bank of the river grew high and sightly, but on the
port side there was only a great waste of marsh.

The Commodore spent much time with the ailing motor. Once he lost a
portion of the creature's anatomy in the bottom of the boat. Nautica
found him, inverted and full of emotion, fishing about in the
bilge-water for the lost piece. She offered him everything from the
toasting-rack to the pancake-turner to scrape about with; but he would
trust nothing of the sort, and kept searching until he found the piece
with his own black, oily fingers.

"I believe the man that built this boat was a prophet!" he exclaimed as
his face, flushed with triumph and congestion, appeared above the
floor. "He said that if we put gasoline motors in, we should have more
fun and more trouble than we ever had in our lives before; and we
surely are getting all he promised."

[Illustration: STURGEON POINT LANDING.]

[Illustration: AT THE MOUTH OF KITTEWAN CREEK.]

As we rounded the next bend in the river, we got the full force of the
wind and, with but one engine running, it was a question for a while
whether we were going to go on up the river or to drift back down
stream. Fortunately, the James narrowed at this point, thus increasing
the sweep of the tide that was helping us along, and slowly Gadabout
pushed on, slapping down hard on th