hip seemed disposed to abandon this mode of proceeding, and
tried to paddle off with his forward flippers, as if to escape from the
incumbrance. Church was now in his glory. By PULLING one hind flipper
and PUSHING the other he could guide the reptile in whatever direction
he pleased, and soon navigated him alongside the schooner, when a rope
was hospitably put around the neck of the captive, and he was hauled on
board.

Passing around Cape Hatteras, between the outer shoals and the land, we
arrived at Ocracoke Inlet. The wind being ahead, we were unable to
cross the bar, but remained two or three days at anchor in its immediate
vicinity. Ocracoke Inlet is the main entrance into Pamlico Sound, a
large inlet or body of water, some eighty miles long, separated from the
sea by low sandy islands, mostly inhabited. On this Sound are situated
some thriving towns, and into it the rivers Tar and Neuse empty their
waters. The little town or village of Portsmouth is situated on an
island in the immediate vicinity of Ocracoke Inlet. The inhabitants, or
those who at that time deigned to pursue any regular occupation, were
for the most part engaged in fishing and piloting. The sand banks,
shoals, and flats in that neighborhood furnish admirable facilities for
seine fisheries, and enormous quantities of mullets were taken every
year on those sandy shores, packed in barrels, and sent to the West
Indies.

There was also at that time carried on with considerable success, a
porpoise fishery, after a fashion peculiar, I believe, to that part of
the world. Porpoises often made their appearance very near the coast,
in shoals not "schools," for porpoises are uneducated some hundreds in
number. They were surrounded by boats and driven into shallow water.
When sufficiently near the land, a strong seine was cautiously drawn
around them and they were slowly but surely dragged to the beach;
the blubber was stripped from their carcasses and converted into oil.
Sometimes a shark was found in their company, who, disdaining to be
so easily subdued, performed wondrous feats of strength and ferocity,
biting and maiming the inoffensive porpoises without mercy, and in most
cases rending the seine by his enormous power, and escaping from his
persecutors.

When lying at Ocracoke, waiting for a chance over "the Swash," the crew
of the Mary having little to do, were generally engaged in looking after
their physical comforts by laying in a stock of shell-fi