journey's end--our home for a few weeks, where we must conform to
the customs of the natives as near as possible. We do not reach the
Hall until the twilight has faded into darkness. The water is too
shallow to allow even this small craft to approach the shore near
enough to enable us to land, so carts are driven out to it, and the
baggage and provisions piled therein. The teams being loaded, us city
folks, with store clothes on, are carried ashore on the backs of our
amiable and hospitable friends. They have a contempt for dry places,
water being their element. Proceeding to the house, we are welcomed in
the warmest possible manner by our host and his ever busy and pleasant
daughter Nora. We are installed as a part of the family, for we have
been there before--we are not strangers. Nora and her sable assistants
had prepared an abundant and inviting meal for us, and we enjoyed it
with an appetite quickened by the sail across the Sound.

[Illustration: GOING ASHORE.]

[Illustration: RAYMOND HALL.]

After supper we made our arrangements for the first day's shooting,
and then retired--sinking into beds so downy as to induce sleep in a
few moments--and we do sleep just as soundly as if we had always been
wise and good and happy. The club house, "Raymond Hall," is an
ordinary frame one, situated on the shore of the Sound, a few rods
from the sea. It is surrounded by a tolerable growth of persimmon and
other trees; it stands alone, and at night is as silent as the halls
of death--not a sound being heard except the bark of the watchful
house-dogs. The wind murmurs about the angles of the house, and
through the branches of the trees, in dreary harmony with the roar of
the ocean. It is somewhat startling, for a few nights, to us denizens
of cities, to notice the entire absence of all precautions against
depredators--there are neither locks nor bolts. Life is primitive
here; all honor the head of the family, and bow to his will. The
people, young and old, are universally kind and respectful to those
strangers who sojourn among them, meeting them in a spirit of
frankness and exacting the same. We shoot whenever the weather is
suitable, and amuse ourselves at other times in various
ways--repairing boats, rigging decoys, cleaning guns, loading shell,
and making ready for a good day when it does come. We breakfast
between eight and nine o'clock, then, donning our shooting attire,
including rubber boots, which are indispensable, w