A RUN AROUND JAMESTOWN ISLAND
Now Gadabout, her engines slowed down, drifted almost unguided among
the shallows beside Jamestown Island; for our eyes were only for that
close-lying shore and our thoughts for what it had to tell us.
The end of the island toward us was well wooded though fringed with
marsh. All of it that could be seen was just as we would have
it--without a mark of civilization; wild, lonely, and still. In keeping
with the whole sad story seemed the gloom of the forest, the loneness
of the marsh, and the surge of the waves upon the desolate shore.
When we took Gadabout in hand again, we did not keep along the front of
the island to where the colonists "tied their ships to the trees" and
made their landing; but, instead, we turned from the James and ran up
Back River in behind the island. Our plan was to sail up this stream to
a point where the chart showed a roadway and a bridge, and to tie up
the houseboat there. That would be convenient for us and for Gadabout
too. The roadway we should use in crossing the island to visit the
chief points of interest, which were on the James River side; and
Gadabout would have a more protected harbour than could be found for
her in front.
[Illustration: JAMESTOWN ISLAND FROM THE RIVER.]
Though nothing serious came of the matter, we were not taking a good
time to run up the little stream behind Jamestown Island, as the tide
had long since turned and we were going in on a falling tide. We did
not relish the idea of running aground perhaps, and of having the
ebbing waters leave our craft to settle and wreck herself upon some
hidden obstruction. So Gadabout took plenty of time to run up Back
River, feeling her way cautiously with a sounding-pole, like some fat
old lady with a walking-stick.
There must once have been a better channel here; for in the early days
of the colony, vessels did not always land at the front of the island,
but sometimes ran up Back River as our houseboat was now doing. Indeed,
we were expecting to come soon to the wooded rise of land once called
"Pyping Point," where of old a boat in passing would sound "a musical
note" to apprise the townspeople of its coming. And but a little way
beyond that again, near the present-day bridge where we expected to
stop, we should find the site of the ancient landing-place which was
called "Friggett Landing."
As Gadabout slowly moved along, she occasionally got out of the channel
into the shallows, in spite of chart and sounding-pole; and more than
once she struck bottom. But she always discovered the channel and
scrabbled back into it before the soft mud, even aided by the falling
tide, could get a good hold of her. No, not quite always was she so
fortunate. For at last, in following a turn of the channel toward the
island, she went too far; her stern swung about and grounded in the
shallows; her propeller clogged in the mud, and she came to a stop.
We accepted that stop as final. No attempt was made to put out a kedge
anchor and to "haul off" with the windlass. We simply walked around the
houseboat on the guard taking soundings. Finding that the boat was
settling upon fairly level bottom, and feeling that the farther she
went the worse she would fare, we took our chances as to what might be
under her and made no further effort.
[Illustration: IN BACK RIVER.]
[Illustration: THE BEACH AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.]
Nautica had a good motto, which was, "When in trouble, eat." So the
next thing was dinner. Then Nautica and the Commodore embarked in a
shore-boat on a voyage of discovery, a search for the lost channel. By
this time the water was but a few inches deep around the houseboat.
Evidently, the explorers would not dare to go far or to be gone long
for fear the ebbing tide would prevent their getting back. But it was
not necessary to go far to find the channel. Indeed it was found
unpleasantly near. The houseboat had stranded on a safe, level shoal,
but almost on the edge of a steep declivity leading down into twelve
feet of water. We felt that if Gadabout had to go aground, she at least
might have done it a little farther away from precipitous channel
banks.
Sitting on the upper deck, we talked and read, and watched the water
slowly drawing away from our houseboat until all about us was bare
ground; to starboard a narrow strip of it between us and the channel,
and to port a wide stretch of it between us and the shore.
We thought most and talked most of the historic island on the edge of
which we had become squatters. It was a small stage for the
world-shaping drama that had been enacted upon it.
Toward evening the tide turned again and the truant waters came back,
lapping once more the sides of our boat. The Commodore had to see that
anchors were run ahead and astern, and all made snug for the night.
Then, in the enjoyment of one of the most charming features of
houseboating, an evening meal served on the upper deck, we watched the
sun dip down behind the island and the twilight shadows gather in.
Still about us was no sight or sound of human life. The shadows
deepened and darkness came. Then gradually a faint silvery light stole
over water and marsh and wooded shore; and the stillness was broken by
a burst of faint, high, tremulous tones, as though a host of unseen
hands swept tiny invisible mandolins. The silvery light came from the
rising moon; the rest was just mosquitoes.
Next day, as soon as Gadabout was afloat, she started up stream again
to find the bridge and a landing-place. There was no trouble about the
channel this time. The waterway, as if taking pity upon indifferent
navigators, suddenly contracted to a very narrow stream, deep almost
from bank to bank, so that we could not well have got out of the
channel if we had tried. In such a place, we were stout-hearted
mariners and the good houseboat stemmed the waters gallantly. Already
we were thinking of how we too, in passing "Pyping Point," should sound
a blast most lustily. Perhaps it would not be exactly a "musical note"
such as the townspeople were used to; but being two or three centuries
dead, they probably would not notice the difference. However, we did
not subject them to the experiment. Instead, we suddenly reversed our
engine; Gadabout tried to stop in time; the ladies tried to look
pleasant; the Commodore tried to shun over-expressive speech. There,
just ahead, was a row of close-set pilings, blocking the stream from
shore to shore.
There was nothing to do but to turn back, run around the island, and
attempt to get in behind it at the other end. We probably should have
tried the upper entrance in the first place had it not been that our
chart showed by dotted lines some sort of obstruction there, while it
did not at all indicate the barrier we had just encountered.
Fortunately, as the tide was now rising and as we had got some
knowledge of the channel, Gadabout made good progress in returning down
the stream, and was soon out in the wide James again, sailing along the
front of the island.
As we proceeded, the marshes gave way to a bank of good height edged
with a gravel beach. Buildings were now in sight, and horses and cattle
grazing. We passed a pier with a warehouse on it, bearing a sign which
read, "Jamestown Island, Site of the First Permanent English Settlement
in America, 1607."
Now, a glimpse could be had of a relic of old James Towne, the ruined
church tower, deep-set among the trees. Could our eyes have pierced the
water under us, we might have seen more of the ruins of the ancient
village. For Gadabout was holding in quite close to shore where no
vessel could have gone in James Towne days, as the place was then solid
land and a part of the settlement. Now, that part lay buried at the
bottom of the river, and our boat was passing over it.
Coasting around the end of the island, we came upon a tree standing out
in the water a hundred yards from shore. It was the famous "Lone
Cypress," once growing on the island, now spreading its green branches
in the midst of a watery waste--silently attesting the sacrifice of
historic soil to the greedy river. A little way beyond the tree was
what we were seeking, the upper entrance into the waterway behind the
island.
[Illustration: WHARF SIGN AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.]
[Illustration: THE "LONE CYPRESS."]
In the days of the old settlement, there was no such entrance at this
end; for here the narrow isthmus extended across, connecting with the
mainland. But the same resistless wash of waves that had carried part
of James Towne into the bed of the river, had broken down and submerged
the isthmus too; and our chart showed that there was water enough for
our houseboat to sail over where the colonists used to walk dry-shod.
As to the obstruction we had seen indicated on the chart, that proved
to be the ruins of an old bridge extending out from the mainland along
the submerged isthmus. But the island end of it had been carried away,
and we readily passed through the opening left and got again into Back
River behind the island. Following this for a few hundred yards, we
found ourselves at last beside the bridge we long had sought. Standing
on the upper deck, we could look down stream to the place where our
houseboat had been stopped by the row of pilings. We had practically
circumnavigated the island.
While making Gadabout fast to some convenient pilings, we heard gay
voices and the rumble of wheels on the bridge.
"Look! Look!" cried one of a carriage-full of hatless girls in white
muslins. "There's a houseboat. How in the world did it get in here?"
And we rather wondered ourselves.