It must be remembered that a houseboat does not come up to piers like a steamboat, always finding men waiting to catch lines and to help in making landings. Often, as was the way of it that morning, the wandering houseboat comes along to find only an empty pier; and if she wishes to establish any closer relations with it, she must make all the advances herself.

The wind may be blowing strong; the tide running strong—everything strong but the qualifications of the commanding officer; in which case, it is well that preparations for the landing begin early. There should be a coil of rope made ready at either end of the boat, and also a light line with a grapnel attached to It. What is a grapnel? How strange that question sounds to us now, mighty mariners that we have become! But of course we should remember that there was a time when we did not know ourselves. Well, a grapnel is much like one of those fish-hooks that have five points all curving out in different directions, only it usually weighs several pounds.



The value of the grapnel was shown that day at the pier above Westover. Though Gadabout swung to the landing finely, a strong off-shore wind caught her; our ropes fell short; and we should have made but sorry work of it if a grapnel had not shot out into the air and saved the day. As it fell upon the wharf, the line attached to it was hauled in hand over hand; and though the grapnel started to come along with it, sliding and hopping over the pier, soon one of its points found a crack or a nail or a knot-hole to get hold of; and the houseboat was readily drawn up and made fast to the pilings.

The boxes aboard, our lines were cast off and Gadabout moved on up the James.



Soon we were approaching one of the most historic points on the river. We could tell that by a deserted old manor-house occupying a fine, neglected site on the left bank of the stream.

While the main structure still stood firm, and would for generations to come as it had for generations gone, yet the verandas about it had been partially burned and had collapsed, and the place looked dilapidated and forlorn. In front, the spacious grounds, once terraced gardens, stretched wild and overgrown down to the river, where the straggling ruins of a pier completed the picture of desolation.

But, even neglected and abandoned, this sturdy colonial home, nearly two centuries old, still wore a noble air of family pride; still looked bravely out upon the river. And why should it not? What house but old Berkeley is the ancestral home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and of two Presidents of the United States?

This plantation became the colonial seat of the elder branch of the Harrison family about the beginning of the eighteenth century. It passed to strangers less than half a century ago.

From its founding, Berkeley was the home of distinguished men. Here lived Benjamin Harrison, attorney general and treasurer of the colony; and his son, Major Benjamin Harrison, member of the House of Burgesses; and his son, Benjamin Harrison, member of the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence; and his son, William Henry Harrison, famous general and the ninth President of our country; whose grandson, Benjamin Harrison, became our twenty-third President—a striking showing of family distinction, and including the only instance, except that of the Adamses, of two members of the same family occupying the presidential chair.



Very different from the Berkeley that we saw, was that fine old plantation of colonial times. Imagine it, perhaps upon a summer's day in that memorable year of 1776. There are the great fields of tobacco and grain, the terraced gardens gay with flowers, the boats at the landing, and the manor-house standing proudly, "an elegant seat of hospitality."

The master of Berkeley, that tall, dignified colonial, Colonel Benjamin Harrison, is not at home. He is at Philadelphia attending the Continental Congress. Perhaps even now he is affixing his signature, with its queer final flourish, to the Declaration of Independence. In the meantime, in front of the old home, a pretty woman in quaint taffeta "Watteau" and hooped petticoat and dainty high-heeled slippers is playing with a little boy, among the sweet old shrubs and the English roses upon the terraces.

That little boy is to bring added honour to old Berkeley; and one day, as General William Henry Harrison, president-elect of the United States, his love for this mother shall bring him back to this home of his boyhood to write, amidst the tender associations of "her old room," his inaugural address.

After passing Berkeley, we left the buoyed course and ran the rest of the way to Eppes Creek in a narrow side channel that threads among the shallows close along shore. It is what the river-men call a "slue channel"; and we had to take frequent soundings to follow it. Looking back at dejected old Berkeley, we were glad to know that a new owner of the place was about to restore it.

Gadabout soon approached an opening in the river bank that we knew was the wide mouth of Eppes Creek. We were going to turn into this stream, not merely for the stream itself, but for a convenient anchorage from which to reach the last of the noted river homes that we should visit—Shirley, the colonial seat of the Carters. Our chart showed the mansion as standing just around the next bend of the James. But we were not going around that bend, because the chart showed also this little creek cutting across the point of land lying in the elbow of the river and apparently affording an inside route to Shirley. We should soon learn whether or not Gadabout could navigate it and how near it would take her to the old home.

As we moved slowly into the creek it was between banks in strange and attractive contrast. The starboard side (that from which we hoped to find a way to Shirley) was high and covered with trees of many kinds. The bank to port was low and covered with a marsh forest of cypresses. It was a dark and gloomy forest, but the spell of its sombre depths drew our eyes quite as often as the cheerfuller charm of the woodland on the other side; and so was equally responsible for the zigzag course that Gadabout was taking.

But it was the high bank that, after a while, was responsible for Gadabout's ceasing to take any course at all. We came about a bend and saw, just ahead, a little cove. There were trees crowding close, rich pines and cedars and bright-beaded holly. One tree leaned far out over the water, and beneath it two row-boats were drawn up to the bank. We thought it must surely be the landing-place for Shirley. Gadabout sidled to starboard, and grapnels were thrown up into the trees to hold her alongshore.

Stepping out on the bank we went up the hill through the woods. On the way we turned and glanced down upon the houseboat. She looked pretty enough, little white and yellow cottage, snuggling close to the bank with a holly tree at her bow and her flags stirring gently in the warm sunny air.

At the top of the hill, we came out upon the edge of a cornfield. Everything was cornfield as far as we could see. No house, no road in sight. Back aboard Gadabout, we got under way again. But the creek soon lost even its one solid bank and, finding ourselves running between two lines of marsh woods, we turned about and headed back for the place where we had stopped, "Leaning Tree Landing," as we called it.

We had gone but a little way when our rudder-cable snapped, the steering-wheel turned useless, and Gadabout headed for the marsh woods. She minded none of our makeshift devices to shape her course; and we were forced to stop the engine and resort to a more primitive motive power.

The sailor dropped an end of a long pole into the water at the bow of the houseboat and, bending heavily upon the other end, slowly pushed her forward as he walked aft along the guard. Steadily back and forth he paced the rail; steadily, silently, we floated down the stream.

And the silence of our going took hold of us, as we sat lazily in the bow. How in keeping it all seemed with the quiet of the day, the calm of the stream, and the stillness of the woods! And how out of keeping now seemed Gadabout's noisy entrance into that tranquil scene!

"I feel quite apologetic," said Nautica. "Look at these great solemn trees, just like an assemblage of forest philosophers in the hush of silent deliberation."

"We must have stirred them up a bit," replied the Commodore, "with our puffing and ringing. But I don't think they are deliberating. I believe they are asleep. It seems more like the hush of poppy-land in here to me."

"Yes, that is just it." And the answer really came quite dreamily. "This is the hush of poppy-land, and we are drifting on the quiet brown waterway that leads through the sleepy, endless afternoon."

And the notion pleased, and so did the languor and the heavy content. Slowly and steadily the sailor and the long pole went up and down the guard; slowly and steadily the houseboat moved down the stream.

Now we were skirting the bolder bank where the pines bent heavy heads over the water, the holly crowded close to the shore, and pale tinted reeds made border at the water's edge. Now in rounding a curve, we passed close to the cypress wood fringed with bush and sedge. Delicate brown festoons of vines hung from the branches; and, high out of reach, mats of mistletoe clung. It seemed one with our mood and our fancy when two round yellow eyes stared out of the shadows, two wide lazy wings were spread, and the bird of daylight slumber took soft, noiseless flight. We were just getting fully in the humour of our new way of travel, drifting on in the world of laze-and-dream, when the whole thing came to an end. A familiar voice from the world of up-and-do was in our ears, and there was Leaning Tree Landing just ahead.

We anchored out in the channel until low tide; then, after sounding about the landing and finding a good depth of water and no obstructions, we drew Gadabout in, bow to the bank, and made fast. We felt almost as though she were a real, true cottage, with that solid land at her door and her roof among the branches.

When we looked from Gadabout's windows next morning, a dense fog had blotted out all of our creek country except that which was close in about us. But what was left was so beautiful as to more than make up for the loss. Nature, like most other women, looks particularly well through a filmy veil. We feared that the mist would soon clear away, but it did not and we sat down to breakfast with our houseboat floating in one of the smallest and fairest worlds that had ever harboured her. A beautiful white-walled world with some shadowy bits of land here and there, a piece of a misty stream that began and ended in the clouds, and everything most charmingly out of perspective and unreal. Some ghostly trees were near us, delicate veils of mist clinging about their trunks and floating up among the bare branches. Nearer yet, a blur of reeds marked the shore-line. From somewhere out along the river, probably from the lighthouse at Jordan's Point, came the tolling of a fog-bell.

As we watched the scene, a faint glow filtered in through the whiteness, and made it all seem a fairy-land. Indeed, was it not? And were not the little swaying mist-wreaths that wavered in at our windows some dainty elves timidly come to give us greeting? All day the fog held, and the sad tolling of the bell went on. Now and then, the calls of the river craft would come to our ears.

Toward evening the fog thinned and let the moonlight in. Then we were quite sure that Gadabout had indeed come to Fairy-land. Now, if only there were a way leading from Fairy-land to Shirley! And it turned out that there was.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE RIGHT WAY TO GO TO SHIRLEY

Everybody goes to Shirley the wrong way. We found that out by ourselves happening to go the right way.

When you are sailing up the James in your houseboat (You haven't one? Well, a make-believe one will do just as well, and in some ways better), do not pass Eppes Creek, as everybody does, and go to the Shirley pier; but, instead, enter the creek and tie up at Leaning Tree Landing as we did.



Then, instead of taking that trail up the hill that leads only into a cornfield, look for a path leading to the left through the woods. It is not much of a path; and unless you love Nature in even her capricious moods, when she now and then trips the foot of the unwary and mayhap even scratches, it is too bad after all that you came this way. To love of Nature should be added a certain measure of agility, so that you will be all right when you come to the fence. Fortunately, you can let down the upper rails—being careful to put them back again when you are safe on the other side.

Beyond the fence, a great pasture-field stretches away endlessly. But then everything is on a large scale at Shirley. Ampleness is the keynote; it pervades everything. Before you have half crossed the field, you will come upon a road that will lead you to a little eminence near the quarters.

No, it is not a village that you now see peeping out through the grove over there by the river; it is the group of buildings constituting the homestead of Shirley. In the bright sunlight, you can pick out bits of the mansion through the trees, of the dairy, of the kitchen, and of the smaller buildings; while farther out stand the roomy barns and the quaint turreted dove-cote. All the buildings are of brick and show a warm, dull red.

Time has left few such scenes as this—the completely equipped home-acre of a great; seventeenth century American plantation. The scene is not exactly a typical one; for few of such early colonial estates, and indeed not many of the later ones, had homesteads as complete, as substantially built, and on as large a scale as this of Shirley.

Now, as you can need no further guidance, we are going off some two or three hundred years into the past, to see if we can get hold of the other end of the story of this plantation.

Perhaps the start was "about Christmas time" in the year 1611, when Sir Thomas Dale, High Marshal of the Colony of Virginia, sailed up the river from James Towne; killed or drove away all the Indians hereabout; and then, thinking it ill that so much goodly land should be lying unoccupied, took possession of a large tract of it for the colony. But the part that came to be called Shirley is soon lost sight of in the fogs of tradition. Later, we catch a glimpse of it in the possession of Lord Delaware. But it is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that we get a firm hold of this elusive colonial seat and of its colonial owners.

At that time, in the colony of Virginia, two of the proud families on two of the proud rivers were the Hills, who had recently acquired the plantation of Shirley on the James, and the Carters, who were establishing their seat at Corotoman on the Rappahannock. In the story of these two houses is most of the story of Shirley.

The Hills became one of the leading families in the colony. It was Edward Hill, second of the name, who built the present mansion. He was a member of the King's Council; and his position is indicated, and his fortune as well, by the building in those early times of such a home. Antedating almost all of the great colonial homes, it must long have stood a unique mark of family distinction. The exact date of the building of the manor-house is not known, but doubtless it was not far from the middle of the seventeenth century.

In the meantime, the Carters had become notable. This family reached its greatest prominence in the days of Robert Carter, who was one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the colony. In person he was handsome and imposing; in worldly possessions he stood almost unequalled; and in offices and honours he had about everything that the colony could give. His estate included more than three hundred thousand acres of land and about one thousand slaves. Either because of his imposing person or of his power or of his wealth, or perhaps because of all three, he was called "King" Carter. He does seem to have been quite a sovereign, and to have known considerable of the pompous ceremony that "doth hedge a king."

It was in the fourth generation of the houses of Shirley and of Corotoman, and in the year 1723, that the families were united by the marriage of John, son of "King" Carter, and Elizabeth, daughter of the third Edward Hill. John Carter was a prominent man and the secretary of the colony; Elizabeth Hill was a beauty and the heiress of Shirley. In the descendants of this union the old plantation has remained to this day.

The first time that we went from our creek harbour up to Shirley was a strange time perhaps for people to be abroad in woods and field-roads. The day was one of struggle between fog and sun, neither being able to get his own way, but together making a wonderful world of it. We walked in a luminous mist; the road very plain beneath our feet, but leading always into nothingness, and reaching behind us such a little way as to barely include the tall, following, hazy figure that was Henry.

There was little for us to see, but that little was well worth seeing; only a tree or a clump of bushes or a hedge-row here and there, but all dimmed into new forms and graces for that day and for us.

As we neared a ridge of meadowland, a pastoral for a Schenck took shape in the fog cloud before us. Scattered groups of sheep appeared close at hand, and, faintly visible beyond them, a denser mass of moving white. No tree nor landmark was to be seen; just set into the soft whiteness, showing mistily, was the snowy flock itself. Sheep grazed in groups, the tan shaded slope in faint colouring beneath them. Here and there a mother turned her head to call back anxiously for the bleating lambkin lost behind the white curtain; and, dim and grotesque, the awkward strayling would come gamboling into sight. Near by on a little hillock, a single sheep stood with its head thrown up, a ghostly lookout. The hidden sun made the haze faintly luminous about this wandering flock of cloudland. We were not the first to move and to break the picture.

As we gained higher ground, a breeze was stirring and the fog was beginning to lift. When we reached the edge of the Shirley homestead and passed the turreted dove-cote, the near-by objects had grown quite distinct. But out on the river the fog yet lay dense; and two boats somewhere in the impenetrable whiteness were calling warningly to each other.

Now we went on toward the manor-house that loomed against a soft background of river fog.

The mansion is wholly unlike either Brandon or Westover, being a massive square building without wings. It is two and a half stories high, with a roof of modified mansard style pierced with many dormer windows. It has both a landward and a riverward front, and both alike. Each front has a large porch of two stories in Georgian design with Doric columns. The walls of the house are laid in Flemish bond, black glazed bricks alternating with the dull red ones. While both the roof and the porches are departures from the original lines of the house, yet they are departures that have themselves attained a dignified age of about a century and a quarter.

Always, in the consideration of colonial homes, Shirley is regarded as one of the finest examples. This means much more than at first appears. For the mansions with which Shirley is usually compared, were built from half a century to a century later.

Continuing along the road as we studied the home, we were led around to the landward front and into the midst of the ancient messuage.



We stood in a great open quadrangle, having the house at one end, the distant barns at the other; on one side the kitchen, a large two-story building, and on the other side a similar building used for storage and for indoor plantation work. A high box hedge ran across from one of these side buildings to the other, dividing the long quadrangle into halves, one part adjacent to the house and the other to the barns.

The village effect produced by the grouped buildings must have been even more striking in colonial times; for then the manor-house was flanked by two more large brick buildings, forming what might be called detached wings. One of these was still standing up to the time of the Civil War.

The visitor is conscious of two dominant impressions, as he stands thus in the midst of this seventeenth century homestead. The massive solidity of the place takes hold of one first; but, strangely enough, the strongest impression is that of an all-pervading air of youthfulness. Doubtless the oldest homestead on the river, and one of the oldest in the country, it utterly refuses to look its age. Perhaps the solid, square compactness of the buildings has much to do with this. They appear as though built to defy time. Even the shadow of the venerable trees and the ancient ivy's telltale embrace seem powerless to break the spell of perennial youth.

In the home, we met Mrs. Bransford, widow of Mr. H.W. Bransford, Commander and Mrs. James H. Oliver, U.S.N., and Miss Susy Carter. Mrs. Bransford and Mrs. Oliver are the daughters of the late Mr. and Mrs. Robert Randolph Carter, and are the present owners of the plantation, Mrs. Bransford making her home there. Commander Oliver represents the third consecutive generation of naval officers in the Shirley family.

Upon entering the house in the usual way, from the landward side, the visitor finds himself in a large square hall occupying one corner of the building. This room discloses at a glance the type and the genius of Shirley. It begins at once to tell you all about itself; and when you know this old hall, you have the key to the mansion and to its story. It is truly a colonial "great hall." It tells you that by its goodly old-time ampleness, its high panelled walls with their dimming portraits, its great chimneypiece flanked by tall cupboards, and its massive overshadowing stairway.



The chief architectural feature of the room is this stairway. Starting in one corner, it rises along the panelled wall until half way to the ceiling, then turns sharply out into the room for the remainder of its ascent to the second floor, thus exposing overhead a handsome soffit. The effect, in connection with the great panelled well of the staircase, is one of rich and goodly ancientness.

Indeed, though you may enter Shirley feeling that the house, like some long-lingering colonial belle, is perhaps not quite frank with you about its age, you will not find the hall taking part in any such misrepresentation. Despite some modern marks and even the fact that the fireplace has been closed, this room says in every line that it is very old.

It stands true to the memory of its seventeenth-century builder who had known and loved the "great halls" of "Merrie England." It tells of the time when the life of a household centred in the spacious hall; when there the great fire burned and the family gathered round—of the time when halls were the hearts, not the mere portals, of homes.

And so in this room, as in few others in our country, does the visitor find the setting and the atmosphere of manor-house life in early colonial days. He can well fancy this "great hall" of Shirley in the ruddy light of flaming logs that burned in the wide fireplace two centuries and a half ago. Dusky in far corners or sharply drawn near the firelight, stood, in those days, chests and tables and forms and doubtless a bed too with its valance and curtains. In a medley typical of the times in even the great homes, were saddles, bridles, and embroidery frames, swords, guns, flute, and hand-lyre.

Here, in a picturesque and almost mediaeval confusion, the family mostly gathered, while favourite hounds stretched and blinked in the chimney-place beside the black boy who drowsily tended the fire.

Here, the long, narrow "tabull-bord" was spread with its snowy cloth, taken from the heavy chest of linen in the corner, of which my lady of the manor was prodigiously proud. Upon the cloth were placed soft-lustred pewter and, probably almost from the first, some pieces of silver too. The salt was "sett in the myddys of the tabull," likely in a fine silver dish worthy its important function in determining the seating about the "bord." As family and guests gathered round, the host and hostess took places side by side at one end; near them the more important guests were given seats "above the salt," while lesser folk and children sat "below the salt."

Then, from the distant kitchen in the quadrangle, came slaves or indentured servant bearing the steaming food in great chargers and chafing-dishes. Doubtless, in those earliest days, the food was eaten from wooden trenchers, not plates; while from lip to lip the communal bowl went round. Knives and spoons were plentiful, but even in such a home as Shirley forks were still a rarity; and the profusion of napkins was well when helpful fingers gave service to healthy appetites.

But that was the hall life of very early days. Gradually, in the colonies as in England, the evolution of refinement specialized the home; developed drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, libraries; and so took away from the "great halls" almost all of this intimate life of the household.

There is something pathetic in this desertion of the ancient, central hearthstone. We thought of Shirley's old hall growing sadly quiet and chill as it lost the merry chatter about the "tabull-bord"; as saddles and bridles jingled there for the last time on their way to some far outbuilding; as the gentlewomen carried their needlework away, and the little maids followed with their samplers. At last, all the old life was gone. Even the master himself came no longer to mull his wine by the andirons; and the very dogs stretched themselves less often and with less content at the chimney-side.

All the rooms at Shirley are richly panelled to the ceiling, and have heavy, ornate cornices and fine, carved mantelpieces and doorways. The examples of interior woodwork especially regarded by connoisseurs are the panelling in the morning-room, the elaborately carved mantel in the drawing-room, and the handsome doorway between that room and the dining-room.

Upstairs, a central hallway runs through the house, double doors opening at both riverward and landward ends upon broad porticoes. The bedrooms on either hand are panelled to the ceiling. They have deep-set windows, open fireplaces, and quaint old-time furnishings.

And people slept here back in the seventeenth century; dreamed here in those faraway times when James Towne, now long buried and almost forgotten, was the capital of the little colony. Here, in succeeding generations, have slept many notable guests of Shirley. Tradition includes among these the Duke of Argyle, LaFayette, our own George Washington, and the Prince of Wales.



Here, too, are some of the oldest ghosts in America. Most of these are quiet, well-behaved members of the household; but one ancient shade, Aunt Pratt by name, seems to presume upon her age as old people sometimes will, and is really quite hard to get along with.

Listen to an instance of her downright unreasonableness. Her portrait used to hang in the drawing-room among those of the Hills (she is or was, or however you say it, a sister of the Colonel Hill who built the mansion); but having become injured it was taken down and put away face to the wall. Immediately, this ghostly Aunt Pratt showed deep resentment. Womanlike, she threw herself into a chair in one of these bedrooms and rocked and rocked violently. Of course she disturbed the whole household; but no matter how noiselessly people stole in to catch her at her tantrums, she was always too quick for them—the room was empty, the chairs all still. At last the picture was got out, repaired, and rehung. At once all was peace and quiet; Aunt Pratt had had her way.



CHAPTER XXIV

FROM CREEK HARBOUR TO COLONIAL RECEPTION

Eppes Creek was the most remote and isolated of all our James River harbours. Gadabout was like a bit of civilization that had got broken off and had drifted away into the wild. The stream was such a mere ribbon with such tall trees along its banks, that we looked upward to but a narrow lane of open sky. Sometimes the lane was blue, sometimes gray, and sometimes dark and set with twinkling stars.

The wood across the creek from us was a dismal looking place. The trees were swamp cypresses that had lost their summer green, and stood drooping and forlorn in the low, marshy soil. Nautica wasted a good deal of sympathy upon them as she compared them with the richly clothed pines and the luxuriant holly upon our side of the stream.

There doubtless was game in that desolate wood; although about the only living things that we saw in it, even when we rowed close along its ragged shore, were owls. At night, strange, uncanny cries came out of the wood, and probably out of the owls also; but such sad and querulous cries as may well have been the plaints of the mournful marsh forest itself. Upon our Shirley shore too, there lived an owl, evidently of a different kind. We never saw him; but at night he worked untiringly upon a voluminous woodland edition of "Who's Who."

In this harbour, we heard often the stirring cry out of the high heavens that our ears had caught once in our anchorage at Westover. And now we saw the wild geese themselves.

Each time, at the first faint "honk," we got quickly to the windows or out on deck, and stood waiting for the beautiful V-shaped flight to come swinging into our sky-lane. And with what a glorious sweep the birds came on! And to what gloriously discordant music!

Sometimes they went over in V's that were quite regular; but often the diverging lines would grow wavy, the beautiful flying letter still holding but swinging in and out as though blown about on the face of the sky.

Perhaps we had something to do with those variants of the wild goose's favourite letter. Quite likely the sight of Gadabout, fluttering her flags down there in Eppes Creek, made those wise old gander leaders veer in a way somewhat disconcerting to their faithful followers.

But on they came, and on they went in their wonderful flight through sunshine and through storm, by day and by night; leaving a strangely roused and quickened world behind them. Just a fleet passing of wings, a clamour of cries—why should one's heart leap, and his nerves go restless, and joy and sadness get mixed up inside him? A few birds flying over—yet stirring as a military pageant! A jangle of senseless "honks"—yet in it the irresistible urge of bugle and drum!

One cannot explain. One can only stand and look and listen, till the living, flying letter is lost in the sky; till his ear can no longer catch the glorious, wild clangour of "the going of the geese."

Isolated as our anchorage was, we had a connecting link between Gadabout and civilization. It was about three feet long, of a sombre hue, and its name was Bob. Bob brought us milk and eggs and our mail, and ran errands generally. He was usually attended by such a retinue that only the smallest picaninnies could have been left back at the quarters.

Sometimes, Bob lightened his labours by having a member of his following carry a pail or the mail-bag. This worked badly; for it was only by such badges of office that we were able to tell which was Bob. But after several small coins had gone into the wrong ragged hats, Bob grasped the situation; and, in a masterly way, solved the question of identity without losing the services of his satellites. Henceforth, when we heard the chattering boys coming through the woods, if we looked out promptly enough, we would see Bob relieving some one of his doubles of pail or mail-bag; and by the time he reached the houseboat, he would be in full possession of all means of identification.

"Would you like to go to meet the ladies and gentlemen on the walls?" Mrs. Bransford asked one day at Shirley.

The invitation was accepted with as much alacrity as if we had feared that the reception hours were almost over. But there was really no need of haste; for the lines of notables on Shirley's walls stand there from generation to generation, yet receiving always with such dignity and courtesy as permit not the slightest sign of weariness or expression of being bored.

In meeting those old-time owners and lovers of Shirley, the visitor is passed from one hand-clasp to another, as it were, down through the generations of colonial times.

Giving precedence to age, we made our first fancied obeisance before two distinguished looking people who, however, did not seem entitled to any consideration whatever on the ground of age, being both in the prime of life. And yet, these were Colonel and Mrs. Edward Hill, second of the name at Shirley, and the first master and mistress of the present manor-house.

We were a little surprised at the Colonel's appearance; for he was clean shaven and wore a wig. Now, we had been hobnobbing long enough with those beginners of our country—Captain John Smith, Sir Edwin Sandys, Lord Delaware, and the rest—to know that they were a bearded set and hadn't a wig amongst them.

Fortunately, we remembered in time that this portrait-gentleman, old as he was, did not quite reach back to the days of those first settlers; and that he had lived to see the great change of fashion (in the reign of Charles II) that made Englishmen for generations whiskerless and bewigged.

Though our land was settled by bearded men, with just the hair on their heads that Nature gave them (and sometimes, when the Indians were active, not all of that), yet the country was developed and made independent and set up as a nation by smooth-faced men, most fuzzily bewigged. That reign of the razor that began in the days of Colonel Hill, was a long one, and, later, determined the appearance of the Father of our Country. Imagine George Washington with a Van Dyck beard!

Of course it was bad form for us to stand there staring at the Colonel while we reasoned out all this matter of the beards and the wigs. Now the Commodore, at a suggestion from Nautica's elbow, shifted to the other foot and cleared his throat to say something. But what was there to say? It is a little trying, this meeting people who cannot converse intelligently upon anything that has happened since the seventeenth century.

At last, we murmured something about Charles II; and, to make sure, let the murmuring run over a little into the reigns of James II and of William and Mary, and then passed on; though the Commodore felt there should have been at least some slight allusion to the pyramids and the cave-dwellers.

We must have taken very slowly the few steps that carried us to the next member of the receiving party; for in that time the world moved on a generation, and we found ourselves paying respects to no less a personage than "King" Carter himself. Too modest to suppose that he had come over from Corotoman on our account, we strongly suspected that the matter of alliance between the families of Hill and of Carter was in the air; which would account for the presence of the potentate of the Rappahannock.

He looked very imposing in his velvets and his elaborate, powdered periwig, standing ceremoniously, one hand thrust within his rich, half-open waistcoat.

Now was the time for all that we knew about Queen Anne and King George the First, and about the recent removal of the colonial capital from James Towne to Williamsburg.

The next dignitaries were very near; but again it took a generation to get to them, the names being John Carter (usually called Secretary Carter from his important colonial office) and Elizabeth Hill Carter, his wife. These were the young people who united the houses of Shirley and Corotoman. So, even yet, we had got down only to the days of George the Second.

Secretary and Mrs. Carter were a handsome pair; she, fair and girlish, with an armful of roses; he, dark and courtly and one of the most attractive looking figures we had met in our travels in Colonial-land. These people could not tell us much about the old manor-house; for, while possessing two of the finest plantations in the colonies, Shirley and Corotoman, they made their home chiefly at Williamsburg.

However, they were especially interesting people to meet because of their familiarity with the first half of the eighteenth century, that brightest and most prosperous period of colonial life. They could tell us at first hand of those happy, easy-going times that lay between the long struggle to establish the colonies and the fierce struggle to make them free.

Though neither Mr. nor Mrs. Carter exactly said so, yet we gathered the idea that those were days of much dress and frivolity. It seems that ships came from everywhere with handsome fabrics and costly trifles; and that rich colonials strove so manfully and so womanfully to follow the capricious foreign fashions (by means of dressed dolls received from Paris and London) that usually they were not more than a year or two behind the styles.

We could not help feeling that the matter of wigs must have been an especially troublesome one. As styles changed in England, these important articles of dress (often costing in tobacco the equivalent of one hundred dollars) had to be sent to London to be made over. Between the slowness of ships and the slowness of wig-makers, it must often have happened that even such careful dressers as the fastidious Secretary himself would be wearing wigs that would scarcely pass muster at the Court of St. James or at Bath. Indeed, Secretary Carter did not deny there being some truth in this; but he appeared so at ease that day at Shirley that we knew, on that occasion at least, he was sure of his wig.

One more progression along the receiving line, one more generation passed by the way, and we came upon Charles Carter, with his strong, kindly face, a gentleman of the days of George III and of the last days of colonial times.

And what days those were! The days of stamp acts and "tea parties" and minute men; of state conventions and continental congresses; of Lexington and Valley Forge and the surrender of Cornwallis; of the Articles of Confederation and the formation of the Union. This Charles Carter saw our nation made and, in the councils of his colony, helped to make it. Here, in old Shirley, he put down the cup from which he had right loyally drunk the colonial toast, "The King! God bless him!" and he took it up again to loyally and proudly drink to "George Washington and the United States of America."

We met still other old-time people at the manor-house that day; but it would not do to try to tell about them all. The omitted ones do not count much, being chiefly wives. Everybody knows that in meeting colonial people it is scarcely worth while considering a man's wife, for so soon she is gone and he has another.

Truly, Shirley's colonial reception was very enjoyable, we thought, as we took a last glance at the serene, old-time faces and caught a last whiff of ambergris from the queer, old-time wigs.



CHAPTER XXV

AN INCONGRUOUS BIT OF HOUSEBOATING

By this time, we were becoming anxious about the lateness of the season. Of course it was only through some mistake that we were getting all those fine warm days in December. Perhaps Nature had not had her weather eye open when Father Time wet his thumb and turned over to the last page of the calendar. But now, there was something in the look of the sky and in the feel of the air to make us fearful that the mix-up of the seasons had been discovered, and that winter was being prodded to the front.

Still we lingered in Eppes Creek, and soon we could not do otherwise than linger; for we wakened one morning to find the stream frozen over, and Gadabout presenting the incongruous spectacle of a houseboat fast in the ice.

All that day and the next the coldness held; and the ice and the tide battled along the creek with crackings and roarings and, now and then, reports like pistol shots. This surely was strange houseboating. It was a serious matter too. We knew that we might be held in the grip of the ice indefinitely. We did not care to spend the winter in Eppes Creek; nor could we abandon our boat there.

Throwing on our heavy wraps and trying to throw off our heavy spirits, we went above and paced the deck. In mockery our flags rippled under the northwest wind; from our flower-boxes, leafless, shrivelled little arms were held up to us; while our bright striped awning, with all its associations of sunshine and summer-time, was close furled and frozen stiff and hung with icicles.

We were surprised enough when the weather suddenly changed again, and the bright, warm sun set up such a thawing as soon sent the ice out of the creek and our anxieties with it. But no time was to be lost in getting away from that beautiful, treacherous stream. We should make one more visit to Shirley and then head again up river. But that last visit should be a quite conventional one; we should run the houseboat around to the regular steamboat pier in front of the old manor-house.

It was a warm, hazy afternoon down in Eppes Creek when we untied our ropes from the trees (cast them off, we ought to say), and Gadabout pulled her nose from the reedy bank and slowly backed out into the stream. She was obeying every turn of the steering-wheel perfectly (as indeed she always did except when the mischievous wind put notions into her head); and it was not her fault at all when her bow swung round under the tree that leaned out over the water and almost knocked her little chimney off. We dropped down the stream and passed out into the river where everything was softened and beautified by the light fog.

Skirting the low northern shore, we looked across the river at the high southern one where, through the mist, we could see the town of City Point and the bold promontory that marked where the Appomattox was flowing into the James. Upon the tip of the promontory was the home of the Eppes family, "Appomattox." While the present house is not a colonial one, the estate is one of the oldest in the country.

Now, just ahead of us was the Shirley pier on one side of the river and the village of Bermuda Hundred on the other. We headed first for the village, our intention being to get some supplies there.

We could not see much of Bermuda Hundred, perhaps because there was not much to see. It consists principally of age, having been founded only four years after the settlement of James Towne. Still, we let the sailor go ashore for butter and eggs, trusting that both would be as modern as possible. Our supplies aboard, Gadabout quickly carried us across the river and landed us at Shirley.



In that last visit to the old home, we went across the quadrangle and into the kitchen building, with its cook-room on one side of the hall and its bake-room on the other. Of course most of the colonial kitchen appointments had long since disappeared; but we were glad to see, in the stone-paved bake-room, the old-time brick ovens. With their cavernous depths, they were quite an object lesson in early Virginia hospitality.

And can any modern ranges bake quite as perfectly as did those colonial brick ovens? After a fire of oven-wood had flamed for hours in one of those brick chambers, and at last the iron door had been opened and the ashes swept out, the heated interior was ready to receive the meats and breads and pastry, and to bake them "to a turn."

When, in the restoration of Mount Vernon, the kitchen was reached, recourse was had to Shirley's kitchen. Drawings were made of an unusual colonial table, of a pair of andirons with hooks for spits to rest on, and of several other old-time cookery appointments; and, from these drawings, were constructed the duplicates that are now in the Mount Vernon kitchen.

It was on our way from the kitchen to the mansion that we came upon another visitor to Shirley. She was short and round and black and smiling and "feelin' tol'ble, thank you, ma'am." This, we learned, was Aunt Patsy. She had "jes heard dat Miss Marion done come home"; and so, arrayed in her best clothes including a spotless checked apron, she had come to "de gre't house" to pay her respects to Mrs. Oliver.

Drawn out somewhat for our benefit, she gave her views upon the subject of matrimony.

"I been married five times," she said. We were not particularly surprised at that; but were scarcely prepared for the added statement, "an' I done had two husban's."

However, no one could fail to understand Aunt Patsy's position, and to heartily agree with her, when she came to explain her marital paradox.

"De way 'tis is dis way," she said. "What I calls a husban' is one dat goes out, he do, an' gethahs up" (here, a sweeping gesture with the apron, suggestive of lavish ingathering), "gethahs up things an' brings 'em in to me. But what I calls havin' a man aroun' is whar he sets by de fiah and smokes he pipe, while I goes out an' wuks an' brings things home, an' he eats what I gives him. An' dat's how come I been married five times, an' I done had two husban's."



Before the old oak chest was opened for us, that day at Shirley, we knew that this colonial home was rich in antique silver. Yet, the family speak of the many pieces as "remnants," because of the still greater number lost at the time of the war. The plate was sent for safe-keeping to a man in Richmond who was afterward able to account for but a small part of it. Evidently, the Hills and the Carters went far in following the old colonial custom of investing in household silver. And as an investment the purchase of this ware was largely regarded in those days; family plate being deemed one of the best forms in which to hold surplus wealth.

Different periods are represented in the old pieces yet remaining at Shirley. There are the graceful, classic types of the days of the Georges; the earlier ornate, rococo forms; and the yet earlier massive styles of the time of Queen Anne and long before. Among the most ancient pieces, are heavy tankards that remind one of the long ago, when such great communal cups went round from merry lip to merry lip—microbes all unknown. The numerous spoons too speak of the time when there were no forks to share their labours. Most of the silver remaining to-day is engraved with the coat of arms of the Carters.

Suggestive of the days when colonial belles were toasted about Shirley's table, are the old punch bowl and the punch strainer and the wine coasters; though a more noteworthy object, having the same associations, is an antique mahogany wine chest with many of the original cut glass bottles still in its compartments.



And looking at Shirley's old silver in Shirley's old dining-room, we thought of the lavish colonial entertainments in which both had played their part. What hospitable places were those early planters' homes! As courts, assemblies, races, funerals, weddings, and festivals took the people up and down the country, they found few inns; but, instead, at every great plantation, wide-spreading roofs and ever-open doors. The spirit of welcome even stood at the gates and laid hands upon the passing traveller, drawing him up the shady avenues and into the hospitable homes.

In the days of the colonial Carters (who, through a complicated network of intermarriages, were cousins to all the rest of Virginia), Shirley must often have been full to overflowing.

And, along with our thoughts of Shirley's hospitality, came the recollection of a pretty story that had been told to us one day at Brandon by Miss Mary Lee, daughter of General Robert E. Lee. It was a story of one of the merry, old-time gatherings about Charles Carter's long table in the Shirley dining-room. Among the guests was a dashing young cavalry officer who had won fame and the rank of general in the Revolutionary War; and who, in his unsatisfied military ardour, was contemplating joining the Revolutionary Army of France. But just now, he was contemplating only his host and his dinner.

Suddenly, he became aware of a flushed and charming maiden in distress. She had lifted a great cut glass dish filled with strawberries, and it was more than her little hands could hold. She strove to avert a crash; and, just in time, the gallant young General caught the appealing look from the dark eyes and the toppling dish from the trembling hands. But in saving the bowl and the berries, he lost his heart.

And the maiden was Anne Hill Carter, daughter of the genial host; and the young General was "Light Horse Harry" Lee. The dreams of further glory on French battlefields were abandoned; and there was another feast at Shirley when bridal roses of June were in bloom. The young people went to live at Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees; and there was born their famous son, Robert E. Lee.

As Shirley's old dining-room thus brought to our minds that greatest Virginian of our day, so it brought to mind the greatest Virginian of all days; for, even as we looked at silver and thought of love stories, a life-size portrait of George Washington, by Charles Wilson Peale, stood looking down upon us from the panelled wall.



It is a noted and invaluable canvas that hangs there at Shirley, and it is doubtless a good likeness of the Father of our Country; but it is not just the George Washington that most of us have in our mind's eye. When the average American thinks of hatchets and cherry trees and abnormal truthfulness, the face that rises before him is that benign and fatherly one that he has seen a thousand times in the popular reproductions of the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Just as for generations only the good has been told of George Washington, so has this handsomest picture (doubtless a trifle flattering) always been the popular one.

However, in this day, when the ideal George Washington of story is being ruthlessly brushed aside in the search for the real flesh-and-blood man, any canvas also that has idealized him is somewhat in jeopardy.

It is well that the Washington of Sparks and of Irving and of Stuart should be superseded by the truer Washington of Mitchell and of Ford and of Peale; but the result will be that, for a while, the country will scarcely recognize its own father.

Always at Shirley our interest came back to the old colonial hall. Of course, to get the good of it, one had to set one's eyes so as to throw out of focus many marks of modernism; but that adjustment would almost come of itself with a little study of quaint transoms, or of ancient hatchments, or, above all, of the time-worn stairway.

Why is it that the spirit of the long-ago so clings about an old stairway? Why should the empty stair seem to remember so much, to suggest so much, of a life that came to it only in fitful passings and that left nothing of itself behind?

There were no signs of that long by-gone life upon Shirley's stairway, save for a dimming of the old rail where countless hands—strong, feeble, fair—had lightly rested or, more helpless, clung; and save for that worn trail of the generations that followed up the dull, dark treads. But even these had much to tell of the passings for nearly two centuries and a half up and down this household highway: of the masterful tread of spur-shod boots, the dancing of the belle's slim-slippered feet, the pompous double steps of bumpy baby shoes, the gouty stump of old grandsire, and the faithful shamble of the black boy at his heels.

That day (regretfully our last in this colonial home) not only the stairway but all of the old house seemed inclined to become reminiscent. Nautica noticed this in the quiet drawing-room that would keep bringing up by-gone times, and, she insisted, by-gone people too. In the great hall, even the Commodore felt the mood of old Shirley and the presence of a life that all seemed natural enough, but that must have come a good ways out of the past.

On the staircase, despite the dim light over there (or because of it), one could even catch sight of a shadowy old-time company.

There were stately figures passing up and down: the old lords of the wilderness in velvet coats and huge wigs, and ladies of the wilderness too in rich brocades and laced stomachers. There were many slender and youthful figures. Charmingly odd and quaint were the merry groups of girls, catching and swaying upon the shadowy stair; dainty ruffles peeping through the balusters; laughing faces bending above the dark, old rail. And fine indeed were the gallants that did them homage; those young colonials of bright velvets and flowered waistcoats and lace ruffles and powdered periwigs.

Now, from the stairway the old-time life spread throughout the old-time home. Shirley was living over again some merry-making of colonial days. That was the Governor that just passed with the glint of gold lace and the glint of gold snuff-box; and that, a councillor's lady that rustled by in stiff silks, her feet in gold-heeled slippers and her powdered head dressed "Dutch." And quite as fine and quite as quaint were the ladies that followed in their gay flowered "sacques" looped back from bright petticoats and point lace aprons.

It was all as London-like as might be: rich velvets and brocades, wide-hooped skirts and stiff stomachers, laced coats and embroidered waistcoats, broad tuckers and Mechlin ruffles, high-heeled shoes and handsome buckles, powdered wigs and powdered puffs, and crescent beauty patches.

Evidently, by colonial time, twilight was coming on; for now the fragrant bayberry candles were lighted. There was the faint tinkle of a harpsichord. Dim figures moved in the stately minuet; their curtsies, punctiliously in keeping with the last word from London, were "slow and low."

Little groups gathered about the card tables, where fresh candles and ivory counters were waiting. Lovers found their way to deep window-seats; and lovers of yet another sort to brimming glasses and colonial toasts, and perhaps to wigs awry.

It was the old-time Shirley, the strange, incongruous Shirley that was a bright bit of English manor life within; and, without, wilderness and savages and tobacco-fields and Africans. In from the life of the old messuage, came a touch of the barbaric; weird minor songs that belonged with the hot throb of the African tom-tom floated in through the deep windows, and strangely mingled with the thin tinkle of the harpsichord and the tender strains of an old English ballad.

The green bayberry candles grew dim, and in their fragrant smoke the old colonials faded away. Our visit at Shirley was over.

Out in the quadrangle, we turned for a last look at the homestead, and were almost forced to doubt that old colonial scene that we had just left within. There stood the fine buildings in perfect preservation, insisting at last as they had insisted at first that this matter of old age was but a huge mistake—that they had been built but yesterday.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE END OF THE VOYAGE

Before daylight on the following morning Gadabout was awake and astir. She had resolved to catch the early tide and finish her James River cruise that day by a final run to the head of navigation at Richmond.

For the last time the clacking windlass was calling the sleeping anchor from its bed in the river; the Commodore was hanging out the sailing-lights; and Nautica (who could not find the dividers) was stepping off the distance to Richmond on the chart with a hairpin.

How dreary a start before dawn sounds to a landsman! The hated early call; the hasty breakfast with coffee-cup in one hand and time-table in the other; the dismal drive through dull, sleeping streets; the cheerless station; the gloomy train-shed with its lines of coaches wrapped in acrid engine smoke.

But the houseboater knows another way. For him, the early call is the call of the tide that finds ready response from a lover of the sea. Does the tide serve before dawn, man of the ship? Then before dawn its stir is in your blood; your anchor is heaved home; your sailing-lights, white and green and red, are bravely twinkling; your propellers are tossing the waters astern; and you are off.

You are off with the flood just in from the sea, or with the ebb that is seeking the sea; and with it you go along a way where no one has passed before—an evanescent way that is made of night shades and river mists. And after a while you come upon a wonderful thing—almost the solemn wonder of creation, as, from those thinning, shimmering veils, the world comes slowly forth and takes shape again.

When the real world took shape for Gadabout that morning on the James, she was some distance above Shirley and the river was a smaller river than we had seen at any time before. By the chart, we observed that it was a comparatively narrow stream all the rest of the way to Richmond.

We had now entered upon a portion of the old waterway that Nautica insisted had been done up in curl-papers. Here, the voyager must sail around twenty miles of frivolous loops to make five miles of progress.

Upon coming to a group of buildings indicated on the chart and standing close to the right bank, we knew that Gadabout had navigated the first of the fussy curls. Around it, we had travelled six miles since leaving Shirley, and now had the satisfaction of knowing that the old manor-house itself stood just across from these buildings, less than a mile away.

On a little farther, we passed a fine plantation home called Curle's Neck. A long while after that, another large plantation, Meadowville, came alongside. But the curious thing was that, at the same time, alongside came Curle's Neck again. We had travelled something over four miles since leaving it, yet there it stood directly opposite and less than three quarters of a mile from us.



Perhaps the river observed that we were getting a little out of patience; for, almost immediately, it sought to beguile us by bringing into view one of its show points, a landing on the left bank with a large brick house near by. The chart told us that this was Varina; and the guide-books told us a pretty story about how here, in their honeymoon days, lived John Rolfe and Pocahontas.

Although that honeymoon was almost three centuries gone, and there was nothing left at Varina to tell of it, yet somehow our thoughts quickened and Gadabout's engines slowed as we sailed along the romantic site.

To be sure, to keep up the spirit of romance one has to overlook a good deal. The fact that John Rolfe had been married before and the report that Pocahontas had been too, somewhat discouraged sentiment. And then, was it love, after all, that built the rude little home of that strange pair somewhere up there on the shore? Or, had Cupid no more to do with that first international marriage in our history than he has had to do with many a later one? Can it be that politics and religion drew John Rolfe to the altar? and that a broken heart led Pocahontas there?

Poor little bride in any event! A forest child—wrapped in her doe-skin robe, the down of the wild pigeon at her throat, her feet in moccasins, and her hair crested with an eagle's feather; bravely struggling with civilization, with a new home, a new language, new customs, and a new religion.

How many times, when it all bore heavy on her wildwood soul, did she steal down to this ragged shore, push out in her slender canoe, and find comfort in the fellowship of this turbulent, untamable river! And how often did she turn from her home to the wilderness, slipping in noiseless moccasins back into the narrow, mysterious trails of the red man, where bended twig and braided rush and scar of bark held messages for her!

Then came the time when the river and the forest were lost to her. The princess of the wilderness had become the wonder of a day at the Court of King James. Almost mockingly comes up the old portrait of her, painted in London when she had "become very formall and civill after our English manner." The rigid figure caparisoned in the white woman's furbelows; the stiff, heavy hat upon the black hair; the set face, and the sad dark eyes—a dusky woodland creature choked in the ruff of Queen Bess.

When Varina was left behind, we fell to berating the tortuous river again. Of course we did not think for a moment that the troublesome curlicues we were finding had always been there. When the river was the old, savage Powhatan, we may be sure it never stooped in its dignity of flow to such frivolity. These kinks were silly artificialities that came when the noble old barbarian was civilized and named in honour of a vain and frivolous foreign king.

Now, just ahead of us, was the most foolish frizzle of all. It was a loop five miles around, and yet with the ends so close together that a boy could throw a stone across the strip of land between. At a very early day, sensible folk lost patience and sought, by digging a canal across the narrow neck, to cut this offensive curl off altogether.

Some Dutchmen among the colonists were the first to try this (and Dutchmen understand waterway barbering better than anybody else); but they were unsuccessful. Their efforts seem to have resulted only in giving the place the name of Dutch Gap. Many years ago, the United States Government took up the work and, in 1872, the five-mile curl was effectually cut off by the Dutch Gap Canal.

A good deal of interesting history is associated with this loop of the James. Here, but four years after the coming of those first colonists, the town of Henrico or Henricopolis was founded. The place made a somewhat pretentious beginning and was doubtless intended to supersede James Towne as the capital of the colony. Steps were taken to establish a college here. If they had been successful, Harvard College could not lay claim to one of its present honours, that of being the earliest college in America. But the Indian massacre of 1622 caused the abandonment of the college project and of Henricopolis too.

We passed into the canal, which was so short that we were scarcely into it before we were out again and headed on up the river. The banks of the stream grew higher and bolder, and we were soon running much of the time between bluffs with trees hanging over.

On some of the bald cliffs buzzards gathered to sun themselves; and they lay motionless even as we passed, their wings spread to the full in the fine sunshine. It was almost the sunshine of summer-time. In its glow we could scarcely credit our own recollections of some wintry bits of houseboating; and as to that story in our note-books about our being ice-bound in Eppes Creek, it was too much to ask ourselves to believe a word of it.



In colonial times there were a number of fine homes along this part of the James, but most of them have long since disappeared. Just after passing Falling Creek we came upon one colonial mansion yet standing. It belonged in those old times to the Randolphs, and is best known perhaps as the home of the colonial belle, Mistress Anne Randolph. Among the beaux of the stirring days just before the Revolution, she was a reigning toast under the popular name of "Nancy Wilton." The second Benjamin Harrison of Brandon was among her wooers; and it is to his courtship that Thomas Jefferson refers when expressing, in one of his letters, the hope that his old college roommate may have luck at Wilton. He did have. And we remembered the sweet-faced portrait at Brandon of "Nancy Wilton" Harrison.



Soon, our course was along a narrow channel saw-toothed with jetties on either hand. The signs of life upon the river told that we were nearing Richmond. We passed some work-boats, tugs, dredges, and such craft, and everybody whistled.

Over the top of a rise of land that marked the next bend of the river, we saw an ugly dark cloud. It had been long since we had seen a cloud like that; but there is no mistaking the black hat of a city.

So, there was Richmond seated beside the falls in the James—those water-bars that the river would not let down for any ship to pass; there was where our journey would end. To be sure, long years ago, the pale-faces outwitted the old tawny Powhatan by building a canal around its barriers. Their ships climbed great steps that they called locks; and, passing around the falls and rapids, went up and on their way far toward the mountains. But the river knew the ways of the white man, and kept its water-bars up and waited.

After a while the pale-faces took to a new way of getting themselves and their belongings over the country; they went rolling about on rails instead of floating on the water; and before long, they almost forgot the old waterways. Nature waited a while and then took their abandoned canals to grow rushes and water-lilies; and she covered the tow-paths with green and put tangles of undergrowth along; and then she gave it all to the birds and the frogs and the turtles.

So, it came to pass that river barriers counted once more—that the barrier across our river counted once more. We did not know whether the canal ahead of us was wholly abandoned; but we did know that it was so obstructed as to no longer furnish a way of getting a vessel above the falls.

The Powhatan was master again; and a little way beyond that next bend it would bar the progress of Gadabout just as, three centuries earlier, it had barred the progress of the exploring boats that the first settlers sent up from James Towne.

Well, it was high time anyway for our journey to end. We had been several months upon the river—several months in travelling one hundred miles! One can not always go lazing on, even in a houseboat; even upon an ancient waterway leading through Colonial-land.

The old river may carry you to the beginning-place of your country; it may bear you on to the doors of famous colonial homes, full of old-time charm and traditional courtesy. But if so, then all the more need for falls and rapids to put a reasonable end to your houseboat voyage.

We came about the bend in the stream and, at sight of the city before us, were reminded of the keen prevision of its colonial founder. When Colonel William Byrd, that sagacious exquisite of Westover, came up the river one day in 1733 to this part of his almost boundless estate, and laid the foundations of Richmond here in the wilderness beside the Falls of the James, he foresaw that he was founding a great city. A "city in the air" he called it, and his dream came true. Its realization in steeples and spires and chimneys and roof-lines opened before us now upon the slopes and the summits of the river hills.

Soon we were skirting the city's water front. We passed piers and factories and many boats. We went from the pure air of the open river into the tainted breath of the town. Among many odours there came to be chiefly one—that of tobacco from the great factories.

And that brought to mind a strange fact. In all our journey up the river, we had not seen a leaf of tobacco nor had we seen a place where it was grown. Tobacco, upon which civilization along the James had been built; that had once covered with its broad leaves almost every cultivated acre along the stream; that had made the greatness of every plantation home we had visited—and now unknown among the products of the fertile river banks!

At last Gadabout was at the foot of the falls and rapids. Like those first exploring colonists we found that here "the water falleth so rudely, and with such a violence, as not any boat can possibly passe."



Of course there was a temptation to do with our boat as the colonists once proposed to do with theirs—take her to pieces and then put her together again above the falls, and so sail on up the old waterway to the South Sea and to the Indies. But the exploring spirit of the race is not what it used to be, and we simply ran Gadabout into a slip beside the disused canal and stopped. An anchor went plump into the water, making a wave-circle that spread and spread till it filled the whole basin—a great round water-period to end our river story.

THE END.



INDEX

Adams Alexander, Elizabeth Appomattox River, The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, The

Back River, The Bacon, Nathaniel Barney, Mrs. Edward E., owner of Jamestown Island Berkeley, Lady Frances Berkeley, Sir William Berkeley (the estate) home of elder branch of Harrison family ancestral home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and of two Presidents of the United States plantation in 1776 Bermuda Hundred, village founded four years after settlement of James Towne Brandon history of riverward entrance to grounds the "woods-way" to the mansion "the quarters" the landward entrance type of architecture characteristic hospitality interior of mansion colonial portraits the old garden present day family at Brandon the bedrooms colonial silver ancient records an old court gown the family burying-ground the garrison house Bransford, Mrs. H.W., of the Carter family of Shirley, and one of the present owners of the plantation, living in the manor-house Buck, Reverend Richard Byrd, Evelyn, portrait and romance of her room at Westover tomb of Byrd, Lucy Parke, wife of William Byrd of Westover Byrd, William, the second, of Westover portrait at Brandon about 1726 built present mansion at Westover death tomb of ability of this colonial grandee founded the city of Richmond

Carter, Anne Hill, of Shirley, wife of "Light Horse Harry" Lee and mother of General Robert E. Lee Carter, Charles, portrait at Shirley Carter, Elizabeth Hill, of Shirley, daughter of the third Edward Hill, and wife of John Carter of Corotoman portrait at Shirley Carter family acquire Corotoman reach greatest prominence in days of "King" Carter cousins to all the rest of Virginia Carter, John, son of "King" Carter of Corotoman, was secretary of the colony married Elizabeth Hill of Shirley in 1723 portrait at Shirley Carter, Robert, of Corotoman on the Rappahannock, one of the wealthiest and most influential colonials his possessions called "King" Carter portrait at Shirley Carter, Robert Randolph, of Shirley Carter, Mrs. Robert Randolph, of Shirley Carter, Miss Susy Chickahominy River, The Chippoak Creek Chuckatuck Creek City Point Claremont Colonial river trade Constant, Sarah Cornick, Reverend John, rector of Westover Church Corotoman, Carter family acquire Cotton, Mrs. An. Court House Creek Curie's Neck Cuyler, Randolph Cuyler, Mrs. Randolph, of Brandon

Dale, Sir Thomas Dancing Point Delaware, Lord ownership of Shirley Discovery, ship Douthat family of Weyanoke Douthat, Fielding Lewis Douthat, Mrs. Mary Willis Marshall, granddaughter of Chief-Justice Marshall, and present mistress of Weyanoke Dutch Gap Canal

Eppes Creek Eppes family, home at City Point

Faffing Creek Fleur de Hundred Ford, Paul Leicester Fort Powhatan "Friggett Landing"

Goodspeed, ship Gordon family of Aberdeenshire Gordon, William Washington Grant, U.S., Grant's army crossed the James

Hampton Roads Harrison, Mrs. Anne, of Berkeley Harrison, Miss Belle, of Brandon in court gown of her colonial aunt, Evelyn Byrd Harrison, Benjamin, the emigrant Harrison, Benjamin, of Berkeley, treasurer of the colony Harrison, Major Benjamin, of Berkeley, member of the House of Burgesses Harrison, Benjamin, of Berkeley, member of the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence Harrison, Benjamin, of Brandon, member of the Council Harrison, Colonel Benjamin, of Brandon, portrait by Peale Harrison, Mrs. Benjamin. See Mistress Anne Randolph of Wilton Harrison, Benjamin, grandson of William Henry Harrison of Berkeley, and twenty-third President of the United States Harrison, George Evelyn, of Brandon Harrison, Mrs. George Evelyn, present mistress of Brandon Harrison, Nathaniel, of Brandon Harrison, William Henry, of Berkeley, ninth President of our country Harvard College Harwood, Joseph Henrico or Henricopolis, founded four years after James Towne site of proposed college which would have been oldest in America Henry, Patrick Herring Creek Hill family acquire Shirley Hill, Edward, the second, built present mansion at Shirley about the middle of the seventeenth century his portrait at Shirley Hill, Mrs. Edward, portrait of, at Shirley Hollingshorst, Elizabeth Gordon Hollingshorst, Thomas

Indian massacre of 1622 caused abandonment of Henrico Irving, Washington

James River, The width depth historical importance colonial life upon colonial water life Grant's army crossed colonial river trade sturgeon in buoy-tender on narrow and crooked from Shirley to Richmond site of Richmond on the Falls of the. James Towne settlement of development, decline, and abandonment of Captain Edward Ross the typical village streets buildings "alehouses" abandonment of re-settlement final abandonment ancient site not lost unearthing the buried ruins Jamestown Island settlement of appearance the way across isthmus width of battle upon church churchyard mysterious tomb Confederate Fort historic sites where Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married coining of "the maids" beginnings of American self-government the colonists' first landing-place the colonists' first fort the colonists' first village the story of the "Starving Time" the "Lone Cypress" Jefferson, Thomas

Kittewan Creek Kittewan house Kneller, Sir Godfrey

Lee, General Robert E. Lee, Miss Mary Lee, "Light Horse Harry," married at Shirley Lee, Mrs. Henry. See Anne Hill Carter of Shirley Lewis family

Madison, James Marshall, Chief-Justice John Marshall, John, son of Chief-Justice Marshall Marshall, Mary Willis, wife of Chief-Justice Marshall Martin, Captain John Meadowville Merchants' Hope Church Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir Mordaunt, Charles Monroe, James

Newport News

Oliver, Commander James H., U.S.N. Oliver, Mrs. James H., of the Carter family, and one of the present owners of Shirley Opachisco Opechancanough, Indian chief Parke, Colonel Daniel Peale, Charles Wilson his portrait of Washington at Shirley Peterborough, Lord Petersburg, March upon Piersey, Captain Abraham, ownership of Fleur de Hundred Pocahontas marriage to John Rolfe after marriage lived at Varina Pope, Alexander Powell's Creek Powhatan, Indian chief, not at wedding of Pocahontas "Pyping Point"

Ramsay, Mrs. C. Sears, present owner of Westover Ramsay, Elizabeth Ramsay family at Westover Randolph, Mistress Anne, of Wilton pre-Revolutionary belle, married the second Benjamin Harrison of Brandon her portrait at Brandon Richmond, at the Falls of the James founded by William Byrd of Westover in 1733 Rolfe, John marriage to Pocahontas after marriage lived at Varina Shirley, colonial seat of the Hills and of the Carters right way to go to great seventeenth-century American plantation early owners of the exterior of the mansion and the ancient messuage the oldest homestead on the river and one of the oldest in the country the present owners the colonial "great hall" interior of mansion ghosts colonial portraits kitchen and cook-room colonial furnishings copied in restoration of the Mt. Vernon kitchen colonial silverware romance of "Light Horse Harry" Lee and Anne Hill Carter Peale's portrait of Washington old-time Shirley

Silverware, colonial, family silver at Brandon communion service of Martin's Brandon Church at Brandon at Shirley Smith, Captain John Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees Stuart, Gilbert

Thomas, colonial house of

Varina, site of early home of John Rolfe and Pocahontas Virginia society, type of

War of 1812, fort built in Washington, George portrait of, by Peale, at Shirley Water Supply of James Towne colonists Westover became property of the Byrds present mansion built its colonial importance, and its successive owners riverward front interior of mansion romantic centre of present owner and family landward front, courtyard, and noted entrance gates garden and sun-dial, and tomb of William Byrd mysterious subterranean chambers recent restoration of old survey of plantation graveyard Westover Church one of earliest churches in the country Weyanoke two plantations houses of an Indian name Upper Lower present day family at oldest building at postoffice at Williamsburg Whittaker, Reverend Alexander Willcox, John V., ownership of Fleur de Hundred Wilton, home of Mistress Anne Randolph Windmill Point first windmill in America Wowinchopunk

Yeardley, Sir George, tomb of ownership of Weyanoke ownership of Fleur de Hundred built first windmill in America Yonge, Samuel H.



"SEE AMERICA FIRST" SERIES

Each in one volume, decorative cover, profusely illustrated

CALIFORNIA, ROMANTIC AND BEAUTIFUL By George Wharton James $6.00

NEW MEXICO: The Land of the Delight Makers By George Wharton James $6.00

THREE WONDERLANDS OF THE AMERICAN WEST By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00

A WONDERLAND OF THE EAST: The Mountain and Lake Region of New England and Eastern New York By William Copeman Kitchin, Ph.D. $6.00

ON SUNSET HIGHWAYS (California) By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00

TEXAS, THE MARVELLOUS By Nevin O. Winter $6.00

ARIZONA, THE WONDERLAND By George Wharton James $6.00

COLORADO: THE QUEEN JEWEL OF THE ROCKIES By Mae Lacy Baggs $6.00

OREGON, THE PICTURESQUE By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00

FLORIDA, THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT By Nevin O. Winter $6.00

SUNSET CANADA (British Columbia and Beyond) By Archie Bell $6.00

ALASKA, OUR BEAUTIFUL NORTHLAND OF OPPORTUNITY By Agnes Rush Burr $6.00

VIRGINIA: THE OLD DOMINION. As seen from its Colonial waterway, the Historic River James By Frank and Cortelle Hutchins $5.00

A number of additional volumes are in preparation, including Maine, Utah, Georgia, The Great Lakes, Louisiana, etc., and the "See America First" Series will eventually include the whole of the North American Continent.

THE END