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So I judged, from the circumstance of Peckham's unfurling a silken banner that fanned heaven and earth with the words, 'The Peckham Lifeboat. No boat being in attendance, though life, in the likeness of 'a gallant, gallant crew, in nautical uniform, followed the flag, I was led to meditate on the fact that Peckham is described by geographers as an inland settlement, with no larger or nearer shore-line than the towing-path of the Surrey Canal, on which stormy station I had been given to understand no lifeboat exists.
Her wheels were barely moving, for her pilot could not see the shore-line distinctly, though the hills and Point of Pines could be clearly made out over the fog, and occasionally a glimpse of some white walls showed where the town lay.
Of course she could get him the fish. But how could she make him believe it? "My fishermen know the coast for one thing," she began. "That's a whole lot around here. It's a treacherous shore-line and a man who doesn't know it can lose a boat mighty easy. Then, I have ten new boats, just the kind you have to have for albacore and tuna. As a general rule you've got to go way out to sea to get them.
This rope was now fastened to the shore-line with a double hitch, and our lot on the beach hauling in, we presently had the satisfaction of seeing the stern of our own craft working in towards us, the jolly-boat still remaining out beyond reach of the rollers, until the long-boat had grounded; when, seeing a proper opportunity, she too was got in safely without, however, any previous upset, like ours, and indeed without her taking in any perceptible quantity of water so as to damage her cargo or give her crew a ducking, all of whom, with the exception of Haxell, who of course had sought a bath of his own accord, getting to land dry-shod, unlike us, who had been drenched from head to foot, and were now shivering with cold, the temperature of the air being below freezing point.
Yet I held to my original course fairly well, for I could pilot somewhat by the dim north star; and it was not long before my alert ears caught the pounding of surf along the shore-line.
Just before this hill is reached the channel widens, and, as the steamer rounds a high, bold promontory, the beautiful upper bay comes into view, like a great placid lake framed in a magnificent amphitheater of mountains, with a fringe of cocoanut-palms here and there to break the level shore-line, and a few splashes of vivid red where flame-trees stand out in brilliant relief against the varied green of the mountain background.
With the exception of cutting across the shank of Cape Cod, if the cape still exists, we needn't ever get out of sight of salt water. And it will bring us surely to the Hub." "By Jove, you're right!" he cried enthusiastically. "The shore-line has it! And to-morrow morning at sunup we begin preparations in earnest. You'll weave the knapsacks while I go after still more meat. Gad!
He had hunted amid the marshes, and remembered sufficiently the formation of the shore-line to be aware that for several leagues it remained thickly skirted by small islands, while numerous bayous offered secure hiding-places.
The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows. Standing on the smooth sandy beach at the east end of the pond, in a calm September afternoon, when a slight haze makes the opposite shore-line indistinct, I have seen whence came the expression, "the glassy surface of a lake."
Her wheels were barely moving, for her pilot could not see the shore-line distinctly, though the hills and Point of Pines could be clearly made out over the fog, and occasionally a glimpse of some white walls showed where the town lay.
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