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Updated: June 22, 2025
I took M and the children, little imagining what manner of day's work was before me. Six men rowed us in the 'Lily, and Israel brought the wood wagon after us in a flat. Our navigation was a very intricate one, all through sea swamps and marshes, mud-banks and sand-banks, with great white shells and bleaching bones stuck upon sticks to mark the channel.
Soon she was within two miles of the sand-banks, which were still veiled from time to time in thick mist. But John fancied he could see beyond the breakers a quiet basin, where the DUNCAN would be in comparative safety. But how could she reach it? All the passengers were summoned on deck, for now that the hour of shipwreck was at hand, the captain did not wish anyone to be shut up in his cabin.
If Turk steals the mutton for dinner, And goes off to gulp it, Why screen HIM, the solemn old sinner, And call ME the culprit? And if I am fond of the sand-banks, And fresh garden-soil, Why should you molest with your brickbats My hard, honest toil? And why should you call it a 'dusty muss, And make me abandon My labor? Remember, 'DE GUSTIBUS NON EST DISPUTANDUM!
Both branches are very deep, but the S.W. channel is the broadest, and the other has sand-banks at its mouth, which cannot be passed at low-water. Above the island the river is a league broad, having a straight channel and swift current, and is navigable three leagues up, but how much farther I know not.
Near the villages of Ettoo and Dyrki the cliffs are precipitous and several hundred feet high; at their base the water is deep and the current very strong. On the north shore the plain is generally free from tall trees, but has a dense growth of grass and bushes. Sand-banks are frequent, and the islands are large and numerous.
The channel took several turnings, which would have been an advantage to the pursuers had they been acquainted with the navigation, but the fear of running on any rocks or sand-banks made them keep directly astern of the junks. Presently a shot struck one of Tom's men, and another knocked an oar to pieces. This of course caused some delay, and the boat dropped astern.
Calais roads were no safe anchorage for huge vessels like those of Spain and Portugal; for the tides and cross-currents to which they were exposed were most treacherous. It was calm enough at the moment, but a westerly gale might, in a few hours, drive the whole fleet hopelessly among the sand-banks of the dangerous Flemish coast.
Courage, enterprise amounting almost to audacity, and a determined will confronted for a long lapse of time the inexorable, and permitted a great empire to germinate out of a few sand-banks held in defiance of the ocean, and protected from human encroachments on the interior only by the artificial barrier of custom-house and fort.
These winds are very prevalent throughout the month of March, and they rendered the passage in my sluggish boat sufficiently tedious. In other respects I had but little bad weather to complain of: only one shower of rain occurred, and but few storms of thunder and lightning. The stream is very strong, and its action on the sand-banks conspicuous.
They met large canoes and montarias occasionally coming down the stream, and saw them hauled up on shore, while their owners were cooking their breakfast in the woods; and once they came upon a solitary old Indian in a very curious position. They had entered a small stream in order to procure a few turtles' eggs, of which there were many in that place buried in the sand-banks.
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