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Updated: May 28, 2025
The two shallops moved swiftly towards the islands, their oars shivering the liquid mirror of the sea, and producing almost the only sound that disturbed the universal stillness, for at that early hour Nature herself seemed buried in deep repose.
Continuing their voyage, the Spaniards arrived at the mouth of another river, which was, however, too shallow for the caravels to enter. Four shallops of soldiers were therefore sent to land and reconnoitre. They observed on a hillock near the bank a group of natives, to whom they sent a messenger to invite them to trade.
The river was brisk with boats and canoes and shallops. The sun glistened on the naked backs of Indian rowers bending with every stroke of the paddles to a rhythmic sort of sound, that later on grew to be regular songs. There were squaws handling canoes with grace and dexterity. One would have considered Quebec a great entrepôt.
Our Captain seeing the shallops, feared lest having taken our pinnaces, they had compelled our men by torture to confess where his frigate and ships were.
By torch light, numerous canoes, with paddlers standing by, were drawn up on the beach, to accommodate those who purposed following the poor diver to his home. The remains embarked, some confusion ensued concerning the occupancy of the rest of the shallops. At last the procession glided off, our party included.
The dozen or so of boatmen, white and black, who had been tinkering about in the various barges, shallops and canoes tied to the mossy piles, left their employments and scrambled up upon the platform, and a trio of youthful darkies, fishing for crabs with a string and a piece of salt pork, allowed their lines to fall slack and their intended victims to walk coolly off with the meat, so intense was their interest in the oncoming sail.
Whereupon the same night, being within fiue or six leagues of the harborow, I sent off our two shallops with thirty men to discouer the harborow, and to surprise the enemy.
Formed out on the heart of the Atlantic, they sailed forward, swift and fleecy at first, like the skirmishing white shallops of a great fleet; then, in serried masses, darkened the sun. About four o'clock they broke in rain, which the wind drove horizontally with a cold whiffling murmur. As youth and glamour die in a face before the cold rains of life, so glory died on the moor.
Rounding this point, lo, your boat swayed instantly to the left: a gentle surf-wave took possession of you, and irresistibly bore you towards a yellow sand beach, which curved inward like a reaper's sickle, not more than a quarter of a mile long, from the handle to the shining point; smooth and glistening, strewn with polished pebbles and tiny shells, it seemed some half-hidden magic beach on which shallops of fairies might any moment come to moor.
Beyond the sand dunes were gray seas, soft and beautiful. The Glen brook bore down a freight of gold and crimson leaves, like fairy shallops. In Mr. James Reese's buckwheat stubble-land, with its beautiful tones of red and brown, a crow parliament was being held, whereat solemn deliberations regarding the welfare of crowland were in progress.
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