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To begin with, Peter had preferred to come north by sea, and although Emma had been raised on the coast, although she was used to the capricious tide-water rivers which this morning may be lamb-like and to-night raging lions, although she had crossed Caliboga Sound in rough weather and been rolled about like a ninepin, that had been, so to speak, near the shore-line.
Birds in myriads on myriads screamed the joy that the crew felt over their find; but a frothy ripple told of reefs; and the Lady Washington coasted parallel with the shore-line northward. On August 4, while the surf still broke with too great violence for a landing, a tiny speck was seen dancing over the waves like a bird.
Here, from Point Clear, the bay, broadening south-westward, doubled its width, and here, by and by, this eastern shore-line suddenly became its southern by returning straight westward in a long slim stretch of dazzling green-and-white dunes, and shut its waters from the Gulf of Mexico except for a short "pass" of a few hundred yards width and for some three miles of shoal water between the pass and Dauphin Island; and there on that wild sea-wall's end Mobile Point a dozen leagues due south from the town sat Fort Morgan, keeping this gate, the port's main ship-channel.
The Investigator was kept all day so close along shore that the breaking water was visible from the deck, and no river mouth or inlet could escape notice. When the weather was too rough to enable this to be done with safety, Flinders stationed himself at the masthead, scanning every reach of the shore-line.
But the ice grew more uneasy under them, breaking loose from the shore-line and rising steadily inch by inch. In places where it still held to the shore, the water overran and they waded and slushed across. The Little Peco growled and muttered. Cracks and fissures were forming everywhere as they battled on for the miles that each one of which meant ten along the tops.
The coast has greatly changed, the shallow bays beyond the old shore-line, which is still visible, being raised into green meadows. In this way the water-course that made Thanet an island has been closed. This silting up began at a remote era, closing one port after another, and Sandwich rose upon their decline.
The sky ahead of them was wide-streaked with gold, as if for a symbol, interlaid with sooty clouds in silhouette; on either side the mountains rose from penumbral darkness to clear-cut heights still bright from the slanting radiance. Here and there along the shadowy shore-line a light was born; the smell of the salt sea was in the air.
The morning wind had died and the water lay as motionless and perfect a blue as the sky above. Faint and far down the curving shore the white dome of the Capitol building rose above soft billows of green tree tops. Up the shore, woods crowned the gentle slopes of the hills. Across the lake lay a dim green shore-line of fields. Lydia gave a deep sigh.
At the lower corner of the garden, farthest from the house, the strong current had cut a deep inward curve in the high shore-line, forming thus an eddy, which was margined on one side, at a normal stage of water, by a narrow shelf of land between the water's edge and the foot of the main bank.
The scow seemed motionless, as upon the surface of a mill-pond, but the beach, and the high bank beyond, raced past to disappear in the deepening gloom. The figures in the following scows the scows themselves blurred into the shore-line. The beach was gone. Rocks appeared, jagged, and high close upon either hand.
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