The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-25
CRUISE IN MARYLAND WATERS
A'vACATION TRIP IN a LITTLE
KNOWN REGION.


BALTIMORE, Nov. 22.-One man said Take
the Choptank trip" Another recommended
the Pocomoke, and there were voices for
the Rap~pshannock, the Nanticoke, the WI
comico, the Chester River aud the Deco
hammock.
But az advice was s%tubbornly resisted by
Ihe mat with vacation ahead Cf him. He
would have his own way-that is, his
" waterway. At first he inclined to the
Piankatank, just for the sake OF its musical
name, ~ suggestive Of the banjo, but he
finally fixed upon a river with a delightful
Ipdiap name. a stream that looks upon
tha pAsp OF Maryland like a few inches Of
kfuky number forty cotton, the very ex-
istence OF which is hardly known to ordinary
photographers.
The black hole whence the vessel was to
sail at 10 o'clock of q Sunday night looked
a most unlikely place for the beginning OF
an suspicious voyage and the vessel proved
TO be a somewhat a~nti1uated craft, with
dingy splendors once gaudy with the gliding
and gimcracks OF an earlier time. Her
saloon was heated by two ordinary stoves
such as one finds red hot OF winter nights
In remote village stores.
The lone round trip passenger was a
trife uneasy. ~ he found himself amid
these odd nautical surroundings in COM
pan with a group of colored ok and W.
or three whites bound for obscure wharves
half way or less to his own distant desti-
nation. At the purser's window, however,
all doubts and forebodinRs fed.
The purser. a Virginian, was all sunshine
and readiness to oblige on hat clouded and
melancholy Sunday night. When the pas
senger had paid a trifiing sum for his trip
of nearly three hundred miles and moro
than fifty hours, he made bold to ask for a
stateroom Of fair size. What be received
was an apartment larger than most bed
rooms in what are deemed respectable New
York fats, with n berth nearly seven feet
long and quite four feet wide. He blushed
at the suspicion that he was occupying the
bridal chamber.
Before the voyage was two hours old the
purser. with characteristic hospitality of
the Old Dominion, had offered the round
tripper the ship, her tackle and apparel
as a free gift. Henceforth no city. how
ever great. can hope to fatter that voyager
by voting him its freedom in a gold box.
He has tasted higher honors. he has been
made free of what must nave been called
In print on the day when she was launched
q floating palace.
At a quarter after six the next morning
the round tripper Was wakened by a per-
sistent banging at his door, which, by the
way. was numbered twenty-three, though
never omen proved more con~spicuously
absent. The door opened upon the shiniest
Of black faces. the owner OF which announced
that he had called thus early to solicit the
honor OF waiting upon the voyager through
out the trip.
nh -. -. --a.-&.,aw AhA .@s.~ .-1
o mile that accompanied this proposal,
though the oyage VINO was cautioned TO
approach the breakfast table by the port
side, narrowly escaped the ministrations OF
o false pilot who lay in wait for him almost
ut the door of No. % az he emerged.
A turn ON deck showed that kinky thread
OF a river twenty miles from it's mouth 20 be
Q half mile wide and rufied into a pretty
eea beneath the newly risen sun. Not the
surface of the river itself shone brighter
than the face Of James as he indicted the
captive of his early strateSem into a chair at
table.
James was past master not only Of strategy
but also of his craft as waiter. His voice
was low, his manner insinuating, his thumb
scrupulously withheld from contact with
the contents of the dishes.
James's face fell when his guest ordered
merely soft boiled eggs and sausage with
his coffee. The fruit was hardly finished,
however, when James t~riumphantly began
TO pave the table with dishes OF steak, pota-
toes. breakfast bacon and hot biscuit. to-
gether with a few other gastronomic trifes
such a. Maryland and Virginia otfer TO the
hungry.
The coffee vas potable, a rare thing south
of Mason and Dixon line, and IL anything
was in cooked, il must have been
thing that the guest did not taste, and out
Of regard for james he gorged himself
decline the second portions that James
gently offered. James accepted a modest
tip with the grace Of a sable Chesterfield.
Breakfast over. there was the river with
Its splendid panorama to attract and fasci-
nate. Not even the commodious stateroom,
with books and a portable typewriter. could
compete with the scene from the deck.
The purser, after a punctilious inquiry
as to now his guest had slept, was at hand
from time to time in order to point out
objects of interest ashore. There was the
fine old Calvert county mansion in which
Chief Justice fancy was born and bred, and
here was a great family mansion. set high
on a bluff and in apple pie order. belonging
20 another purser OF the line. Further up
was Calvert Hall, once a famous academy,
now a private house and falling to ruin.
above the quaint little dependent cottage
that nestles at its feet close TO the waters
edge. 60,
on its shores hat presented most OF interest.
The wharves for the most part were dreary
spots with hall %ruinous, weather stained
structures against which leaned a dozen
local idlers, but the river was a thing Of
life and beauty.
Now a group of oyster skipjacks or
bugeyes shot by under full sail, now half a
dozen tongers or dredgers strained at
their wet and grimy toll. Here curved
In exquisite ines a tiny bay, smoothly
edged with the Earnest OF tawny sand,
its bluff crowned with mingled dark ever
greens and ~variegated autumnal foliage.
Overhead a gusty sky was peopled with
eagles. hawks and buzzards. Now and
again a brace of wild ducks whizzed by
40 close that the whistle OF their pinions
was almost audible. Cranes rose on she'll
like wings from the mellow heritage of the
wide marshes t. ioat of in seemingly self
conscious majesty, showing a hieroglyph
Of silent grace against the sky.
From the shore came in broken snatches
the notes Of the hooking bird, and when
the vessel paused long enough at a wharf
his endlessly varied ong could be heard
for five minutes together. II is the drama
tic music of the brown thrasher plus mar
vellous touches OF comedy which the latter
rarely essays, and lyric passages to which
his best efforts do not quite attain.
Even the ~bluebird's exquisite whin OF
melody and the calls OF other Northern
summer birds carried now and then across
the water. Deep in the little coves the