It was on the first day of December that POLLYWOG ran down the East River at dawn of a Sunday morning (when the river is safest for small craft) and out across New York Bay to the Raritan River and the mouth of the Raritan Canal across New Jersey. It should have been a month sooner, but POLLYWOG could not be got ready. The rest of the southward-bound fleet from our port had filled tanks, lockers, and iceboxes, and gone on weeks before. It was remarkable that winter had not caught us. She had warned us with a snowy Thanksgiving that she was close at our heels. So, heeding the warning, we raced southward just ahead of her and kept the toy range in the galley, our open grate, and an oil-stove going most of the time for a month. But

we saw no snow.

There were three of us aboard POLLYWOG.

POLLYWOG's little ten-horse engine going without a miss from daylight till dark and on into the night. As we made but a leisurely five miles an hour, it was essential to keep going!

They were cutting hay in the salt meadows bordering the muddy Raritan that first. day of December, and it made us feel that already we were nearing the South. The winter woods along the charming old canal were filled with unexpected color-reds and browns and yellows against the blue-grays of the distance. The ancient barge traffic with its musical clank of chain harness and its shouting mule-drivers had not abated, and two south-bound yachts passed us. We were not the last.

The canal once entered, the strain of hurry dropped from us, for they could not close with us inside. Gladly and joyously

we wandered through two delectable days along the forty-four miles of this old New Jersey waterway, passing Princeton to the music of baying hounds and through Trenton's many bridges to Bordentown, where the last lock dropped us silently into the broad Delaware River.

At anchor behind an island below Philadelphia we waited all one morning for the sun to burn up a thick, low-lying fog that hid even the near-by yachts. At noon it lifted enough so that we hurried out into the ship-channel and turned our bow to the sea. Came a deep-throated whistle behind us and a liner bore down close on our right. We did not dispute the right of way, but gave him all the room there was, hugging the left side of the channel. At that he loomed above POLLYWOG mountainously.

Close behind the liner came another, and another a whole naval procession going out to cross the Seven Seas, gathered by the fog and awaiting the lift that had set us free. They were laughing at us from their high decks.

Then the waiting fog closed down on us all.

Up and down river rose a din of whistling in which POLLYWOG joined lustily. The liners close at hand faded till we could see but the tips of their masts.

Now dead ahead rose a high gray shape. Ships were coming up as well as going down. POLLYWOG and a monster were head on, and POLLYWOG was in the monster's rightful path. We were confused beyond action till the big fellow saw us and gave us the single blast for the starboard passing. So we swung sharply over into the narrow sea lane between the two processions and, bellowing importantly, POLLYWOG went bobbing saucily on her way till the fog thinned, the liners had passed, and she could dodge into the first lock at Delaware City and be lifted to a still berth by the main street of the picturesque town.

There are but fifteen miles of canal between Delaware City and Chesapeake City at the headwaters of Chesapeake Bay. But they are fascinating miles of tiny lakes and wooded banks that sometimes almost touched our sides on either hand. We lingered luxuriously, dreading the miles of open water ahead.

But we faced them next morning-more

than two hundred miles of them-with three visiting oystermen's tales of Chesapeake's dreaded nor'westers fresh in our ears.

With luck it is a four-days' journey. The very first night out we dodged into halfprotected harborage in black night only half an hour ahead of a biting gale, to swing wildly till morning on extra lines while the ice caked around our bow.

This, then, was winter cruising; this was the nature of our vagabondage. In the following four days we made but thirty-five miles, and yet we did not grow discouraged nor lose zest for the fight. But we began to realize that it was to be a fight.

POLLYWOG was eight days on Chesapeake Bay instead of four. At first we ran down the heavily indented eastern shore of Maryland, with its aged fishing villages bearing English names that proved their Colonial origin. Then, crossing over, we made longer jumps and with good weather at last and a volunteer pilot rounded Old Point Comfort in still moonlight, happy as children to see the bright lights of town again and to hear the bugle calls from the warships.

Our volunteer pilot was one McCook, a vagabond handyman, sailor, cook, and farm-hand, with a tough old face, a big heart, and irrepressible good nature.

He came aboard two days' journey above Old Point and begged passage to Norfolk. It would save him a long, roundabout trip and he would work his passage by steering. Also, he would give us a fat goose. We were rather vain of our own navigation and we had no way to cook a goose, but we could not resist McCook.

So he came, with his luggage wrapped in a bit of newspaper and the goose alive in a crate. He did steer, and he knew the bay so well that we made the two-days' journey in one and were in Norfolk on the second day.

Mac took quite a fancy to the Pollywoggers, and he rather congratulated himself upon having by his presence relieved the dull monotony of our cruise. As he explained it: "I've been company for you, anyway."

He acknowledged his indebtedness by a shower of presents, and superintended my marketing with a skill that he was proud to display. He was possessed also of the true spirit of Southern hospitality. He cordially invited all of the tradesmen to visit POLLYWOG and assured them of welcoming

entertainment. They, on their part, not to be outdone, warmly asked me to write them. from our various ports of call, telling them how we liked the South and how prices were.

We said good-by to Mac and Norfolk without delay, for we still felt winter at our heels. Due south from Norfolk by winding creek through pine-sprinkled flats one comes to a choice of two canals, the Dismal Swamp and the Chesapeake and Albemarle. Saving the famous former for another time, we took the shorter latter into as dismal swamps as could well be imagined, but were cheered to find there several shrubs in gay bloom. Here for the first time we found mistletoe at home and for the third or fourth time decided that at last we were really in the South.

More winding creek led to a wider, marshbanked river that opened on broad but shallow waters. And never another boat in sight. A dredged channel leads for miles down the middle of the bay and is marked by brush stakes at regular intervals. When I relieved Roberts at the tiller and he gave me, deep-sea fashion, the course, he put it this way:

"Straight down the avenue, sir."

That was what it looked like a street covered by a wide and dreary flood.

But near sundown we entered deep pine forest by a narrow cut that led to a sleepy village. At the drawbridge was a trapper out of Leatherstocking Tales, who complained that the fur trade in No'th Ca'lina was not what it used to be.

in 1585 the first English colonists in America landed from Sir Walter Raleigh's ship. Above there on the sand-hill is the place where they built their fort. From the brow of that hill they watched through weary months for the delayed relief ship, starving in the midst of plenty. This is the island of Virginia Dare and the Lost Colony of Roanoke, a place of romance. We swing round a point into Manteo, the island's one settlement, and tie up for a leisurely visit.

From Roanoke southward there are ninety miles more of open water, the most-to-bedreaded of the inland ways, Pamlico Sound, which even the fishermen fear. Out of sight of land on Pamlico you will often find but six feet of water, and the chop that comes with a moderate breeze is in consequence bad for Pollywogs.

But Pamlico lay oily flat while POLLYWOG made a record run of seventy miles far into the night, racing with a blow that gathered marching and countermarching battalions of storm-clouds all the afternoon.

This had hardly the flavor of true vagabondage, but we counted it good, honest navigation that was speeding us past the most dreaded stretches-to the sea.

On the last day of the year, one month and six hundred miles out of New York, POLLYWOG reached the half-way point and the sea at Beaufort, North Carolina.

We came upon the ancient fishing city,