Chapter II: By Water

When the Virginia colonists reached the shores of America, they sailed up the James River until they found a peninsula extending into the river and there they built Jamestown. When the Pilgrims completed their explorations of the shores of Cape Cod Bay, they chose the harbor of Plymouth as the best situation for their colony. Lord Baltimore established the Maryland colony at St. Mary's on an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The first settlements in each of the colonies were made on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, or but a few miles up large rivers. Why? The colonists had come to this new world in European vessels which could only bring them to the shore. Here they chose the most convenient place and built their town.

Thus these settlers were in the very beginning familiar with travel by water. But what a poor, inconvenient means of travel it was! The Jamestown colonists, one hundred and five in number, were tossed upon the stormy ocean for more than four months, enduring all the hardships of a severe winter in vessels that to-day would seldom venture upon the ocean, even in coastwise trade. Compare the two months and more of life on the _Mayflower_, where the passengers were crowded into the closest quarters, with the short six or seven days' trip to or from England to-day on the ocean steamers, where travelers find comforts and conveniences almost greater than those they are accustomed to at home.

Although the emigrants suffered greatly in these voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, the day of the return of the vessels to England was a sad one. When the last glimpse of the receding ship had vanished, the homesick watchers realized as never before their isolation--their separation from everybody and everything in which they were interested. Until vessels should again arrive from across the ocean they would be thrown entirely upon their own resources. The settlers were thus very dependent upon the ships that crossed the Atlantic so infrequently and with such difficulty.

Soon after the settlement, however, some of the colonies began to build vessels of their own. The forests provided lumber in great quantity and of the best quality. The first vessel to be built by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was launched at Medford the next year after the settlement of Boston. This small vessel was owned by Governor Winthrop and was appropriately called the _Blessing of the Bay_. The same year a Dutch ship, twenty times as large, was constructed at New Amsterdam.

A large part of the colonial shipbuilding was confined to New England, the _Blessing of the Bay_ being but a leader in a long line. Within two years a ship as large as the _Mayflower_ was built at Boston, and another twice as large at Salem. Within thirty-five years Boston had one hundred and thirty sail on the sea. New York built fewer but larger ships. Philadelphia was a leading shipbuilding town, and many vessels were constructed in the Carolinas.

The activity of the colonists in thus providing means for travel by water was not limited to ocean shipbuilding. The rivers, the inland roads, already prepared by nature, were used from the very beginning. As the settlements grew, both in population and in numbers, travel between them became more and more necessary, and the rivers and streams came more and more into use. The settlers were wise enough to follow the example of the Indians and to make themselves at once familiar with canoes and small boats of every description.

The earliest form of water travel was, perhaps, the raft. It was usually made of floating logs or bundles of brush tied together. To-day, even, rafts of single logs, merely pointed at the ends, are found in Australia, as well as rafts of reeds. On the coast of Peru rafts seventy feet long and twenty feet broad are common,--large enough to use sails as well as paddles.

The next step was to use the single log, made hollow by gradually burning it out or by slowly chipping away pieces with some sharp implement. On the Atlantic coast the most common form of canoe was the dugout, made from the cedar log; and singularly enough the same tree was most frequently used on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, especially near Puget Sound. These Western boats were frequently of great size, some on the Alaskan coast being ninety feet in length and propelled by forty paddles. The Indians had found these dugouts very serviceable, and as the European colonists began to travel over the same rivers and streams they patterned their river craft after those of the red men.

The lighter form of the canoe was preferred, where serviceable, to the dugout. This was made of a light but strong framework covered by bark or skins. That used by the Esquimaux was of sealskin stretched over whalebone. But the more common form was the Indian birch-bark canoe, which rapidly became very popular among the colonial hunters and trappers. No better description of the birch canoe can be found than that which the children's poet, Longfellow, gives in "Hiawatha."

"'Give me of your bark, O Birch Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch Tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily!

"'Lay aside your cloak, O Birch Tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!'

"With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.

"'Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!'

"Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a framework,
Like two bows he formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.

"'Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch Tree!
My canoe to bind together,
So to bind the ends together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!'

"From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the rough roots of the Larch Tree,
Closely sewed the bark together,
Bound it closely to the framework.

"'Give me of your balm, O Fir Tree.
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!'

"And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the fir tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.

"Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom of the forest;
And the forest's life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the Larch's supple sinews;
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily."