SOUNDING. H7
Sometimes a buoy is not laid at all, but the yawl goes ahead,
hunting the best water, and the steamer follows along in its wake.
Often there is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding, especially
if it is a glorious summer day, or a blustering night. But in winter
the cold and the peril take most of the fun out of it.
A buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long, with one end
turned up ; it is a reversed school-house bench, with one of the sup-
ports left and the other removed. It is anchored on the shoalest part
of the reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it.
But for the resistance of the turned-up end of the reversed bench, the
current would pull the buoy under water. At night, a paper lantern
with a candle in it is fastened on top of the buoy, and this can be
seen a mile or more, a little glimmering spark in the waste of black-
ness.
Nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out
sounding. There is such an air of adventure about it; often there
is danger; it is so gaudy and man-of-war-like to sit up in the stem-
sheets and steer a swift yawl; there is something fine about the
exultant spring of the boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw
their souls into the oars; it is lovely to see the white foam stream
away from the bows; there is music in the rush of the water; it is
deliciously exhilarating, in summer, to go speeding over the breezy
expanses of the river when the world of wavelets is dancing in the
sun. It is such grandeur, too, to the cub, to get a chance to give an
order; for often the pilot will simply say, * Let her go about!' and
leave the rest to the cub, who instantly cries, in his sternest tone of
command, * Ease starboard ! Strong on the larboard 1 Starboard give
way ! With a will, men !' The cub enjoys sounding for the further
reason that the eyes of the passengers are watching all the yawl's
movements with absorbing interest if the time be daylight; and if it
be night he knows that those same wondering eyes are fastened upon
the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the gloom and dims away in
the remote distance.
One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house
with her uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love
with her. So did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G------. Tom and I had
been bosom friends until this time; but now a coolness began to