Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/21

Rh that appertains to Morehead which resembles a city is its name. It consists of two or three large hotels, a General Hospital, some Commissary and Quartermaster's store-houses, a few private residences, and four or five hundred inhabitants. But it is a capital business location, wonderfully healthy, having been a summer watering-place for the people of this State, and destined to be, after the war, an important entrepot of commerce with the interior. At Beaufort and Morehead reside at present fifteen hundred and ninety-three (1,593) colored people. Between the two places ply large numbers of small boats, meeting every train of cars, and beating to and fro in every breeze. They run also to Fort Macon, Shackleford Banks, the Lighthouse, Harker's Island, and elsewhere, there being no other means of locomotion in this entire region. Hence the negro is here an aquatic animal, and takes to the water almost as readily as the sea fowl that abound in this vicinity. Not less than one hundred men are constantly employed in boating, this business being wholly in the hands of the negroes. And a remunerative calling it proves to be, indeed. It would be safe to say that the earnings of each boat are, on an average, three dollars a day. It requires two men to manage one boat, and their snug little income is more than a thousand dollars a year, or upwards of five hundred apiece. This would be reduced one half in case they sailed the boat on shares, as some of them do, for a white owner. It may be set down that the freedmen of Beaufort, North Carolina, earn a thousand dollars a week, or fifty thousand dollars a year, in this neat business. A pretty sight it is to see the fleet set sail from Morehead, after the arrival of a train. In sailing around the points, over the shoals and through the "sloos," it is much like a spirited regatta, repeated every day. Many others of the people are employed in oystering and fishing, for which the locality is favorable. The mullet, sea-trout, sheep's-head, and blue-fish of these waters are delicious. Less than three hundred, colored persons receive assistance from Government in Beaufort and vicinity, a fact which well illustrates the industry of the remainder. Some people are loud in their complaints that the Government should feed so many negroes. What have they to say to its feeding twelve or fourteen