Page:The Ladies' Cabinet of Fashion, Music & Romance 1832.pdf/395



AN AMERICAN TALE.

BRIGHT Chesapeake ! unrivalled bay ! Well did the Indian, as he gazed upon thy broad and verging surface, "Now spangled with sunbeams, now dimpled with oars, Now dark with the fresh blowing gale,' well did he name thee " mother of waters ;" deeming that thou wert that mighty deep, the bourn of the rivers of the land. The light canoe, which once skimmed thy clear expanse, or bounded over thy mimic waves, has long since rotted on thy shore with the woods from which it came. War has shaken its fierce pennon, and rolled its thunders over thy tide ; and in their turn, the white sails of peaceful commerce have borne upon thee the burthens of countless wealth. Still, still, thou art the bright Chesapeake, fair as when the reflected forest girded thee about, and the Indian was master of thy waters. Man has changed, and forest has fallen ; but thou art as ever, matchless and unrivalled. A strong north west wind had blown, for many days, down the bay above mentioned, and detained at anchor a small vessel, which would willingly have made its way against it. The schooner, for such it was, thus wind-bound, lay in the entrance of South river, and under the lee of a narrow and thickly wooded point, which here thrusts its bluff extremity into the Chesapeake. In modern times, the dark appearance of the schooner, its black hull and yards, unrelieved by the dingy yellow of the naked masts, would have excited disagreeable suspicions in the mind of the passing mariner ; and, even at the period of our story, about the year 174-, there was that in the general aspect of the vessel, which , almost indescribably, was calculated to make the fair trader give it a wide berth on meeting : though perhaps, after all, its distinctive marks were to be ΙΙ JUNE, 1839.