There the red morning touched him with its light.

R.W. EMERSON

On the 18th of February we arrived in the yacht off Mosquito Inlet
about sunrise, and as the tide served our pilot took us in over the
bar, which happened to be smooth at the time, and we anchored just
above the junction of the Halifax and Hillsboro Rivers. Rivers they
are called by the Floridians, but are long stretches of salt water
lying parallel with the coast, and separated from the sea by a sandy
beach of a mile in width, which is covered with a growth of pitch-pine
and palmetto scrub. In New York and New Jersey such waters are called
bays, and on the coast of Carolina they are sounds. They furnish a
convenient boat-navigation for the people, who in consequence do most
of their traveling by water.

Here we found lying at anchor a couple of large Eastern schooners:
they were waiting for cargoes of live-oak, which was being cut by a
large force of men in the employ of the Swifts, a firm that supplies
all this timber for the American navy. A lighthouse is much needed
here, the entrance being narrow, with only eight or ten feet of water
at high tide. The Victoria followed us in, and we had not been long
at anchor when a canoe came down the river under sail, and rounding to
alongside, a tall young man in white duck jacket and trousers stepped
on board, and accosted our pilot: "How are you, Pecetti? So you are
taking up my trade?"

"Well, yes: I've shipped as pilot for this cruise, and Al. Caznova
has the other yacht.--Captain Morris, this is Mr. Weldon, one of the
branch pilots."