Some Dutchmen among the colonists were the first to try this (and Dutchmen understand waterway barbering better than anybody else); but they were unsuccessful.  Their efforts seem to have resulted only in giving the place the name of Dutch Gap.  Many years ago, the United States Government took up the work and, in 1872, the five-mile curl was effectually cut off by the Dutch Gap Canal.

A good deal of interesting history is associated with this loop of the James.  Here, but four years after the coming of those first colonists, the town of Henrico or Henricopolis was founded.  The place made a somewhat pretentious beginning and was doubtless intended to supersede James Towne as the capital of the colony.  Steps were taken to establish a college here.  If they had been successful, Harvard College could not lay claim to one of its present honours, that of being the earliest college in America.  But the Indian massacre of 1622 caused the abandonment of the college project and of Henricopolis too.

We passed into the canal, which was so short that we were scarcely into it before we were out again and headed on up the river.  The banks of the stream grew higher and bolder, and we were soon running much of the time between bluffs with trees hanging over.

On some of the bald cliffs buzzards gathered to sun themselves; and they lay motionless even as we passed, their wings spread to the full in the fine sunshine.  It was almost the sunshine of summer-time.  In its glow we could scarcely credit our own recollections of some wintry bits of houseboating; and as to that story in our note-books about our being ice-bound in Eppes Creek, it was too much to ask ourselves to believe a word of it.

[Illustration:  Dutch Gap canal.]

In colonial times there were a number of fine homes along this part of the James, but most of them have long since disappeared.  Just after passing Falling Creek we came upon one colonial mansion yet standing.  It belonged in those old times to the Randolphs, and is best known perhaps as the home of the colonial belle, Mistress Anne Randolph.  Among the beaux of the stirring days just before the Revolution, she was a reigning toast under the popular name of “Nancy Wilton.”  The second Benjamin Harrison of Brandon was among her wooers; and it is to his courtship that Thomas Jefferson refers when expressing, in one of his letters, the hope that his old college roommate may have luck at Wilton.  He did have.  And we remembered the sweet-faced portrait at Brandon of “Nancy Wilton” Harrison.

[Illustration:  Falling creek.]

Soon, our course was along a narrow channel saw-toothed with jetties on either hand.  The signs of life upon the river told that we were nearing Richmond.  We passed some work-boats, tugs, dredges, and such craft, and everybody whistled.

Over the top of a rise of land that marked the next bend of the river, we saw an ugly dark cloud.  It had been long since we had seen a cloud like that; but there is no mistaking the black hat of a city.