[Illustration:  Jamestown island from the river.]

Though nothing serious came of the matter, we were not taking a good time to run up the little stream behind Jamestown Island, as the tide had long since turned and we were going in on a falling tide.  We did not relish the idea of running aground perhaps, and of having the ebbing waters leave our craft to settle and wreck herself upon some hidden obstruction.  So Gadabout took plenty of time to run up Back River, feeling her way cautiously with a sounding-pole, like some fat old lady with a walking-stick.

There must once have been a better channel here; for in the early days of the colony, vessels did not always land at the front of the island, but sometimes ran up Back River as our houseboat was now doing.  Indeed, we were expecting to come soon to the wooded rise of land once called “Pyping Point,” where of old a boat in passing would sound “a musical note” to apprise the townspeople of its coming.  And but a little way beyond that again, near the present-day bridge where we expected to stop, we should find the site of the ancient landing-place which was called “Friggett Landing.”

As Gadabout slowly moved along, she occasionally got out of the channel into the shallows, in spite of chart and sounding-pole; and more than once she struck bottom.  But she always discovered the channel and scrabbled back into it before the soft mud, even aided by the falling tide, could get a good hold of her.  No, not quite always was she so fortunate.  For at last, in following a turn of the channel toward the island, she went too far; her stern swung about and grounded in the shallows; her propeller clogged in the mud, and she came to a stop.

We accepted that stop as final.  No attempt was made to put out a kedge anchor and to “haul off” with the windlass.  We simply walked around the houseboat on the guard taking soundings.  Finding that the boat was settling upon fairly level bottom, and feeling that the farther she went the worse she would fare, we took our chances as to what might be under her and made no further effort.

[Illustration:  In back river.]

[Illustration:  The beach at Jamestown island.]

Nautica had a good motto, which was, “When in trouble, eat.”  So the next thing was dinner.  Then Nautica and the Commodore embarked in a shore-boat on a voyage of discovery, a search for the lost channel.  By this time the water was but a few inches deep around the houseboat.  Evidently, the explorers would not dare to go far or to be gone long for fear the ebbing tide would prevent their getting back.  But it was not necessary to go far to find the channel.  Indeed it was found unpleasantly near.  The houseboat had stranded on a safe, level shoal, but almost on the edge of a steep declivity leading down into twelve feet of water.  We felt that if Gadabout had to go aground, she at least might have done it a little farther away from precipitous channel banks.