ainst the sky--a strangely
grim marker of the progress of three centuries. For this was the grain
elevator at Newport News, spouting its endless stream to feed the Old
World, and standing almost on the spot where those first settlers in
the New World, sick and starving, once begged and then fought the
Indians for corn. Lying in the offing were great ships from overseas
that had come to this land of the starving colonists for grain.

Beyond all these could be seen something of the town of Newport News
itself. Towers and spires and home smoke-wreaths we saw, where those
beginners of our country saw only the spires of the lonely pines and
the smoke from hostile fires.

As our houseboat skirted the southern shore of the James in the sunny
afternoon, our engines chugging merrily, our flags flying, and our two
trailing rowboats dancing on the boiling surge kicked up astern, we
felt that our cruise was well begun. Not that we were misled for a
moment by that boiling surge astern into the belief that we were making
much progress. We had early perceived that Gadabout made a great stir
over small things, and that she went faster at the stern than anywhere
else.

Yet all that was well enough. So long as the sun shines and the water
lies good and flat, dawdling along in such a craft is an ideal way to
travel. If the houseboat is built with the accent on the first
syllable, as it ought to be, the homey feeling comes quickly to the
family group aboard. Day after day brings new scenes and places, yet
the family life goes on unbroken. It is as though Aladdin had rubbed
the wonderful lamp, and the old home had magically drifted away and
started out to see what the world was like.

Now, just ahead of us where the chart had a little asterisk, the river
had a little lighthouse perched high over the water on its long
spindling legs. Gadabout ran just inside the light and quite close to
it. It is an old and a pretty custom by which a passing vessel "speaks"
a lighthouse. In this instance perhaps we were a trifle tardy, for the
kindly keeper greeted us first with three strokes of his deep-toned
bell. Gadabout responded with three of her bravest blasts.

It was not long before the sun got low, and with the late afternoon
something of a wind whipped up from the bay, and the wide, low-shored
river rolled dark and unfriendly. We found our thoughts outstripping
Gadabout in the run toward a harbour for the night.

That word "harbour" comes t