advances herself.

The wind may be blowing strong; the tide running strong--everything
strong but the qualifications of the commanding officer; in which case,
it is well that preparations for the landing begin early. There should
be a coil of rope made ready at either end of the boat, and also a
light line with a grapnel attached to It. What is a grapnel? How
strange that question sounds to us now, mighty mariners that we have
become! But of course we should remember that there was a time when we
did not know ourselves. Well, a grapnel is much like one of those
fish-hooks that have five points all curving out in different
directions, only it usually weighs several pounds.

[Illustration: "OFTEN ... THE WANDERING HOUSEBOAT COMES ALONG TO FIND
ONLY AN EMPTY PIER."]

The value of the grapnel was shown that day at the pier above Westover.
Though Gadabout swung to the landing finely, a strong off-shore wind
caught her; our ropes fell short; and we should have made but sorry
work of it if a grapnel had not shot out into the air and saved the
day. As it fell upon the wharf, the line attached to it was hauled in
hand over hand; and though the grapnel started to come along with it,
sliding and hopping over the pier, soon one of its points found a crack
or a nail or a knot-hole to get hold of; and the houseboat was readily
drawn up and made fast to the pilings.

The boxes aboard, our lines were cast off and Gadabout moved on up the
James.

[Illustration: A TRAPPER'S HOME BY THE RIVERBANK.]

Soon we were approaching one of the most historic points on the river.
We could tell that by a deserted old manor-house occupying a fine,
neglected site on the left bank of the stream.

While the main structure still stood firm, and would for generations to
come as it had for generations gone, yet the verandas about it had been
partially burned and had collapsed, and the place looked dilapidated
and forlorn. In front, the spacious grounds, once terraced gardens,
stretched wild and overgrown down to the river, where the straggling
ruins of a pier completed the picture of desolation.

But, even neglected and abandoned, this sturdy colonial home, nearly
two centuries old, still wore a noble air of family pride; still looked
bravely out upon the river. And why should it not? What house but old
Berkeley is the ancestral home of a signer of the Declaration of
Independence and of two Presidents of the United States?

This plantation became