A Curious People.

Otago Witness, Volume 15, Issue 1562, 15 October 1881, Page 28

A Curious People.

A ourlous people of an amphibious nature dwell on Cape Hatteras, N. C. They live mainly on fish, olams, oysters, orabs, terrapins, and wild fowl. When they leave home they go in a boat, and whether they go to Court or go courting or to trade, or to mill, or to a funeral, they go by sail. Their corn mills are run by sails, and some of them pump their water with windmills. They do not go upstairs, but 'go aloft'; and when they go to bed they 'turn in'; when they are ill they ' are under the weather,' and when in robust health they say they are ' bung up and bilge free.' They speak of a trim-built sweetheart as ' olipper-built.' If she is a little stout they say Bhe is 'broad in the beam,' pr she is ' wide across the transom.' Many of them have ship cabin doors in the houses that slide on grooves, and to their buildings they give a coating of tar instead of painting them. The ' old woman ' blows a oonoh shell when dinner is ready, and they measure time by the ' bells. ' Their babies are not rooked in oradles, but swung in hammocks. They chew black pigtail tobacco, and drink a wild tea called * Yeopon.' They manure their land with sea. grass and bury their yam potatoes in the sand-hills. When they want the doctor they hang a red flag against the hill-Bide as a signal of distress. If he does not come, beoause the ' wind ain't fair, they take a dram of whisky and copperas, soak their feet in sea-water, ' turn in ' and trust to luck. It they die they will be buried on the top of a sand ridge j and when yoa see several sailboats on the water in procession, with a flag at half-mast, you are looking at a funeral. They ornament their houses with whales' ribs and jaws, sharks' teeth, swordfish snouts, devil-fish arms, sawfish swords (six feet long), miniature ships, camphor-wood chests, Honduras gourds, spy-glasses, South American lariats, war olubs from the Mozambique Islands, Turkish pipes, West India shells, sandal-wood boxes, Chinese chess men, Japanese faces; Madagascar idols, Anstralian boomerangs, and other strange outlandish things. Their hogs are raised on olams, massels, offal of fish, and garbage, and their cattle wade out on the shoals for miles, where the water covers their backs, to feed on seagrass, and if they are oarried up country, and fed onoorn and fodder, they will not live. Every man is oaptaln of some kind of a boat, and ' she ' Is always better than any other boat in some way.