Cobb's Island in Summer.
It is about this time that those who call themselves sportsmen are furbishing up their guns, buying their ammunition, and making up their plans for the summer shooting, and I know your readers will thank me for sketching a route which is not so very distant that some cannot find their way to the place I am writing of, and where those who delight in true sports -- the devotees of the rod or gun, can find good fishing and gunning to their heart's content. A score or so of years ago, there lived an ancient mariner, named Cobb, who, like Kingsley's "Three Fishers," fished for a living, and also unpoetically caught crabs and hooked oysters to fill the hungry mouths at home.
There was a small sand bank off the coast about eighteen miles from Cape Charles which lay in the midst of the bleak ocean, and the fishermen desirous of building a log cabin upon it, and having a place for his nets and boats, found out the owner and offered to but it. The bargain was quickly made, and the price paid was a mere song-a few sacks of salt and $20, I believe. Mr. Cobb put up his humble dwelling, and soon found that his investment was a good one; such profusion of fish, oysters and clams was nowhere to be found, and he steadily added to his gains. And now a singular and wonderful change took place -- his bank began to grow perceptibly larger day by day and hour by hour; as if by magic the area of the place increased, and insatiable Ocean, who often swallows up so much of our treasure and precious wealth, being in a generous mood, now gave a royal gift to the simple fisherman, even as the genii in the Arabian Nights tales gave to the caster of nets--Abou Hassan. In a few years the barren flat was changed into a firm solid island of such varied attractions that a king might covet it, a miniature principality set, as it were, daintily in the blue ocean, where trees spread their waving branches, flowers grow, and birds sing -- a thing of beauty, as grateful to the sight of the storm-tossed mariner as ever the green oasis to the view of the desert traveler who has lost his way amid the sea of sand. On the spot where the log cabin was built twenty years ago there now stands a hotel and many cottages, and from being merely a fishing station Cobb's Island has grown to be a famous sea-side resort, and a spot where the votaries of the rod and gun can find more sport than any other place in a thousand miles around. To a person fond of the grand in nature it is an endless pleasure to remain here and watch the ocean in all its changing moods.
In the rear of the island are numerous flats, shoals, and mud banks through which the sea forces its way. These flats extend sixteen miles from the mainland, and are marked in the chart in the chart as the "Broadwater." They belong to the state of Virginia. At high tide most of these flats are covered by the sea, and are totally submerged by the rising waters; as the tide ebbs they are left high and dry. It is on these shoals that oysters and clams are taken in uncounted numbers, there being some 400 men in and around the island engaged in that traffic, these bivalves are nearly all sent to the New York market. When the tide ebbs and these flats are left dry the oystermen land and simply gather them up in baskets, and they say the supply is inexhaustible. It is on these places also that the curlew, willet and snipe are shot, and often these flats are literally alive with them; along these creeks and channels that King of water fowl, the brant, congregates, and its feeding grounds in the fall are immediately around the island.
"Old man Cobb," as he is called--the founder of this place--is a weather-beaten, time-hardened, and salt-preserved old fellow of some sixty or seventy winters. He is, of course, a thorough seaman, and what he don't know about fishing and gunning isn't worth considering. He has done what every good father ought to do, made his property over to his sons, three in number, and has reserved only a small slice for himself. He amuses himself by sailing his boat, smoking his pipe, and telling long forecastle yarns about the times he has had, and the things he has seen. His three sons run the island, and are running it as a green engineer runs an old rickety train on the down grade, with all the steam up and the brakes open. Warren, the oldest, is a rough and ready fellow -- kindhearted and jovial, fond of his grog and his pipe. He is the best pilot on the coast, and knows these dangerous shores better than the nautical chart. He is very liberal, rather different from his brothers, who, unlike Banquo's ghost, all have speculation in their eyes. Warren, a second edition of Mark Tapley, give him two pulls at your pocket flask, and like a jolly sea-dog that he is, he will take a long and a strong pull together; then let him light his old briarroot and take the tiller of his little craft, and the waves may dash madly against his boat and "the winds blow until they have awakened death" without affecting his spirit or vexing his soul. If you go to the island get Warren as your guide. He is not only an entertaining companion, but very reasonable in his charges, and don't go for your last cent like some other guides I wot of. Nathan, the second son, is quiet and taciturn, but is a thorough sportsman and a crack shot. Albert is the youngest, and runs the island as a watering place, assisted by Mr. Segur. Albert has the brains of the family, and if his liberal, far-seeing policy is carried out Cobb's Island will in a few years be matchless as a sea-side resort.
I cannot resist saying a word about the great abuses that exist and that are patent to every guest, being particularly hard on the sportsman. In the first place, the price charged visitors is entirely too high, being the same as at the White Sulphur Springs and other first-class where they have superb music, drives, promenades, daily mails, telegraph wires, elegant ballrooms, and a perfect cuisine; there are none of these at "Cobb's." If the price was reduced from $60 to $40 per month it would treble the number of guests. But the crying evil is the wrong inflicted on the sportsman; he is turned over to the tender mercy of the guides, a class who live by mild extortion. When you start out to shoot birds you furnish your own gun and ammunition, then you pay $2 to the guide for his services, and worse than all, after killing the birds you actually have to give one-half of them to the guide. Such a course is well calculated to kill the goose that lays the golden egg, and but few sportsmen can stand the drain. The fishing and shooting in and around the island is all that the heart could wish for, and is such a variety and abundance that it is intensely exciting. Those who love fishing can pull up fish as fast as they can drop their lines. Each season has its particular kind of game. In August curlews, willets and graybacks (a kind of snipe) abound. At low tide the sportsman takes his position concealed in a blind, which is rudely made of bushes, and generally constructed on the highest point of the flats; wooden decoys are then placed about thirty yards from the blind. As the tide rises it covers the feeding grounds of the birds and they fly back where the ground is higher, seeing the decoys, and hearing the answering cry they swoop downward -- but rarely alight -- and all the shots must be taken on the wing. It is astonishing to note from what a long distance they can be lured to the decoys; sometimes they are but a speck in the air when the guide whistles, and they almost always answer the signal. As the waters advance the birds fly thick and fast, and you can shoot as fast as you can slip shells into your breech-loader. It is glorious sport, and the advancing waters silently cover the green sward, and steal around you, covers your feet, your ankles, rises to your knees, but you heed it not, for the birds now swarm around the decoys, and you drop them every time you pull the trigger, and are totally oblivious of everything else in the world; and not until the water laps the very seat you are sitting on do you think of resting, and then you wander to your boat, your cartridge bag empty and your game bag full.
I spent a day at Monken Island, about six miles from Cobb's. it hardly merits the name of an island, for it mostly comprises sea meadows which are under water at high tide -- it has a few acres of firm land, where large and bushy pines grow. This is the famous breeding place of the great sea crane, and their numbers beat anything I ever dreamed of. In one tree I counted twelve nests, and the young cranes were as thick on the tree as turkeys on their resting places. They were around you by hundreds, and so fearless that you could approach within ten feet of them; and, after knocking one or two of them over, you stop firing. Some of them are as thin as the Irishman's turkey, but they are very tall, frequently four and five feet high. The willets breed at this place too, and the young ones can be seen running in every direction.
About ten or twelve miles from Cobb's is another island, known as Hog Island, where the great lighthouse stands. This island is much larger than any other on the "Broadwater," containing some 1,500 acres. This island is not a gift of Old Neptune. It has on it some ancient log houses, over a century old, and has a superb forest of immense trees. The lighthouse stands on a promontory fronting the ocean, and from its top a splendid view can be had. As far as the eye can reach, it can see nothing but the wide waste of waters bounded by the horizon -- "bridal of the sea and sky." The white capped waves sparkle in the sunlight, and off on the right you watch the dash of the billows against the rocks, where the breakers and the white spray rise high in the air. One never gets tired of watching nature in her varying beauty; the mighty ocean in her gentlest moods. The surf mourning softly against the beach, and even the roar of the breakers, come the ear mellowed by the gentle winds, and as softly as the memory of a dream. Then the ships, those freighted argosies, outward bound, the snowy sails gleaming against the far blue sky like the wings of the sea gulls. The people of Hog Island number, all told, some seventy souls, all of whom are wreckers and fishermen -- a class of humanity different from what we see in our every day world, rough, uncouth, and uneducated, but honest and hospitable. The prevailing genius, oracle and general authority, is old Aunt Harriet, and it is worth sailing twenty miles any day to meet her. Those disciples of Lavater who believe in physiogonomy being the index of character, would find in an acquaintance with this old woman a hard argument against their creed. No frightened children who were hushed into a shuddering silence by the wind, or strange tails of the nursery-maid, ever imagined the face of an ogress or warlock more fearful than hers; the forehead is low, the eyes of a dark green, protruding from her head; her nose flat, with wide open nostrils, and her mouth cruel and savage looking, occupied half of her face, and is garnished with teeth as large as those of a two-year old colt. The countenance is that of a wolf, and her short, squat body, completes the illusion. She is for all the world like the Weir Wolf, with the grandmother's nightcap on, who lay covered up with bed clothes when little Red Riding Hood came home from her errand. Yet, looking so bad, no more kindly heart ever beat than Aunt Harriet's, and were I to fall sick in a strange place, I know of no one whom I would rather be tended by than the old woman of Hog Island. The fishing there is far superior to that at Cobb's Island, but the hunting is inferior.
I will end my letter by giving you the seasons for game and the general average for one year at Cobb's Island:--
Among the yachts that annually visit Cobb's Island to [50] shoot wild fowl, are the yachts Palmer, Ibis, Dauntless, Ideal, and Vindex.
ALEXANDER HUNTER
Cobb's Island, Va., July 29th.
[Our correspondent has failed to mention how to reach Cobb's Island. We supply the information as given by a friend who visited the place this summer, as follows: Take Old Dominion steamer from New York to Norfolk, thence across the Chesapeake to Cherrystone by steamer; thence five miles by stage to the Bay, and ten miles by steamer to Cobb's. There is also a steamer from Washington. Hotel charges $3 per day; boatmen $3 on snipe; on grouse, ducks, etc., in the fall and winter, $5 per day and half of your birds.--ED.]