Chincoteague Delights

Now is a good time to go to Chincoteague. Some of the readers of The Sun know where Chincoteague is and some do not. Those who know by actual observation always feel sorry for those who don't if they happen to think about those who don't. Commonly those who do know think of little at this time of the year save the delights of Chincoteague. The delights of Chincoteague are in a great measure either gastronomical or preliminary thereto. Chincoteague is a most excellent place to include in the list of favorite localities kept in the note book of a gastronomical expert. The truth of this will appear further on.

The best route for a New Yorker who wants to go to Chincoteague is by the way of Pennsylvania Railroad ticket office and ferry. The ticket agent will sell a ticket to Franklin City, Va., and Franklin City stands to Chincoteague as Mount Pisgah stood to the land of Canaan. It is handy by, but on the wrong side of the water. This ticket will carry the tourist down across New Jersey, across a corner of Pennsylvania and lengthwise through the tight little Democratic borough of Delaware into "the Peninsula." If any reader does not know that the peninsula is the part of Virginia east of Chesapeake Bay he will have the very respectful pity of all Virginians.

The tourist travels but one-half mile into the peninsula and then reaches the end of the railroad, which is there located on piles driven in the edge of an unnamed sheet of water, which may be called, however, Chincoteague Sound. On the further shore of the sound lies Chincoteague.

If the tourist will, he may take passage at once in the little steamer Widgeon that plies between the piles on which the railroad terminates and the island, but it will be interesting for most tourists to tarry a day or a week at the terminus. The terminus is called Franklin City. There are two stores, a hotel, a church, and a score of dwellings all built on piles, because the tide sweeps in over the place at times until the people who persist in walking the streets have to wear waist high rubber boots or stilts to keep the feet dry, and boats are better vehicles that coupes.

There are wells that are built on (supported by) piles, so to speak, for the citizen to get fresh water drives an iron pipe for his pile supported house down through the salt water of the sound and 60 or 100 feet into the sand below, and draws up the purest, sweetest water to be found anywhere. Moreover, the most picturesque lot of oyster sorters and shuckers to be found anywhere, not excepting the moor of West Tenth street, follow their calling here.

The hotel is a huge, ill looking building but the tourist need not be afraid of it. It will be found attractive in two particulars -- the table and the dining room waiter. The table will be found heaped up with the produce of the country, well cooked and well served by the daughter of the landlady, a charming little lass now about 11 or 12 years old. Then, too, it will give the tourist a comfortable feeling to see a train load of oysters started for Philadelphia and New York -- something he can see every day at this season.

The steam ferry boat to Chincoteague is not very much of a steamer as compared with some that can be seen about New York, but there are comfortable seats on the upper deck for pleasant weather, which means for nine days in ten, and a comfortable cabin for storms. Better yet, unless a change has been made since last season, there is a skipper in the pilot house that knows everything worth knowing about the shooting and fishing of the country round about and the shooting and fishing, especially the shooting, are chiefly what make life worth living in and about Chincoteague. If the tourist can bring to under the lee of the skipper's favor he will get many points well worth learning for the skipper was a market shooter before he got the steamer and a good one.

Chincoteague island is a low lying stretch of sand so low that two thirds of its surface are covered with Everglades suggestive of the Everglades of Florida. These Everglades swarm with wild fowl. With a bateau and a native to pole it the tourist can glide up and down the waters the day long jumping ducks until his sight is blurred by the oft seen flapping wings, till his shoulder aches from the oft-repeated concussion of his gun and that will be a very good way to begin his sport.

Chincoteague Sound is long and shoal. There are many square miles of water not over two or three feet deep and the deepest place is only about eight feet. To shoot with success on the sound one of two ways should be adopted. The tourist should hire a blind with decoys or in bad weather a sailboat. It is much easier to get the blind with decoys than the bad weather. The blinds are made by sticking brush into the water in a semblance of a thicket is formed, while the decoys are anchored about it. The tourist accompanies the native on foot to the shore opposite the blind, while a spike team hauls the decoys. The spike team could not manage the addition to the load which the tourist's person would make. At the beach a boat is found by which the tourist sets the decoys and then shoves it into the thicket and lies down and waits for the ducks. He does not have to wait very long if his blind is built by a shooting native. Redheads, black ducks, brants, every thing but canvasbacks will come to the stool.

If the tourist prefers he can have a battery, one of those floating coffins with wide wood platforms built out on each side and weighed down to the water's edge but the greatest comfort to be found in the blind is manifest particularly is one can sit up on the blind but must lie prone in the battery.

But the shooting grounds are not limited to the everglades and the sound. Outside of Chincoteague Island is a sand bar called Assateague Island. The waves of the Atlantic are forever pounding on the sands of Assateague. Here on the right days come the wild geese that haunt the water thereabouts to gravel as the natives say. Wild geese can be killed on the everglades and on the sound as well, but the beach is the place where one may be sure of his goose.

The native has the best of all decoys for wild geese -- the bird itself. One of the most interesting sights of the island is the swarm of tamed wild geese. Their metallic honk is forever making the air vibrate. One cannot walk alongshore in either direction without coming across them. The natives value them chiefly for their feathers and for the table but they will be staked out on the sand where their wild cousins come on demand for a moderate consideration.

The wild goose blind is a hole dug in the side of a sand dune, with a fringe of scrubby brush about the edge. The tourist sits down in comfort until a wild goose appears. Then if he be a novice his comfort disappears. He will need no one to shout "mark east" to announce their coming for the decoys will set up such a shouts of invitation to the coming birds as will drive him half distracted with excitement. Rarely do the wild birds fail to come to the decoys. Their answering cries may be heard while yet a long way off. With twisting necks and turning heads they flop down to the sand to rub necks with the Judases already their whereat the novice rises up and fires his gun in some other direction and wonders how in thunder he happened to miss such an easy shot.

For the sake of variety the tourist can buckle on a belt of small shot and going over to the mainland can take a day or a week at the quail and the rabbits to be found there. The soft air and the dreamy blue haze over the wood and thickets are enough to make the outing worth ten times its cost but there will be no lack of game to stir the emotions as the aspect of nature would soothe.

Last of all the place is convenient to New York. If the tourist leaves New York at say 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning he reaches Chincoteague in time for a supper which will include oysters in three styles, broiled wild fowl, beefsteak, cold meats of three kinds, round potatoes, sweet potatoes, hot corn bread, hot biscuit, light bread, poached eggs, milk, tea, and coffee and if there is anything else the tourist can think of that he would like to have he can generally get it for the asking.