Argument and entreaty were in vain. It was none of his business we held, and we knew better than he, anyway; but the man was stubborn, though not at all sullen.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and we had intended reaching, that evening, the house of Capt. Wallace, who had a large farm in the swamp, about twelve or fifteen miles up the canal, and to whom a friend of Moseley's had written about our trip.
At last we compromised with the lockman, who let us have the mule and a cart, with a one-legged colored driver, to carry our baggage to the village of Deep Creek, a few miles up the canal.
Then we entered the first lock of the Dismal Swamp Canal, directly from the tide-water of the Elizabeth River, and were raised probably eight feet to the lowest level of the canal. This means that if this lower lock were opened, the whole Dismal Swamp could be drained to the depth of eight feet.
We parted from the unreasonable lockman with no kindly feelings; but we learned before night that his intentions had not only been kind, but exceptionally honest, and his knowledge quite correct of the towing qualities of an eighty-pound canoe.
