He said it was all right, we were going to take the inside passage, which is formed by the islands that lie along nearly all the coast of Georgia.

The strips of sea-water between these islands and the mainland make a smooth and convenient passage for the smaller vessels that sail or steam along this coast.

Indeed, some quite good-sized steamers go this way, he said.
I objected, pretty strongly, to our taking this passage, because, I said, we could never hear anything of the boats while we were in here.
But he was positive that if they had managed to land on the outside of any of these islands, we could hear of them better from the inside than from the ocean side.

And besides, we could get along a great deal better inside.

He seemed to think more of that than anything else.
We had a pretty dull time on that tug.