His popularity took a big jump.
He met Nat Hammond during that fortnight.

The first meeting was accompanied by unusual circumstances, which might have been serious, but were actually only funny.
The tide at Trumet, on the bay side, goes out for a long way, leaving uncovered a mile and a half of flats, bare and sandy, or carpeted with seaweed.

Between these flats are the channels, varying at low water from two to four feet in depth, but deepening rapidly as the tide flows.
The flats fascinated the young minister, as they have many another visitor to the Cape, before or since.

On cloudy days they lowered with a dull, leaden luster and the weed-grown portions were like the dark squares on a checkerboard, while the deep water beyond the outer bar was steely gray and angry.

When the sun shone and the wind blew clear from the northwest the whole expanse flashed into fire and color, sapphire blue, emerald green, topaz yellow, dotted with white shells and ablaze with diamond sparkles where the reflected light leaped from the flint crystals of the wet, coarse sand.
The best time to visit the flats--tide serving, of course--is the early morning at sunrise.