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diff --git a/old/2010-12-21_34392-8.zip b/old/2010-12-21_34392-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b64bfbd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2010-12-21_34392-8.zip diff --git a/old/2010-12-21_34392.zip b/old/2010-12-21_34392.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4c3a5f --- /dev/null +++ b/old/2010-12-21_34392.zip diff --git a/old/34392-8.txt b/old/34392-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..284b679 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/34392-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7529 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod, by Henry D. Thoreau + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cape Cod + +Author: Henry D. Thoreau + +Illustrator: Clifton Johnson + +Release Date: November 21, 2010 [EBook #34392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD *** + + + + +Produced by Steve Mattern + + + + +[Frontispiece: The Clam-Digger (Rotogravure)] + +CAPE COD + +BY HENRY D. THOREAU + +Author of "A Week on the Concord," "Walden" "Excursions," "The Maine +Woods," etc. + +ILLUSTRATED BY CLIFTON JOHNSON + +NEW YORK +THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. +PUBLISHERS + +Copyright, 1908 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. + +THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. + + + +INTRODUCTION + +Of the group of notables who in the middle of the last century made the +little Massachusetts town of Concord their home, and who thus conferred +on it a literary fame both unique and enduring, Thoreau is the only one +who was Concord born. His neighbor, Emerson, had sought the place in +mature life for rural retirement, and after it became his chosen +retreat, Hawthorne, Alcott, and the others followed; but Thoreau, the +most peculiar genius of them all, was native to the soil. + +In 1837, at the age of twenty, he graduated from Harvard, and for three +years taught school in his home town. Then he applied himself to the +business in which his father was engaged,--the manufacture of lead +pencils. He believed he could make a better pencil than any at that time +in use; but when he succeeded and his friends congratulated him that he +had now opened his way to fortune he responded that he would never make +another pencil. "Why should I?" said he. "I would not do again what I +have done once." + +So he turned his attention to miscellaneous studies and to nature. When +he wanted money he earned it by some piece of manual labor agreeable to +him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, or surveying. He never +married, very rarely went to church, did not vote, refused to pay a tax +to the State, ate no flesh, drank no wine, used no tobacco; and for a +long time he was simply an oddity in the estimation of his +fellow-townsmen. But when they at length came to understand him better +they recognized his genuineness and sincerity and his originality, and +they revered and admired him. He was entirely independent of the +conventional, and his courage to live as he saw fit and to defend and +uphold what he believed to be right never failed him. Indeed, so devoted +was he to principle and his own ideals that he seems never to have +allowed himself one indifferent or careless moment. + +He was a man of the strongest local attachments, and seldom wandered +beyond his native township. A trip abroad did not tempt him in the +least. It would mean in his estimation just so much time lost for +enjoying his own village, and he says: "At best, Paris could only be a +school in which to learn to live here--a stepping-stone to Concord." + +He had a very pronounced antipathy to the average prosperous city man, +and in speaking of persons of this class remarks: "They do a little +business commonly each day in order to pay their board, and then they +congregate in sitting-rooms, and feebly fabulate and paddle in the +social slush, and go unashamed to their beds and take on a new layer of +sloth." + +The men he loved were those of a more primitive sort, unartificial, with +the daring to cut loose from the trammels of fashion and inherited +custom. Especially he liked the companionship of men who were in close +contact with nature. A half-wild Irishman, or some rude farmer, or +fisherman, or hunter, gave him real delight; and for this reason, Cape +Cod appealed to him strongly. It was then a very isolated portion of the +State, and its dwellers were just the sort of independent, self-reliant +folk to attract him. In his account of his rambles there the human +element has large place, and he lingers fondly over the characteristics +of his chance acquaintances and notes every salient remark. They, in +turn, no doubt found him interesting, too, though the purposes of the +wanderer were a good deal of a mystery to them, and they were inclined +to think he was a pedler. + +His book was the result of several journeys, but the only trip of which +he tells us in detail was in October. That month, therefore, was the one +I chose for my own visit to the Cape when I went to secure the series of +pictures that illustrate this edition; for I wished to see the region as +nearly as possible in the same guise that Thoreau describes it. From +Sandwich, where his record of Cape experiences begins, and where the +inner shore first takes a decided turn eastward, I followed much the +same route he had travelled in 1849, clear to Provincetown, at the very +tip of the hook. + +Thoreau has a good deal to say of the sandy roads and toilsome walking. +In that respect there has been marked improvement, for latterly a large +proportion of the main highway has been macadamed. Yet one still +encounters plenty of the old yielding sand roads that make travel a +weariness either on foot or in teams. Another feature to which the +nature lover again and again refers is the windmills. The last of these +ceased grinding a score of years ago, though several continue to stand +in fairly perfect condition. There have been changes on the Cape, but +the landscape in the main presents the same appearance it did in +Thoreau's time. As to the people, if you see them in an unconventional +way, tramping as Thoreau did, their individuality retains much of the +interest that he discovered. + +Our author's report of his trip has a piquancy that is quite alluring. +This might be said of all his books, for no matter what he wrote about, +his comments were certain to be unusual; and it is as much or more for +the revelations of his own tastes, thoughts, and idiosyncrasies that we +read him as for the subject matter with which he deals. He had published +only two books when he died in 1862 at the age of forty-four, and his +"Cape Cod" did not appear until 1865. Nor did the public at first show +any marked interest in his books. During his life, therefore, the circle +of his admirers was very small, but his fame has steadily increased +since, and the stimulus of his lively descriptions and observations +seems certain of enduring appreciation. + +Clifton Johnson. +Hadley, Mass. + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + Introduction + I The Shipwreck + II Stage-coach Views + III The Plains Of Nauset + IV The Beach + V The Wellfleet Oysterman + VI The Beach Again + VII Across the Cape + VIII The Highland Light + IX The Sea and the Desert + X Provincetown + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + The Clam-Digger (Photogravure) + Cohasset--The little cove at Whitehead promontory + An old windmill + A street in Sandwich + The old Higgins tavern at Orleans + A Nauset lane + Nauset Bay + A scarecrow + Millennium Grove camp-meeting grounds + A Cape Cod citizen + Wreckage under the sand-bluff + Herring River at Wellfleet + A characteristic gable with many windows + A Wellfleet oysterman + Wellfleet + Hunting for a leak + Truro--Starting on a voyage + Unloading the day's catch + A Truro footpath + Truro meeting-house on the hill + A herd of cows + Pond Village + Dragging a dory up on the beach + An old wrecker at home + The Highland Light + Towing along shore + A cranberry meadow + The sand dunes drifting in upon the trees + The white breakers on the Atlantic side + In Provincetown harbor + Provincetown--A bit of the village from the wharf + The day of rest + A Provincetown fishing-vessel + + + +I + +THE SHIPWRECK + +Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, we +are told, covers more than two-thirds of the globe, but of which a man +who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace, more than of +another world, I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849, another the +succeeding June, and another to Truro in July, 1855; the first and last +time with a single companion, the second time alone. I have spent, in +all, about three weeks on the Cape; walked from Eastham to Province-town +twice on the Atlantic side, and once on the Bay side also, excepting +four or five miles, and crossed the Cape half a dozen times on my way; +but having come so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted. My +readers must expect only so much saltness as the land breeze acquires +from blowing over an arm of the sea, or is tasted on the windows and the +bark of trees twenty miles inland, after September gales. I have been +accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, +but latterly I have extended my excursions to the seashore. + +I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape Cod, as well as my +neighbor on "Human Culture." It is but another name for the same thing, +and hardly a sandier phase of it. As for my title, I suppose that the +word Cape is from the French _cap_; which is from the Latin _caput_, a +head; which is, perhaps, from the verb _capere_, to take,--that being +the part by which we take hold of a thing:--Take Time by the forelock. +It is also the safest part to take a serpent by. And as for Cod, that +was derived directly from that "great store of codfish" which Captain +Bartholomew Gosnold caught there in 1602; which fish appears to have +been so called from the Saxon word _codde_, "a case in which seeds are +lodged," either from the form of the fish, or the quantity of spawn it +contains; whence also, perhaps, _codling_ (_pomum coctile?_) and +coddle,--to cook green like peas. (V. Dic.) + +Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is +at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the +wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown,--behind which the +State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her +feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her +Bay,--boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her +Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth,--ready to thrust forward her +other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann. + +On studying the map, I saw that there must be an uninterrupted beach on +the east or outside of the forearm of the Cape, more than thirty miles +from the general line of the coast, which would afford a good sea view, +but that, on account of an opening in the beach, forming the entrance to +Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, I must strike it in Eastham, if I approached +it by land, and probably I could walk thence straight to Race Point, +about twenty-eight miles, and not meet with any obstruction. + +We left Concord, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, October 9th, 1849. On +reaching Boston, we found that the Provincetown steamer, which should +have got in the day before, had not yet arrived, on account of a violent +storm; and, as we noticed in the streets a handbill headed, "Death! one +hundred and forty-five lives lost at Cohasset," we decided to go by way +of Cohasset. We found many Irish in the cars, going to identify bodies +and to sympathize with the survivors, and also to attend the funeral +which was to take place in the afternoon;--and when we arrived at +Cohasset, it appeared that nearly all the passengers were bound for the +beach, which was about a mile distant, and many other persons were +flocking in from the neighboring country. There were several hundreds of +them streaming off over Cohasset common in that direction, some on foot +and some in wagons,--and among them were some sportsmen in their +hunting-jackets, with their guns, and game-bags, and dogs. As we passed +the graveyard we saw a large hole, like a cellar, freshly dug there, +and, just before reaching the shore, by a pleasantly winding and rocky +road, we met several hay-riggings and farm-wagons coming away toward the +meeting-house, each loaded with three large, rough deal boxes. We did +not need to ask what was in them. The owners of the wagons were made the +undertakers. Many horses in carriages were fastened to the fences near +the shore, and, for a mile or more, up and down, the beach was covered +with people looking out for bodies, and examining the fragments of the +wreck. There was a small island called Brook Island, with a hut on it, +lying just off the shore. This is said to be the rockiest shore in +Massachusetts, from Nantasket to Scituate,--hard sienitic rocks, which +the waves have laid bare, but have not been able to crumble. It has been +the scene of many a shipwreck. + +The brig _St. John_, from Galway, Ireland, laden with emigrants, was +wrecked on Sunday morning; it was now Tuesday morning, and the sea was +still breaking violently on the rocks. There were eighteen or twenty of +the same large boxes that I have mentioned, lying on a green hillside, a +few rods from the water, and surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had +been recovered, twenty-seven or eight in all, had been collected there. +Some were rapidly nailing down the lids, others were carting the boxes +away, and others were lifting the lids, which were yet loose, and +peeping under the cloths, for each body, with such rags as still adhered +to it, was covered loosely with a white sheet. I witnessed no signs of +grief, but there was a sober dispatch of business which was affecting. +One man was seeking to identify a particular body, and one undertaker or +carpenter was calling to another to know in what box a certain child was +put. I saw many marble feet and matted heads as the cloths were raised, +and one livid, swollen, and mangled body of a drowned girl,--who +probably had intended to go out to service in some American family,--to +which some rags still adhered, with a string, half concealed by the +flesh, about its swollen neck; the coiled-up wreck of a human hulk, +gashed by the rocks or fishes, so that the bone and muscle were exposed, +but quite bloodless,--merely red and white,--with wide-open and staring +eyes, yet lustreless, dead-lights; or like the cabin windows of a +stranded vessel, filled with sand. Sometimes there were two or more +children, or a parent and child, in the same box, and on the lid would +perhaps be written with red chalk, "Bridget such-a-one, and sister's +child." The surrounding sward was covered with bits of sails and +clothing. I have since heard, from one who lives by this beach, that a +woman who had come over before, but had left her infant behind for her +sister to bring, came and looked into these boxes and saw in +one,--probably the same whose superscription I have quoted,--her child +in her sister's arms, as if the sister had meant to be found thus; and +within three days after, the mother died from the effect of that sight. + +We turned from this and walked along the rocky shore. In the first cove +were strewn what seemed the fragments of a vessel, in small pieces mixed +with sand and sea-weed, and great quantities of feathers; but it looked +so old and rusty, that I at first took it to be some old wreck which had +lain there many years. I even thought of Captain Kidd, and that the +feathers were those which sea-fowl had cast there; and perhaps there +might be some tradition about it in the neighborhood. I asked a sailor +if that was the _St. John_. He said it was. I asked him where she struck. +He pointed to a rock in front of us, a mile from the shore, called the +Grampus Rock, and added: + +"You can see a part of her now sticking up; it looks like a small boat." + +I saw it. It was thought to be held by the chain-cables and the anchors. +I asked if the bodies which I saw were all that were drowned. + +"Not a quarter of them," said he. + +"Where are the rest?" + +"Most of them right underneath that piece you see." + +It appeared to us that there was enough rubbish to make the wreck of a +large vessel in this cove alone, and that it would take many days to +cart it off. It was several feet deep, and here and there was a bonnet +or a jacket on it. In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, +there were men with carts busily collecting the sea-weed which the storm +had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they +were often obliged to separate fragments of clothing from it, and they +might at any moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might, +they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This shipwreck +had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society. + +About a mile south we could see, rising above the rocks, the masts of +the British brig which the _St. John_ had endeavored to follow, which had +slipped her cables and, by good luck, run into the mouth of Cohasset +Harbor. A little further along the shore we saw a man's clothes on a +rock; further, a woman's scarf, a gown, a straw bonnet, the brig's +caboose, and one of her masts high and dry, broken into several pieces. +In another rocky cove, several rods from the water, and behind rocks +twenty feet high, lay a part of one side of the vessel, still hanging +together. It was, perhaps, forty feet long, by fourteen wide. I was even +more surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited on this shattered +fragment, than I had been at the sight of the smaller fragments before. +The largest timbers and iron braces were broken superfluously, and I saw +that no material could withstand the power of the waves; that iron must +go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like +an egg-shell on the rocks. Some of these timbers, however, were so +rotten that I could almost thrust my umbrella through them. They told us +that some were saved on this piece, and also showed where the sea had +heaved it into this cove, which was now dry. When I saw where it had +come in, and in what condition, I wondered that any had been saved on +it. A little further on a crowd of men was collected around the mate of +the _St. John_, who was telling his story. He was a slim-looking youth, +who spoke of the captain as the master, and seemed a little excited. He +was saying that when they jumped into the boat, she filled, and, the +vessel lurching, the weight of the water in the boat caused the painter +to break, and so they were separated. Whereat one man came away, +saying:-- + +"Well, I don't see but he tells a straight story enough. You see, the +weight of the water in the boat broke the painter. A boat full of water +is very heavy,"--and so on, in a loud and impertinently earnest tone, as +if he had a bet depending on it, but had no humane interest in the +matter. + +Another, a large man, stood near by upon a rock, gazing into the sea, +and chewing large quids of tobacco, as if that habit were forever +confirmed with him. + +"Come," says another to his companion, "let's be off. We've seen the +whole of it. It's no use to stay to the funeral." + +Further, we saw one standing upon a rock, who, we were told, was one +that was saved. He was a sober-looking man, dressed in a jacket and gray +pantaloons, with his hands in the pockets. I asked him a few questions, +which he answered; but he seemed unwilling to talk about it, and soon +walked away. By his side stood one of the life-boatmen, in an oil-cloth +jacket, who told us how they went to the relief of the British brig, +thinking that the boat of the _St. John_, which they passed on the way, +held all her crew,--for the waves prevented their seeing those who were +on the vessel, though they might have saved some had they known there +were any there. A little further was the flag of the _St. John_ spread on +a rock to dry, and held down by stones at the corners. This frail, but +essential and significant portion of the vessel, which had so long been +the sport of the winds, was sure to reach the shore. There were one or +two houses visible from these rocks, in which were some of the survivors +recovering from the shock which their bodies and minds had sustained. +One was not expected to live. + +We kept on down the shore as far as a promontory called Whitehead, that +we might see more of the Cohasset Rocks. In a little cove, within half a +mile, there were an old man and his son collecting, with their team, the +sea-weed which that fatal storm had cast up, as serenely employed as if +there had never been a wreck in the world, though they were within sight +of the Grampus Rock, on which the _St. John_ had struck. The old man had +heard that there was a wreck, and knew most of the particulars, but he +said that he had not been up there since it happened. It was the wrecked +weed that concerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea-weed, as he named +them, which he carted to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but +other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him. We +afterwards came to the life-boat in its harbor, waiting for another +emergency,--and in the afternoon we saw the funeral procession at a +distance, at the head of which walked the captain with the other +survivors. + +On the whole, it was not so impressive a scene as I might have expected. +If I had found one body cast upon the beach in some lonely place, it +would have affected me more. I sympathized rather with the winds and +waves, as if to toss and mangle these poor human bodies was the order of +the day. If this was the law of Nature, why waste any time in awe or +pity? If the last day were come, we should not think so much about the +separation of friends or the blighted prospects of individuals. I saw +that corpses might be multiplied, as on the field of battle, till they +no longer affected us in any degree, as exceptions to the common lot of +humanity. Take all the graveyards together, they are always the +majority. It is the individual and private that demands our sympathy. A +man can attend but one funeral in the course of his life, can behold but +one corpse. Yet I saw that the inhabitants of the shore would be not a +little affected by this event. They would watch there many days and +nights for the sea to give up its dead, and their imaginations and +sympathies would supply the place of mourners far away, who as yet knew +not of the wreck. Many days after this, something white was seen +floating on the water by one who was sauntering on the beach. It was +approached in a boat, and found to be the body of a woman, which had +risen in an upright position, whose white cap was blown back with the +wind. I saw that the beauty of the shore itself was wrecked for many a +lonely walker there, until he could perceive, at last, how its beauty +was enhanced by wrecks like this, and it acquired thus a rarer and +sublimer beauty still. + +[Illustration: Cohasset--The little cove at Whitehead promontory] + +Why care for these dead bodies? They really have no friends but the +worms or fishes. Their owners were coming to the New World, as Columbus +and the Pilgrims did,--they were within a mile of its shores; but, +before they could reach it, they emigrated to a newer world than ever +Columbus dreamed of, yet one of whose existence we believe that there is +far more universal and convincing evidence--though it has not yet been +discovered by science--than Columbus had of this; not merely mariners' +tales and some paltry drift-wood and sea-weed, but a continual drift and +instinct to all our shores. I saw their empty hulks that came to land; +but they themselves, meanwhile, were cast upon some shore yet further +west, toward which we are all tending, and which we shall reach at last, +it may be through storm and darkness, as they did. No doubt, we have +reason to thank God that they have not been "shipwrecked into life +again." The mariner who makes the safest port in Heaven, perchance, +seems to his friends on earth to be shipwrecked, for they deem Boston +Harbor the better place; though perhaps invisible to them, a skillful +pilot comes to meet him, and the fairest and balmiest gales blow off +that coast, his good ship makes the land in halcyon days, and he kisses +the shore in rapture there, while his old hulk tosses in the surf here. +It is hard to part with one's body, but, no doubt, it is easy enough to +do without it when once it is gone. All their plans and hopes burst like +a bubble! Infants by the score dashed on the rocks by the enraged +Atlantic Ocean! No, no! If the _St. John_ did not make her port here, she +has been telegraphed there. The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; +it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any +Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds. + +The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, with slight alterations, +be applied to the passengers of the _St. John:_-- + + "Soon with them will all be over, + Soon the voyage will be begun + That shall bear them to discover, + Far away, a land unknown. + + "Land that each, alone, must visit, + But no tidings bring to men; + For no sailor, once departed, + Ever hath returned again. + + "No carved wood, no broken branches, + Ever drift from that far wild; + He who on that ocean launches + Meets no corse of angel child. + + "Undismayed, my noble sailors, + Spread, then spread your canvas out; + Spirits! on a sea of ether + Soon shall ye serenely float! + + "Where the deep no plummet soundeth, + Fear no hidden breakers there, + And the fanning wing of angels + Shall your bark right onward bear. + + "Quit, now, full of heart and comfort, + These rude shores, they are of earth; + Where the rosy clouds are parting, + There the blessed isles loom forth." + +One summer day, since this, I came this way, on foot, along the shore +from Boston. It was so warm that some horses had climbed to the very top +of the ramparts of the old fort at Hull, where there was hardly room to +turn round, for the sake of the breeze. The _Datura stramonium_, or +thorn-apple, was in full bloom along the beach; and, at sight of this +cosmopolite,--this Captain Cook among plants,--carried in ballast all +over the world, I felt as if I were on the highway of nations. Say, +rather, this Viking, king of the Bays, for it is not an innocent plant; +it suggests not merely commerce, but its attend-ant vices, as if its +fibres were the stuff of which pirates spin their yarns. I heard the +voices of men shouting aboard a vessel, half a mile from the shore, +which sounded as if they were in a barn in the country, they being +between the sails. It was a purely rural sound. As I looked over the +water, I saw the isles rapidly wasting away, the sea nibbling +voraciously at the continent, the springing arch of a hill suddenly +interrupted, as at Point Alderton,--what botanists might call +premorse,--showing, by its curve against the sky, how much space it must +have occupied, where now was water only, On the other hand, these wrecks +of isles were being fancifully arranged into new shores, as at Hog +Island, inside of Hull, where everything seemed to be gently lapsing, +into futurity. This isle had got the very form of a ripple,--and I +thought that the inhabitants should bear a ripple for device on their +shields, a wave passing over them, with the _datura_, which is said to +produce mental alienation of long duration without affecting the bodily +health, [1] springing from its edge. The most interesting thing which I +heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose +locality was pointed out to me, on the side of a distant hill, as I was +panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should +go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should +remember the longest. It is true, I was somewhat interested in the well +at the old French fort, which was said to be ninety feet deep, with a +cannon at the bottom of it. On Nantasket beach I counted a dozen chaises +from the public-house. From time to time the riders turned their horses +toward the sea, standing in the water for the coolness,--and I saw the +value of beaches to cities for the sea breeze and the bath. + +At Jerusalem village the inhabitants were collecting in haste, before a +thunder-shower now approaching, the Irish moss which they had spread to +dry. The shower passed on one side, and gave me a few drops only, which +did not cool the air. I merely felt a puff upon my cheek, though, within +sight, a vessel was capsized in the bay, and several others dragged +their anchors, and were near going ashore. The sea-bathing at Cohasset +Rocks was perfect. The water was purer and more transparent than any I +had ever seen. There was not a particle of mud or slime about it. The +bottom being sandy, I could see the sea-perch swimming about. The smooth +and fantastically worn rocks, and the perfectly clean and tress-like +rock-weeds falling over you, and attached so firmly to the rocks that +you could pull yourself up by them, greatly enhanced the luxury of the +bath. The stripe of barnacles just above the weeds reminded me of some +vegetable growth,--the buds, and petals, and seed-vessels of flowers. +They lay along the seams of the rock like buttons on a waistcoat. It was +one of the hottest days in the year, yet I found the water so icy cold +that I could swim but a stroke or two, and thought that, in case of +shipwreck, there would be more danger of being chilled to death than +simply drowned. One immersion was enough to make you forget the dog-days +utterly. Though you were sweltering before, it will take you half an +hour now to remember that it was ever warm. There were the tawny rocks, +like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed +against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel. The water held +in their little hollows, on the receding of the tide, was so crystalline +that I could not believe it salt, but wished to drink it; and higher up +were basins of fresh water left by the rain,--all which, being also of +different depths and temperature, were convenient for different kinds of +baths. Also, the larger hollows in the smoothed rocks formed the most +convenient of seats and dressing-rooms. In these respects it was the +most perfect seashore that I had seen. + +I saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a narrow beach, a +handsome but shallow lake of some four hundred acres, which, I was told, +the sea had tossed over the beach in a great storm in the spring, and, +after the alewives had passed into it, it had stopped up its outlet, and +now the alewives were dying: by thousands, and the inhabitants were +apprehending a pestilence as the water evaporated. It had live rocky +islets in it. + +This Rock shore is called Pleasant Cove, on some maps; on the map of +Cohasset, that name appears to be confined to the particular cove where +I saw the wreck of the St. J aim. The ocean did not look, now, as if any +were ever shipwrecked in it; it was not grand and sub-lime, but +beautiful as a lake. Not a vestige of a wreck was visible, nor could I +believe that the bones of many a shipwrecked man were buried in that +pure sand. But to go on with our first excursion. + +[1] The Jamestown weed (or thorn-apple). "This, being an early plant, +was gathered very young for a boiled salad, by some of the soldiers sent +thither [_i.e._ to Virginia] to quell the rebellion of Bacon; and some of +them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant +comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one +would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with +much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a +monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and +paw his companions, and sneer in their faces, with a countenance more +antic than any in a Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were +confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves,--though +it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good +nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly. A thousand such simple +tricks they played, and after eleven days returned to themselves again, +not remembering anything that had passed."--Beverly's _History of +Virginia_, p. 120. + + + +II + +STAGE-COACH VIEWS + +After spending the night in Bridgewater, and picking up a few +arrow-heads there in the morning, we took the cars for Sandwich, where +we arrived before noon. This was the terminus of the "Cape Cod +Railroad," though it is but the beginning of the Cape. As it rained +hard, with driving mists, and there was no sign of its holding up, we +here took that almost obsolete conveyance, the stage, for "as far as it +went that day," as we told the driver. We had for-gotten how far a stage +could go in a day, but we were told that the Cape roads were very +"heavy," though they added that, being of sand, the rain would improve +them. This coach was an exceedingly narrow one, but as there was a +slight spherical excess over two on a seat, the driver waited till nine +passengers had got in, without taking the measure of any of them, and +then shut the door after two or three ineffectual slams, as if the fault +were all in the hinges or the latch,--while we timed our inspirations +and expirations so as to assist him. + +We were now fairly on the Cape, which extends from Sandwich eastward +thirty-five miles, and thence north and northwest thirty more, in all +sixty-five, and has an average breadth of about five miles. In the +interior it rises to the height of two hundred, and sometimes perhaps +three hundred feet above the level of the sea. According to Hitchcock, +the geologist of the State, it is composed almost entirely of sand, even +to the depth of three hundred feet in some places, though there is +probably a concealed core of rock a little beneath the surface, and it +is of diluvian origin, excepting a small portion at the extremity and +elsewhere along the shores, which is alluvial. For the first half of the +Cape large blocks of stone are found, here and there, mixed with the +sand, but for the last thirty miles boulders, or even gravel, are rarely +met with. Hitchcock conjectures that the ocean has, in course of time, +eaten out Boston, Harbor and other bays in the mainland, and that the +minute fragments have been deposited by the currents at a distance from +the shore, and formed this sand-bank. Above the sand, if the surface is +subjected to agricultural tests, there is found to be a thin layer of +soil gradually diminishing from Barnstable to Truro, where it ceases; +but there are many holes and rents in this weather-beaten garment not +likely to be stitched in time, which reveal the naked flesh of the Cape, +and its extremity is completely bare. + +I at once got out my book, the eighth volume of the Collections of the +Massachusetts Historical Society, printed in 1802, which contains some +short notices of the Cape towns, and began to read up to where I was, +for in the cars I could not read as fast as I travelled. To those who +came from the side of Plymouth, it said: "After riding through a body of +woods, twelve miles in extent, interspersed with but few houses, the +settlement of Sandwich appears, with a more agreeable effect, to the eye +of the traveller." Another writer speaks of this as a _beautiful_ village. +But I think that our villages will bear to be contrasted only with one +another, not with Nature. I have no great respect for the writer's +taste, who talks easily about beautiful villages, embellished, +perchance, with a "fulling-mill," "a handsome academy," or +meeting-house, and "a number of shops for the different mechanic arts"; +where the green and white houses of the gentry, drawn up in rows, front +on a street of which it would be difficult to tell whether it is most +like a desert or a long stable-yard. Such spots can be beautiful only to +the weary traveller, or the returning native,--or, perchance, the +repentant misanthrope; not to him who, with unprejudiced senses, has +just come out of the woods, and approaches one of them, by a bare road, +through a succession of straggling homesteads where he cannot tell which +is the alms-house. However, as for Sandwich, I cannot speak +particularly. Ours was but half a Sandwich at most, and that must have +fallen on the buttered side some time. I only saw that it was a closely +built town for a small one, with glass-works to improve its sand, and +narrow streets in which we turned round and round till we could not tell +which way we were going, and the rain came in, first on this side, and +then on that, and I saw that they in the houses were more comfortable +than we in the coach. My book also said of this town, "The inhabitants, +in general, are substantial livers."--that is. I suppose, they do not +live like philosophers: but, as the stage did not stop long enough for +us to dine, we had no opportunity to test the truth of this statement. +It may have referred, however, to the quantity "of oil they would +yield." It further said, "The inhabitants of Sandwich generally manifest +a fond and steady adherence to the manners, employments, and modes of +living which characterized their fathers"; which made me think that they +were, after all, very much like all the rest of the world;--and it added +that this was "a resemblance, which, at this day, will constitute no +impeachment of either their virtue or taste": which remark proves to me +that the writer was one with the rest of them. No people ever lived by +cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have +been to them. But it must be confessed that ours was old authority, and +probably they have changed all that now. + +[Illustration: An old windmill] + +Our route was along the Bay side, through Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, +and Brewster, to Orleans, with a range of low hills on our right, +running down the Cape. The weather was not favorable for wayside views, +but we made the most of such glimpses of land and water as we could get +through the rain. The country was, for the most part, bare, or with only +a little scrubby wood left on the hills. We noticed in Yarmouth--and, if +I do not mistake, in Dennis--large tracts where pitch-pines were planted +four or five years before. They were in rows, as they appeared when we +were abreast of them, and, excepting that there were extensive vacant +spaces, seemed to be doing remarkably well. This, we were told, was the +only use to which such tracts could be profitably put. Every higher +eminence had a pole set up on it, with an old storm-coat or sail tied to +it, for a signal, that those on the south side of the Cape, for +instance, might know when the Boston packets had arrived on the north. +It appeared as if this use must absorb the greater part of the old +clothes of the Cape, leaving but few rags for the pedlers. The +wind-mills on the hills,--large weather-stained octagonal +structures,--and the salt-works scattered all along the shore, with +their long rows of vats resting on piles driven into the marsh, their +low, turtle-like roofs, and their slighter wind-mills, were novel and +interesting objects to an inlander. The sand by the road-side was +partially covered with bunches of a moss-like plant, _Hudsonia tomentosa_, +which a woman in the stage told us was called "poverty-grass," because +it grew where nothing else would. + +I was struck by the pleasant equality which reigned among the stage +company, and their broad and invulnerable good-humor. They were what is +called free and easy, and met one another to advantage, as men who had +at length learned how to live. They appeared to know each other when +they were strangers, they were so simple and downright. They were well +met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as they could meet, +and did not seem to be troubled with any impediment. They were not +afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were contented to make just such +a company as the ingredients allowed. It was evident that the same +foolish respect was not here claimed for mere wealth and station that is +in many parts of New England; yet some of them were the "first people," +as they are called, of the various towns through which we passed. +Retired sea-captains, in easy circumstances, who talked of farming as +sea-captains are wont; an erect, respectable, and trustworthy-looking +man, in his wrapper, some of the salt of the earth, who had formerly +been the salt of the sea; or a more courtly gentleman, who, per-chance, +had been a representative to the General Court in his day; or a broad, +red-faced Cape Cod man, who had seen too many storms to be easily +irritated; or a fisherman's wife, who had been waiting a week for a +coaster to leave Boston, and had at length come by the cars. + +A strict regard for truth obliges us to say that the few women whom we +saw that day looked exceedingly pinched up. They had prominent chins and +noses, having lost all their teeth, and a sharp _W_ would represent their +profile. They were not so well preserved as their husbands; or perchance +they were well preserved as dried specimens. (Their husbands, however, +were pickled.) But we respect them not the less for all that; our own +dental system is far from perfect. + +Still we kept on in the rain, or, if we stopped, it was commonly at a +post-office, and we thought that writing letters, and sorting them +against our arrival, must be the principal employment of the inhabitants +of the Cape this rainy day. The post-office appeared a singularly +domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some +low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his +shirt sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding +up Uncle Sam's bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the +travellers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really +as indifferent to the presence of the former as if they were so much +baggage. In one instance we understood that a woman was the +postmistress, and they said that she made the best one on the road; but +we suspected that the letters must be subjected to a very close scrutiny +there. While we were stopping for this purpose at Dennis, we ventured to +put our heads out of the windows, to see where we were going, and saw +rising before us, through the mist, singular barren hills, all stricken +with poverty-grass, looming up as if they were in the horizon, though +they were close to us, and we seemed to have got to the end of the land +on that side, notwithstanding that the horses were still headed that +way. Indeed, that part of Dennis which we saw was an exceedingly barren +and desolate country, of a character which I can find no name for; such +a surface, perhaps, as the bottom of the sea made dry land day before +yesterday. It was covered with poverty-grass, and there was hardly a +tree in sight, but here and there a little weather-stained, one-storied +house, with a red roof,--for often the roof was painted, though the rest +of the house was not,--standing bleak and cheerless, yet with a broad +foundation to the land, where the comfort must have been all inside. Yet +we read in the Gazetteer--for we carried that too with us--that, in +1837, one hundred and fifty masters of vessels, belonging to this town, +sailed from the various ports of the Union. There must be many more +houses in the south part of the town, else we cannot imagine where they +all lodge when they are at home, if ever they are there; but the truth +is, their houses are floating ones, and their home is on the ocean. +There were almost no trees at all in this part of Dennis, nor could I +learn that they talked of setting out any. It is true, there was a +meeting-house, set round with Lombardy poplars, in a hollow square, the +rows fully as straight as the studs of a building, and the corners as +square; but, if I do not mistake, every one of them was dead. I could +not help thinking that they needed a revival here. Our book said that, +in 1795, there was erected in Dennis "an elegant meeting-house, with a +steeple." Perhaps this was the one; though whether it had a steeple, or +had died down so far from sympathy with the poplars, I do not remember. +Another meeting-house in this town was described as a "neat building"; +but of the meeting-house in Chatham, a neigh-boring town, for there was +then but one, nothing is said, except that it "is in good repair,"--both +which remarks, I trust, may be understood as applying to the churches +spiritual as well as material. However, "elegant meeting-houses," from +that Trinity one on Broadway, to this at Nobscusset, in my estimation, +belong to the same category with "beautiful villages." I was never in +season to see one. Handsome is that handsome does. What they did for +shade here, in warm weather, we did not know, though we read that "fogs +are more frequent in Chatham than in any other part of the country; and +they serve in summer, instead of trees, to shelter the houses against +the heat of the sun. To those who delight in extensive vision,"--is it +to be inferred that the inhabitants of Chatham do not?--"they are +unpleasant, but they are not found to be unhealthful." Probably, also, +the unobstructed sea-breeze answers the purpose of a fan. The historian +of Chatham says further, that "in many families there is no difference +between the breakfast and supper; cheese, cakes, and pies being as +common at the one as at the other." But that leaves us still uncertain +whether they were really common at either. + +[Illustration: A street in Sandwich] + +The road, which was quite hilly, here ran near the Bay-shore, having the +Bay on one side, and "the rough hill of Scargo," said to be the highest +land on the Cape, on the other. Of the wide prospect of the Bay afforded +by the summit of this hill, our guide says: "The view has not much of +the beautiful in it, but it communicates a strong emotion of the +sublime." That is the kind of communication which we love to have made +to us. We passed through the village of Suet, in Dennis, on Suet and +Quivet Necks, of which it is said, "when compared with Nobscusset,"--we +had a misty recollection of having passed through, or near to, the +latter,--"it may be denominated a pleasant village; but, in comparison +with the village of Sandwich, there is little or no beauty in it." +However, we liked Dennis well, better than any town we had seen on the +Cape, it was so novel, and, in that stormy day, so sublimely dreary. + +Captain John Sears, of Suet, was the first per-son in this country who +obtained pure marine salt by solar evaporation alone; though it had long +been made in a similar way on the coast of France, and elsewhere. This +was in the year 1776, at which time, on account of the war, salt was +scarce and dear. The Historical Collections contain an interesting +account of his experiments, which we read when we first saw the roofs of +the salt-works. Barnstable county is the most favorable locality for +these works on our northern coast,--there is so little fresh water here +emptying into ocean. Quite recently there were about two millions of +dollars invested in this business here. But now the Cape is unable to +compete with the importers of salt and the manufacturers of it at the +West, and, accordingly, her salt-works are fast going to decay. From +making salt, they turn to fishing more than ever. The Gazetteer will +uniformly tell you, under the head of each town, how many go a-fishing, +and the value of the fish and oil taken, how much salt is made and used, +how many are engaged in the coasting trade, how many in manufacturing +palm-leaf hats, leather, boots, shoes, and tinware, and then it has +done, and leaves you to imagine the more truly domestic manufactures +which are nearly the same all the world over. + +Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brewster, so named after Elder +Brewster, for fear he would be forgotten else. Who has not heard of +Elder Brewster? Who knows who he was? This appeared to be the +modern-built town of the Cape, the favorite residence of retired +sea-captains. It is said that "there are more masters and mates of +vessels which sail on foreign voyages belonging to this place than to +any other town in the country." There were many of the modern American +houses here, such as they turn out at Cambridgeport, standing on the +sand; you could almost swear that they had been floated down Charles +River, and drifted across the Bay. I call them American, because they +are paid for by Americans, and "put up" by American carpenters; but they +are little removed from lumber; only Eastern stuff disguised with white +paint, the least interesting kind of drift-wood to me. Perhaps we have +reason to be proud of our naval architecture, and need not go to the +Greeks, or the Goths, or the Italians, for the models of our vessels. +Sea-captains do not employ a Cambridgeport carpenter to build their +floating houses, and for their houses on shore, if they must copy any, +it would be more agreeable to the imagination to see one of their +vessels turned bottom upward, in the Numidian fashion. We read that, "at +certain seasons, the reflection of the sun upon the windows of the +houses in Well-fleet and Truro (across the inner side of the elbow of +the Cape) is discernible with the naked eye, at a distance of eighteen +miles and upward, on the county road." This we were pleased to imagine, +as we had not seen the sun for twenty-four hours. + +[Illustration: The old Higgins tavern at Orleans] + +The same author (the Rev. John Simpkins) said of the inhabitants, a good +while ago: "No persons appear to have a greater relish for the social +circle and domestic pleasures. They are not in the habit of frequenting +taverns, unless on public occasions. I know not of a proper idler or +tavern-haunter in the place." This is more than can be said of my +townsmen. + +At length we stopped for the night at Higgins's tavern, in Orleans, +feeling very much as if we were on a sand-bar in the ocean, and not +knowing whether we should see land or water ahead when the mist cleared +away. We here overtook two Italian boys, who had waded thus far down the +Cape through the sand, with their organs on their backs, and were going +on to Provincetown. What a hard lot, we thought, if the Provincetown +people should shut their doors against them! Whose yard would they go to +next? Yet we concluded that they had chosen wisely to come here, where +other music than that of the surf must be rare. Thus the great civilizer +sends out its emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and +light-house of the New World which the census-taker visits, and summons +the savage there to surrender. + + + +III + +THE PLAINS OF NAUSET + +The next morning, Thursday, October 11th, it rained, as hard as ever; +but we were determined to proceed on foot, nevertheless. We first made +some inquiries with regard to the practicability of walking up the shore +on the Atlantic side to Provincetown, whether we should meet with any +creeks or marshes to trouble us. Higgins said that there was no +obstruction, and that it was not much farther than by the road, but he +thought that we should find it very "heavy" walking in the sand; it was +bad enough in the road, a horse would sink in up to the fetlocks there. +But there was one man at the tavern who had walked it, and he said that +we could go very well, though it was sometimes inconvenient and even +dangerous walking under the bank, when there was a great tide, with an +easterly wind, which caused the sand to cave. For the first four or five +miles we followed the road, which here turns to the north on the elbow, +--the narrowest part of the Cape,--that we might clear an inlet from the +ocean, a part of Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, on our right. We found the +travelling good enough for walkers on the sides of the roads, though it +was "heavy" for horses in the middle. We walked with our umbrellas +behind us, since it blowed hard as well as rained, with driving mists, +as the day before, and the wind helped us over the sand at a rapid rate. +Everything indicated that we had reached a strange shore. The road was a +mere lane, winding over bare swells of bleak and barren-looking land. +The houses were few and far between, besides being small and rusty, +though they appeared to be kept in good repair, and their dooryards, +which were the unfenced Cape, were tidy; or, rather, they looked as if +the ground around them was blown clean by the wind. Perhaps the scarcity +of wood here, and the consequent absence of the wood-pile and other +wooden traps, had something to do with this appearance. They seemed, +like mariners ashore, to have sat right down to enjoy the firmness of +the land, without studying their postures or habiliments. To them it was +merely _terra firma_ and _cognita_, not yet _fertilis_ and _jucunda_. Every +landscape which is dreary enough has a certain beauty to my eyes, and in +this instance its permanent qualities were enhanced by the weather. +Everything told of the sea, even when we did not see its waste or hear +its roar. For birds there were gulls, and for carts in the fields, boats +turned bottom upward against the houses, and sometimes the rib of a +whale was woven into the fence by the road-side. The trees were, if +possible, rarer than the houses, excepting apple-trees, of which there +were a few small orchards in the hollows. These were either narrow and +high, with flat tops, having lost their side branches, like huge +plum-bushes growing in exposed situations, or else dwarfed and branching +immediately at the ground, like quince-bushes. They suggested that, +under like circumstances, all trees would at last acquire like habits of +growth. I afterward saw on the Cape many full-grown apple-trees not +higher than a man's head; one whole orchard, indeed, where all the fruit +could have been gathered by a man standing on the ground; but you could +hardly creep beneath the trees. Some, which the owners told me were +twenty years old, were only three and a half feet high, spreading at six +inches from the ground five feet each way, and being withal surrounded +with boxes of tar to catch the cankerworms, they looked like plants in +flower-pots, and as if they might be taken into the house in the winter. +In another place, I saw some not much larger than currant-bushes; yet +the owner told me that they had borne a barrel and a half of apples that +fall. If they had been placed close together, I could have cleared them +all at a jump. I measured some near the Highland Light in Truro, which +had been taken from the shrubby woods thereabouts when young, and +grafted. One, which had been set ten years, was on an average eighteen +inches high, and spread nine feet with a flat top. It had borne one +bushel of apples two years before. Another, probably twenty years old +from the seed, was five feet high, and spread eighteen feet, branching, +as usual, at the ground, so that you could not creep under it. This bore +a barrel of apples two years before. The owner of these trees invariably +used the personal pronoun in speaking of them; as, "I got _him_ out of the +woods, but _he_ doesn't bear." The largest that I saw in that neighborhood +was nine feet high to the topmost leaf, and spread thirty-three feet, +branching at the ground five ways. + +[Illustration: A Nauset lane] + +In one yard I observed a single, very healthy-looking tree, while all +the rest were dead or dying. The occupant said that his father had +manured all but that one with blackfish. + +This habit of growth should, no doubt, be encouraged; and they should +not be trimmed up, as some travelling practitioners have advised. In +1802 there was not a single fruit-tree in Chatham, the next town to +Orleans, on the south; and the old account of Orleans says: "Fruit-trees +cannot be made to grow within a mile of the ocean. Even those which are +placed at a greater distance are injured by the east winds; and, after +violent storms in the spring, a saltish taste is perceptible on their +bark." We noticed that they were often covered with a yellow lichen-like +rust, the _Parmelia parietina_. + +The most foreign and picturesque structures on the Cape, to an inlander, +not excepting the salt-works, are the wind-mills,--gray-looking +octagonal towers, with long timbers slanting to the ground in the rear, +and there resting on a cart-wheel, by which their fans are turned round +to face the wind. These appeared also to serve in some measure for props +against its force. A great circular rut was worn around the building by +the wheel. The neighbors who assemble to turn the mill to the wind are +likely to know which way it blows, without a weathercock. They looked +loose and slightly locomotive, like huge wounded birds, trailing a wing +or a leg, and re-minded one of pictures of the Netherlands. Being on +elevated ground, and high in themselves, they serve as landmarks,--for +there are no tall trees, or other objects commonly, which can be seen at +a distance in the horizon; though the outline of the land itself is so +firm and distinct that an insignificant cone, or even precipice of +sand, is visible at a great distance from over the sea. Sailors making +the land commonly steer either by the wind-mills or the meeting-houses. +In the country, we are obliged to steer by the meeting-houses alone. Yet +the meeting-house is a kind of wind-mill, which runs one day in seven, +turned either by the winds of doctrine or public opinion, or more rarely +by the winds of Heaven, where another sort of grist is ground, of which, +if it be not all bran or musty, if it be not _plaster_, we trust to make +bread of life. + +There were, here and there, heaps of shells in the fields, where clams +had been opened for bait; for Orleans is famous for its shell-fish, +especially clams, or, as our author says, "to speak more properly, +worms." The shores are more fertile than the dry land. The inhabitants +measure their crops, not only by bushels of corn, but by barrels of +clams. A thousand barrels of clam-bait are counted as equal in value to +six or eight thousand bushels of Indian corn, and once they were +procured without more labor or expense, and the supply was thought to be +inexhaustible. "For," runs the history, "after a portion of the shore +has been dug over, and almost all the clams taken up, at the end of two +years, it is said, they are as plenty there as ever. It is even affirmed +by many persons, that it is as necessary to stir the clam ground +frequently as it is to hoe a field of potatoes; because, if this labor +is omitted, the clams will be crowded too closely together, and will be +prevented from increasing in size." But we were told that the small +clam, _Mya arenaria_, was not so plenty here as formerly. Probably the +clam ground has been stirred too frequently, after all. Nevertheless, +one man, who complained that they fed pigs with them and so made them +scarce, told me that he dug and opened one hundred and twenty-six +dollars' worth in one winter, in Truro. + +[Illustration: Nauset Bay] + +We crossed a brook, not more than fourteen rods long, between Orleans +and Eastham, called Jeremiah's Gutter. The Atlantic is said sometimes to +meet the Bay here, and isolate the northern part of the Cape. The +streams of the Cape are necessarily formed on a minute scale, since +there is no room for them to run, without tumbling immediately into the +sea; and beside, we found it difficult to run ourselves in that sand, +when there was no want of room. Hence, the least channel where water +runs, or may run, is important, and is dignified with a name. We read +that there is no running water in Chatham, which is the next town. The +barren aspect of the land would hardly be believed if described. It was +such soil, or rather land, as, to judge from appearances, no farmer in +the interior would think of cultivating, or even fencing. Generally, the +ploughed fields of the Cape look white and yellow, like a mixture of +salt and Indian meal. This is called soil. All an inlander's notions of +soil and fertility will be confounded by a visit to these parts, and he +will not be able, for some time afterward, to distinguish soil from +sand. The historian of Chatham says of a part of that town, which has +been gained from the sea: "There is a doubtful appearance of a soil +beginning to be formed. It is styled _doubtful_, because it would not be +observed by every eye, and perhaps not acknowledged by many." We thought +that this would not be a bad description of the greater part of the +Cape. There is a "beach" on the west side of Eastham, which we crossed +the next summer, half a mile wide, and stretching across the township, +containing seventeen hundred acres, on which there is not now a particle +of vegetable mould, though it formerly produced wheat. All sands are +here called "beaches," whether they are waves of water or of air that +dash against them, since they commonly have their origin on the shore. +"The sand in some places," says the historian of Eastham, "lodging +against the beach-grass, has been raised into hills fifty feet high, +where twenty-five years ago no hills existed. In others it has filled up +small valleys, and swamps. Where a strong-rooted bush stood, the +appearance is singular: a mass of earth and sand adheres to it, +resembling a small tower. In several places, rocks, which were formerly +covered with soil, are disclosed, and being lashed by the sand, driven +against them by the wind, look as if they were recently dug from a +quarry." + +We were surprised to hear of the great crops of corn which are still +raised in Eastham, notwithstanding the real and apparent barrenness. Our +landlord in Orleans had told us that he raised three or four hundred +bushels of corn annually, and also of the great number of pigs which he +fattened. In Champlain's "Voyages," there is a plate representing the +Indian cornfields hereabouts, with their wigwams in the midst, as they +appeared in 1605, and it was here that the Pilgrims, to quote their own +words, "bought eight or ten hogsheads of corn and beans" of the Nauset +Indians, in 1622, to keep themselves from starving. [1] + +"In 1667 the town [of Eastham] voted that every housekeeper should kill +twelve blackbirds or three crows, which did great damage to the corn; +and this vote was repeated for many years." In 1695 an additional order +was passed, namely, that "every unmarried man in the township shall kill +six blackbirds, or three crows, while he remains single; as a penalty +for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this order." The +blackbirds, however, still molest the corn. I saw them at it the next +summer, and there were many scarecrows, if not scare-blackbirds, in the +fields, which I often mistook for men. + +[Illustration: A scarecrow] + +From which I concluded that either many men were not married, or many +blackbirds were. Yet they put but three or four kernels in a hill, and +let fewer plants remain than we do. In the account of Eastham, in the +"Historical Collections," printed in 1802, it is said, that "more corn +is produced than the inhabitants consume, and about a thousand bushels +are annually sent to market. The soil being free from stones, a plough +passes through it speedily; and after the corn has come up, a small Cape +horse, somewhat larger than a goat, will, with the assistance of two +boys, easily hoe three or four acres in a day; several farmers are +accustomed to produce five hundred bushels of grain annually, and not +long since one raised eight hundred bushels on sixty acres." Similar +accounts are given to-day; indeed, the recent accounts are in some +instances suspectable repetitions of the old, and I have no doubt that +their statements are as often founded on the exception as the rule, and +that by far the greater number of acres are as barren as they appear to +be. It is sufficiently remarkable that any crops can be raised here, and +it may be owing, as others have suggested, to the amount of moisture in +the atmosphere, the warmth of the sand, and the rareness of frosts. A +miller, who was sharpening his stones, told me that, forty years ago, he +had been to a husking here, where five hundred bushels were husked in +one evening, and the corn was piled six feet high or more, in the midst, +but now, fifteen or eighteen bushels to an acre were an average yield. I +never saw fields of such puny and unpromising looking corn as in this +town. Probably the inhabitants are contented with small crops from a +great surface easily cultivated. It is not always the most fertile land +that is the most profitable, and this sand may repay cultivation, as +well as the fertile bottoms of the West. It is said, moreover, that the +vegetables raised in the sand, without manure, are remarkably sweet, the +pumpkins especially, though when their seed is planted in the interior +they soon degenerate. I can testify that the vegetables here, when they +succeed at all, look remarkably green and healthy, though perhaps it is +partly by contrast with the sand. Yet the inhabitants of the Cape towns, +generally, do not raise their own meal or pork. Their gardens are +commonly little patches, that have been redeemed from the edges of the +marshes and swamps. + +All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which +was several miles distant; for it still felt the effects of the storm in +which the _St. John_ was wrecked,--though a school-boy, whom we overtook, +hardly knew what we meant, his ears were so used to it. He would have +more plainly heard the same sound in a shell. It was a very inspiriting +sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against +the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl +before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape! +On the whole, we were glad of the storm, which would show us the ocean +in its angriest mood. Charles Darwin was assured that the roar of the +surf on the coast of Chiloe, after a heavy gale, could be heard at night +a distance of "21 sea miles across a hilly and wooded country." We +conversed with the boy we have mentioned, who might have been eight +years old, making him walk the while under the lee of our umbrella; for +we thought it as important to know what was life on the Cape to a boy as +to a man. We learned from him where the best grapes were to be found in +that neighborhood. He was carrying his dinner in a pail; and, without +any impertinent questions being put by us, it did at length appear of +what it consisted. The homeliest facts are always the most acceptable to +an inquiring mind. At length, before we got to Eastham meeting-house, we +left the road and struck across the country for the eastern shore at +Nauset Lights,--three lights close together, two or three miles distant +from us. They were so many that they might be distinguished from others; +but this seemed a shiftless and costly way of accomplishing that object. +We found ourselves at once on an apparently boundless plain, without a +tree or a fence, or, with one or two exceptions, a house in sight. +Instead of fences, the earth was sometimes thrown up into a slight +ridge. My companion compared it to the rolling prairies of Illinois. In +the storm of wind and rain which raged when we traversed it, it no doubt +appeared more vast and desolate than it really is. As there were no +hills, but only here and there a dry hollow in the midst of the waste, +and the distant horizon was concealed by mist, we did not know whether +it was high or low. A solitary traveller whom we saw perambulating in +the distance loomed like a giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as if +held up from above by straps under his shoulders, as much as supported +by the plain below. Men and boys would have appeared alike at a little +distance, there being no object by which to measure them. Indeed, to an +inlander, the Cape landscape is a constant mirage. This kind of country +extended a mile or two each way. These were the "Plains of Nauset," once +covered with wood, where in winter the winds howl and the snow blows +right merrily in the face of the traveller. I was glad to have got out +of the towns, where I am wont to feel unspeakably mean and +disgraced,--to have left behind me for a season the bar-rooms of +Massachusetts, where the full-grown are not weaned from savage and +filthy habits,--still sucking a cigar. My spirits rose in proportion to +the outward dreariness. The towns need to be ventilated. The gods would +be pleased to see some pure flames from their altars. They are not to be +appeased with cigar-smoke. + +As we thus skirted the back-side of the towns, for we did not enter any +village, till we got to Provincetown, we read their histories under our +umbrellas, rarely meeting anybody. The old accounts are the richest in +topography, which was what we wanted most; and, indeed, in most things +else, for I find that the readable parts of the modern accounts of these +towns consist, in a great measure, of quotations, acknowledged and +unacknowledged, from the older ones, without any additional information +of equal interest;--town histories, which at length run into a history +of the Church of that place, that being the only story they have to +tell, and conclude by quoting the Latin epitaphs of the old pastors, +having been written in the good old days of Latin and of Greek. They +will go back to the ordination of every minister and tell you faithfully +who made the introductory prayer, and who delivered the sermon; who made +the ordaining prayer, and who gave the charge; who extended the right +hand of fellowship, and who pronounced the benediction; also how many +ecclesiastical councils convened from time to time to inquire into the +orthodoxy of some minister, and the names of all who composed them. As +it will take us an hour to get over this plain, and there is no variety +in the prospect, peculiar as it is, I will read a little in the history +of Eastham the while. + +When the committee from Plymouth had purchased the territory of Eastham +of the Indians, "it was demanded, who laid claim to Billingsgate?" which +was understood to be all that part of the Cape north of what they had +purchased. "The answer was, there was not any who owned it. 'Then,' said +the committee, 'that land is ours.' The Indians answered, that it was." +This was a remarkable assertion and admission. The Pilgrims appear to +have regarded themselves as Not Any's representatives. Perhaps this was +the first instance of that quiet way of "speaking for" a place not yet +occupied, or at least not improved as much as it may be, which their +descendants have practised, and are still practising so extensively. Not +Any seems to have been the sole proprietor of all America before the +Yankees. But history says that, when the Pilgrims had held the lands of +Billingsgate many years, at length "appeared an Indian, who styled +himself Lieutenant Anthony," who laid claim to them, and of him they +bought them. Who knows but a Lieutenant Anthony may be knocking at the +door of the White House some day? At any rate, I know that if you hold a +thing unjustly, there will surely be the devil to pay at last. + +Thomas Prince, who was several times the governor of the Plymouth +colony, was the leader of the settlement of Eastham. There was recently +standing, on what was once his farm, in this town, a pear-tree which is +said to have been brought from England, and planted there by him, about +two hundred years ago. It was blown down a few months before we were +there. A late account says that it was recently in a vigorous state; the +fruit small, but excellent; and it yielded on an average fifteen +bushels. Some appropriate lines have been addressed to it, by a Mr. +Heman Doane, from which I will quote, partly because they are the only +specimen of Cape Cod verse which I remember to have seen, and partly +because they are not bad. + + "Two hundred years have, on the wings of Time, + Passed with their joys and woes, since thou, Old Tree! + Put forth thy first leaves in this foreign clime. + Transplanted from the soil beyond the sea." + + * * * * * + +[These stars represent the more clerical lines, and also those which +have deceased.] + + "That exiled band long since have passed away, + And still, Old Tree I thou standest in the place + Where Prince's hand did plant thee in his day,-- + An undesigned memorial of his race + And time; of those out honored fathers, + when They came from Plymouth o'er and settled here; + Doane, Higgins, Snow, and other worthy men. + Whose names their sons remember to revere. + + * * * * * + + "Old Time has thinned thy boughs. Old Pilgrim Tree! + And bowed thee with the weight of many years; + Yet 'mid the frosts of age, thy bloom we see, + And yearly still thy mellow fruit appears." + +There are some other lines which I might quote, if they were not tied to +unworthy companions by the rhyme. When one ox will lie down, the yoke +bears hard on him that stands up. + +One of the first settlers of Eastham was Deacon John Doane, who died in +1707, aged one hundred and ten. Tradition says that he was rocked in a +cradle several of his last years. That, certainly, was not an Achillean +life. His mother must have let him slip when she dipped him into the +liquor which was to make him invulnerable, and he went in, heels and +all. Some of the stone-bounds to his farm which he set up are standing +to-day, with his initials cut in them. + +The ecclesiastical history of this town interested us somewhat. It +appears that "they very early built a small meeting-house, twenty feet +square, with a thatched roof through which they might fire their +muskets,"--of course, at the Devil. "In 1662, the town agreed that a +part of every whale cast on shore be appropriated for the support of the +ministry." No doubt there seemed to be some propriety in thus leaving +the support of the ministers to Providence, whose servants they are, and +who alone rules the storms; for, when few whales were cast up, they +might suspect that their worship was not acceptable. The ministers must +have sat upon the cliffs in every storm, and watched the shore with +anxiety. And, for my part, if I were a minister I would rather trust to +the bowels of the billows, on the back-side of Cape Cod, to cast up a +whale for me, than to the generosity of many a country parish that I +know. You cannot say of a country minister's salary, commonly, that it +is "very like a whale." Nevertheless, the minister who depended on +whales cast up must have had a trying time of it. I would rather have +gone to the Falkland Isles with a harpoon, and done with it. Think of a +w hale having the breath of life beaten out of him by a storm, and +dragging in over the bars and guzzles, for the support of the ministry! +What a consolation it must have been to him! I have heard of a minister, +who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a +time as he could tell a cod from a haddock. Generous as it seems, this +condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long +since the fishers of men were fishermen. Also, a duty was put on +mackerel here to support a free-school; in other words, the +mackerel-school was taxed in order that the children's school might be +free. "In 1665 the Court passed a law to inflict corporal punishment on +all persons, who resided in the towns of this government, who denied the +Scriptures." Think of a man being whipped on a spring morning till he +was constrained to confess that the Scriptures were true! "It was also +voted by the town that all persons who should stand out of the +meeting-house during the time of divine service should be set in the +stocks." It behooved such a town to see that sitting in the +meeting-house was nothing akin to sitting in the stocks, lest the +penalty of obedience to the law might be greater than that of +disobedience. This was the Eastham famous of late years for its +camp-meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from +all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps +unusual, if not unhealthful, development of the religious sentiment here +was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose +husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and +there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind. The old account +says that "hysteric fits are very common in Orleans, Eastham, and the +towns below, particularly on Sunday, in the times of divine service. +When one woman is affected, five or six others generally sympathize with +her; and the congregation is thrown into the utmost confusion. Several +old men suppose, unphilosophically and uncharitably, perhaps, that the +will is partly concerned, and that ridicule and threats would have a +tendency to prevent the evil." How this is now we did not learn. We saw +one singularly masculine woman, however, in a house on this very plain, +who did not look as if she was ever troubled with hysterics, or +sympathized with those that were; or, perchance, life itself was to her +a hysteric fit,--a Nauset woman, of a hardness and coarseness such as no +man ever possesses or suggests. It was enough to see the vertebrae and +sinews of her neck, and her set jaws of iron, which would have bitten a +board-nail in two in their ordinary action,--braced against the world, +talking like a man-of-war's-man in petticoats, or as if shouting to you +through a breaker; who looked as if it made her head ache to live; hard +enough for any enormity. I looked upon her as one who had committed +infanticide; who never had a brother, unless it were some wee thins: +that died in infancy,--for what need of him?--and whose father must have +died before she was born. This woman told us that the camp-meetings were +not held the previous summer for fear of introducing the cholera, and +that they would have been held earlier this summer, but the rye was so +backward that straw would not have been re adv for them; for they He in +straw. There are sometimes one hundred and fifty ministers (!) and five +thousand hearers assembled. The ground, which is called Millennium +Grove, is owned by a company in Boston, and is the most suitable, or +rather unsuitable, for this purpose of any that I saw on the Cape. It is +fenced, and the frames of the tents are at all times to be seen +interspersed among the oaks. They have an oven and a pump, and keep all +their kitchen utensils and tent coverings and furniture in a permanent +building on the spot. They select a time for their meetings when the +moon is full. A man is appointed to clear out the pump a week +beforehand, while the ministers are clearing their throats; but, +probably, the latter do not always deliver as pure a stream as the +former. I saw the heaps of clam-shells left under the tables, where they +had feasted in previous summers, and supposed, of course, that that was +the work of the unconverted, or the backsliders and scoffers. It looked +as if a camp-meeting must be a singular combination of a prayer-meeting +and a picnic. + +[Illustration: Millennium Grove camp-meeting grounds] + +The first minister settled here was the Rev. Samuel Treat, in 1672, a +gentleman who is said to be "entitled to a distinguished rank among the +evangelists of New England." He converted many Indians, as well as white +men, in his day, and translated the Confession of Faith into the Nauset +language. These were the Indians concerning whom their first teacher, +Richard Bourne, wrote to Gookin, in 1674, that he had been to see one +who was sick, "and there came from him very savory and heavenly +expressions," but, with regard to the mass of them, he says, "the truth +is, that many of them are very loose in their course, to my +heartbreaking sorrow." Mr. Treat is described as a Calvinist of the +strictest kind, not one of those who, by giving up or explaining away, +become like a porcupine disarmed of its quills, but a consistent +Calvinist, who can dart his quills to a distance and courageously defend +himself. There exists a volume of his sermons in manuscript, "which," +says a commentator, "appear to have been designed for publication." I +quote the following sentences at second hand, from a Discourse on Luke +xvi. 23, addressed to sinners:-- + +"Thou must erelong go to the bottomless pit. Hell hath enlarged herself, +and is ready to receive thee. There is room enough for thy +entertainment.... + +"Consider, thou art going to a place prepared by God on purpose to exalt +his justice in,--a place made for no other employment but torments. Hell +is God's house of correction; and, remember, God doth all things like +himself. When God would show his justice, and what is the weight of his +wrath, he makes a hell where it shall, indeed, appear to purpose.... Woe +to thy soul when thou shalt be set up as a butt for the arrows of the +Almighty.... + +"Consider, God himself shall be the principal agent in thy misery,--his +breath is the bellows which blows up the flame of hell forever;--and if +he punish thee, if he meet thee in his fury, he will not meet thee as a +man; he will give thee an omnipotent blow." + +"Some think sinning ends with this life; but it is a mistake. The +creature is held under an everlasting law; the damned increase in sin in +hell. Possibly, the mention of this may please thee. But, remember, +there shall be no pleasant sins there; no eating, drinking, singing, +dancing, wanton dalliance, and drinking stolen waters, but damned sins, +bitter, hellish sins; sins exasperated by torments, cursing God, spite, +rage, and blasphemy.--The guilt of all thy sins shall be laid upon thy +soul, and be made so many heaps of fuel.... + +"Sinner, I beseech thee, realize the truth of these things. Do not go +about to dream that this is derogatory to God's mercy, and nothing but a +vain fable to scare children out of their wits withal. God can be +merciful, though he make thee miserable. He shall have monuments enough +of that precious attribute, shining like stars in the place of glory, +and singing eternal hallelujahs to the praise of Him that redeemed them, +though, to exalt the power of his justice, he damn sinners heaps upon +heaps." + +"But," continues the same writer, "with the advantage of proclaiming the +doctrine of terror, which is naturally productive of a sublime and +impressive style of eloquence ('Triumphat ventoso gloriæ curru orator, +qui pectus angit, irritat, et implet terroribus.' Vid. Burnet, De Stat. +Mort., p. 309), he could not attain the character of a popular preacher. +His voice was so loud that it could be heard at a great distance from +the meeting-house, even amidst the shrieks of hysterical women, and the +winds that howled over the plains of Nauset; but there was no more music +in it than in the discordant sounds with which it was mingled." + +"The effect of such preaching," it is said, "was that his hearers were +several times, in the course of his ministry, awakened and alarmed; and +on one occasion a comparatively innocent young man was frightened nearly +out of his wits, and Mr. Treat had to exert himself to make hell seem +somewhat cooler to him"; yet we are assured that "Treat's manners were +cheerful, his conversation pleasant, and sometimes facetious, but always +decent. He was fond of a stroke of humor, and a practical joke, and +manifested his relish for them by long and loud fits of laughter." + +This was the man of whom a well-known anecdote is told, which doubtless +many of my readers have heard, but which, nevertheless, I will venture +to quote:-- + +"After his marriage with the daughter of Mr. Willard (pastor of the +South Church in Boston), he was sometimes invited by that gentleman to +preach in his pulpit. Mr. Willard possessed a graceful delivery, a +masculine and harmonious voice; and, though he did not gain much +reputation by his 'Body of Divinity,' which is frequently sneered at, +particularly by those who have read it, yet in his sermons are strength +of thought and energy of language. The natural consequence was that he +was generally admired. Mr. Treat having preached one of his best +discourses to the congregation of his father-in-law, in his usual +unhappy manner, excited universal disgust; and several nice judges +waited on Mr. Willard, and begged that Mr. Treat, who was a worthy, +pious man, it was true, but a wretched preacher, might never be invited +into his pulpit again. To this request Mr. Willard made no reply; but he +desired his son-in-law to lend him the discourse; which being left with +him, he delivered it without alteration to his people a few weeks after. +They ran to Mr. Willard and requested a copy for the press. 'See the +difference,' they cried, 'between yourself and your son-in-law; you have +preached a sermon on the same text as Mr. Treat's, but whilst his was +contemptible, yours is excellent.' As is observed in a note, 'Mr. +Willard, after producing the sermon in the handwriting of Mr. Treat, +might have addressed these sage critics in the words of Phaedrus, + + "'En hie declarat, quales sitis judices.'" [2] + +Mr. Treat died of a stroke of the palsy, just after the memorable storm +known as the Great Snow, which left the ground around his house entirely +bare, but heaped up the snow in the road to an uncommon height. Through +this an arched way was dug, by which the Indians bore his bod to the +grave. + +The reader will imagine us, all the while, steadily traversing that +extensive plain in a direction a little north of east toward Nauset +Beach, and reading under our umbrellas as we sailed, while it blowed +hard with mingled mist and rain, as if we were approaching a fit +anniversary of Mr. Treat's funeral. We fancied that it was such a moor +as that on which somebody perished in the snow, as is related in the +"Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life." + +The next minister settled here was the "Rev. Samuel Osborn, who was born +in Ireland, and educated at the University of Dublin." He is said to +have been "A man of wisdom and virtue," and taught his people the use of +peat, and the art of drying and preparing it, which as they had scarcely +any other fuel, was a great blessing to them. He also introduced +improvements in agriculture. But, notwithstanding his many services, as +he embraced the religion of Arminius, some of his flock became +dissatisfied. At length, an ecclesiastical council, consisting of ten +ministers, with their churches, sat upon him, and they, naturally +enough, spoiled his usefulness. The council convened at the desire of +two divine philosophers,--Joseph Doane and Nathaniel Freeman. + +In their report they say, "It appears to the council that the Rev. Mr. +Osborn hath, in his preaching to this people, said, that what Christ did +and suffered doth nothing abate or diminish our obligation to obey the +law of God, and that Christ's suffering and obedience were for himself; +both parts of which, we think, contain dangerous error." + +"Also: 'It hath been said, and doth appear to this council, that the +Rev. Mr. Osborn, both in public and in private, asserted that there are +no promises in the Bible but what are conditional, which we think, also, +to be an error, and do say that there are promises which are absolute +and without any condition,--such as the promise of a new heart, and that +he will write his law in our hearts.'" + +"Also, they say, 'it hath been alleged, and doth appear to us, that Mr. +Osborn hath declared, that _obedience_ is a considerable _cause_ of a +person's justification, which, we think, contains very dangerous +error.'" + +And many the like distinctions they made, such as some of my readers, +probably, are more familiar with than I am. So, far in the East, among +the Yezidis, or Worshippers of the Devil, so-called, the Chaldaeans, and +others, according to the testimony of travellers, you may still hear +these remarkable disputations on doctrinal points going on. Osborn was, +accordingly, dismissed, and he removed to Boston, where he kept school +for many years. But he was fully justified, methinks, by his works in +the peat-meadow; one proof of which is, that he lived to be between +ninety and one hundred years old. + +The next minister was the Rev. Benjamin Webb, of whom, though a +neighboring clergy-man pronounced him "the best man and the best +minister whom he ever knew," yet the historian says that, + +"As he spent his days in the uniform discharge of his duty (it reminds +one of a country muster) and there were no shades to give relief to his +character, not much can be said of him. (Pity the Devil did not plant a +few shade-trees along his avenues.) His heart was as pure as the +new-fallen snow, which completely covers every dark spot in a field; his +mind was as serene as the sky in a mild evening in June, when the moon +shines without a cloud. Name any virtue, and that virtue he practised; +name any vice, and that vice he shunned. But if peculiar qualities +marked his character, they were his humility, his gentleness, and his +love of God. The people had long been taught by a son of thunder (Mr. +Treat): in him they were instructed by a son of consolation, who sweetly +allured them to virtue by soft persuasion, and by exhibiting the mercy +of the Supreme Being; for his thoughts were so much in heaven that they +seldom descended to the dismal regions below; and though of the same +religious sentiments as Mr. Treat, yet his attention was turned to those +glad tidings of great joy which a Saviour came to publish." + +We were interested to hear that such a man had trodden the plains of +Nauset. + +Turning over further in our book, our eyes fell on the name of the Rev. +Jonathan Bascom, of Orleans; "Senex emunctæ naris, doctus, et auctor +elegantium verborum, facetus, et dulcis festique sermonis." And, again, +on that of the Rev. Nathan Stone, of Dennis: "Vir humilis, mitis, +blandus, advenarum hospes; (there was need of him there;) suis commodis +in terrâ non studens, reconditis thesauris in coelo." An easy virtue +that, there, for methinks no inhabitant of Dennis could be very studious +about his earthly commodity, but must regard the bulk of his treasures +as in heaven. But probably the most just and pertinent character of all +is that which appears to be given to the Rev. Ephraim Briggs, of +Chatham, in the language of the later Romans, "_Seip, sepoese, sepoemese, +wechekum_,"--which not being interpreted, we know not what it means, +though we have no doubt it occurs somewhere in the Scriptures, probably +in the Apostle Eliot's Epistle to the Nipmucks. + +Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. They were, +probably, the best men of their generation, and they deserve that their +biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. If I could but +hear the "glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, perchance, they +heard, I might write in a worthier strain than this. + +There was no better way to make the reader realize how wide and peculiar +that plain was, and how long it took to traverse it, than by inserting +these extracts in the midst of my narrative. + +[1] They touched after this at a place called Mattachiest, where they +got more corn; but their shallop being cast away in a storm, the +Governor was obliged to return to Plymouth on foot, fifty miles through +the woods. According to Mourt's Relation, "he came safely home, though +weary and _surbated_," that is, foot-sore. (Ital. _sobattere_, Lat. +_sub_ or _solea battere_, to bruise the soles of the feet; v. Dic. Not +"from _acerbatus_, embittered or aggrieved," as one commentator on this +passage supposes.) This word is of very rare occurrence, being applied +only to governors and persons of like description, who are in that +predicament; though such generally have considerable mileage allowed +them, and might save their soles if they cared. + +[2] Lib.v.Fab. 5. + + + + +IV + +THE BEACH + +At length we reached the seemingly retreating boundary of the plain, and +entered what had appeared at a distance an upland marsh, but proved to +be dry sand covered with Beach-grass, the Bearberry, Bayberry, +Shrub-oaks, and Beach-plum, slightly ascending as we approached the +shore; then, crossing over a belt of sand on which nothing grew, though +the roar of the sea sounded scarcely louder than before, and we were +prepared to go half a mile farther, we suddenly stood on the edge of a +bluff overlooking the Atlantic. Far below us was the beach, from half a +dozen to a dozen rods in width, with a long line of breakers rushing to +the strand. The sea was exceedingly dark and stormy, the sky completely +overcast, the clouds still dropping rain, and the wind seemed to blow +not so much as the exciting cause, as from sympathy with the already +agitated ocean. The waves broke on the bars at some distance from the +shore, and curving green or yellow as if over so many unseen dams, ten +or twelve feet high, like a thousand waterfalls, rolled in foam to the +sand. There was nothing but that savage ocean between us and Europe. + +Having got down the bank, and as close to the water as we could, where +the sand was the hardest, leaving the Nauset Lights behind us, we began +to walk leisurely up the beach, in a northwest direction, towards +Provincetown, which was about twenty-five miles distant, still sailing +under our umbrellas with a strong aft wind, admiring in silence, as we +walked, the great force of the ocean stream,-- + + [Greek: potamoio mega sthenos Hôeanoio.] + +The white breakers were rushing to the shore; the foam ran up the sand, +and then ran back as far as we could see (and we imagined how much +farther along the Atlantic coast, before and behind us), as regularly, +to compare great things with small, as the master of a choir beats time +with his white wand; and ever and anon a higher wave caused us hastily +to deviate from our path, and we looked back on our tracks filled with +water and foam. The breakers looked like droves of a thousand wild +horses of Neptune, rushing to the shore, with their white manes +streaming far behind; and when at length the sun shone for a moment, +their manes were rainbow-tinted. Also, the long kelp-weed was tossed up +from time to time, like the tails of sea-cows sporting in the brine. + +[Illustration: A Cape Cod citizen] + +There was not a sail in sight, and we saw none that day,--for they had +all sought harbors in the late storm, and had not been able to get out +again; and the only human beings whom we saw on the beach for several +days were one or two wreckers looking for drift-wood, and fragments of +wrecked vessels. After an easterly storm in the spring, this beach is +sometimes strewn with eastern wood from one end to the other, which, as +it belongs to him who saves it, and the Cape is nearly destitute of +wood, is a Godsend to the inhabitants. We soon met one of these +wreckers,--a regular Cape Cod man, with whom we parleyed, with a +bleached and weather-beaten face, within whose wrinkles I distinguished +no particular feature. It was like an old sail endowed with life,--a +hanging cliff of weather-beaten flesh,--like one of the clay boulders +which occurred in that sand-bank. He had on a hat which had seen salt +water, and a coat of many pieces and colors, though it was mainly the +color of the beach, as if it had been sanded. His variegated back--for +his coat had many patches, even between the shoulders--was a rich study +to us, when we had passed him and looked round. It might have been +dishonorable for him to have so many scars behind, it is true, if he had +not had many more and more serious ones in front. He looked as if he +sometimes saw a doughnut, but never descended to comfort; too grave to +laugh, too tough to cry; as indifferent as a clam,--like a sea-clam with +hat on and legs, that was out walking the strand. He may have been one +of the Pilgrims,--Peregrine White, at least,--who has kept on the +back-side of the Cape, and let the centuries go by. He was looking for +wrecks, old logs, water-logged and covered with barnacles, or bits of +boards and joists, even chips, which he drew out of the reach of the +tide, and stacked up to dry. When the log was too large to carry far, he +cut it up where the last wave had left it, or rolling it a few feet +appropriated it by sticking two sticks into the ground crosswise above +it. Some rotten trunk, which in Maine cumbers the ground, and is, +perchance, thrown into the water on purpose, is here thus carefully +picked up, split and dried, and husbanded. Before winter the wrecker +painfully carries these things up the bank on his shoulders by a long +diagonal slanting path made with a hoe in the sand, if there is no +hollow at hand. You may see his hooked pike-staff always lying on the +bank ready for use. He is the true monarch of the beach, whose "right +there is none to dispute," and he is as much identified with it as a +beach-bird. + +Crantz, in his account of Greenland, quotes Dalagen's relation of the +ways and usages of the Greenlanders, and says, "Whoever finds driftwood, +or the spoils of a shipwreck on the strand, enjoys it as his own, +though, he does not live there. But he must haul it ashore and lay a +stone upon it, as a token that some one has taken possession of it, and +this stone is the deed of security, for no other Greenlander will offer +to meddle with it afterwards." Such is the instinctive law of nations. +We have also this account of drift-wood in Crantz: "As he (the Founder of +Nature) has denied this frigid rocky region the growth of trees, he has +bid the streams of the Ocean to convey to its shores a great deal of +wood, which accordingly comes floating thither, part without ice, but +the most part along with it, and lodges itself between the islands. Were +it not for this, we Europeans should have no wood to burn there, and the +poor Greenlanders (who, it is true, do not use wood, but train, for +burning) would, however, have no wood to roof their houses, to erect +their tents, as also to build their boats, and to shaft their arrows +(yet there grew some small but crooked alders, &c.), by which they must +procure their maintenance, clothing and train for warmth, light, and +cooking. Among this wood are great trees torn up by the roots, which by +driving up and down for many years and rubbing on the ice, are quite +bare of branches and bark, and corroded with great wood-worms. A small +part of this drift-wood are willows, alder and birch trees, which come +out of the bays in the south of (_i.e._ Greenland); also large trunks of +aspen-trees, which must come from a greater distance; but the greatest +part is pine and fir. We find also a good deal of a sort of wood finely +veined, with few branches; this I fancy is larch-wood, which likes to +decorate the sides of lofty, stony mountains. There is also a solid, +reddish wood, of a more agreeable fragrance than the common fir, with +visible cross-veins; which I take to be the same species as the +beautiful silver-firs, or _zirbel_, that have the smell of cedar, and grow +on the high Grison hills, and the Switzers wainscot their rooms with +them." The wrecker directed us to a slight depression, called Snow's +Hollow, by which we ascended the bank,--for elsewhere, if not difficult, +it was inconvenient to climb it on ac-count of the sliding sand, which +filled our shoes. + +This sand-bank--the backbone of the Cape--rose directly from the beach +to the height of a hundred feet or more above the ocean. It was with +singular emotions that we first stood upon it and discovered what a +place we had chosen to walk on. On our right, beneath us, was the beach +of smooth and gently sloping sand, a dozen rods in width; next, the +endless series of white breakers; further still, the light green water +over the bar, which runs the whole length of the forearm of the Cape, +and beyond this stretched the unwearied and illimitable ocean. On our +left, extending back from the very edge of the bank, was a perfect +desert of shining sand, from thirty to eighty rods in width, skirted in +the distance by small sand-hills fifteen or twenty feet high; between +which, however, in some places, the sand penetrated as much farther. +Next commenced the region of vegetation--a succession of small hills and +valleys covered with shrubbery, now glowing with the brightest +imaginable autumnal tints; and beyond this were seen, here and there, +the waters of the bay. Here, in Wellfleet, this pure sand plateau, known +to sailors as the Table Lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, +as seen from the ocean, and because it once made a part of that +town,--full fifty rods in width, and in many places much more, and +sometimes full one hundred and fifty feet above the ocean,--stretched +away northward from the southern boundary of the town, without a +particle of vegetation,--as level almost as a table,--for two and a half +or three miles, or as far as the eye could reach; slightly rising +towards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope as +sand could lie on, and as regular as a military engineer could desire. +It was like the escarped rampart of a stupendous fortress, whose glacis +was the beach, and whose champaign the ocean.--From its surface we +overlooked the greater part of the Cape. In short, we were traversing a +desert, with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary +brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the ocean on +the other. Yet, though the prospect was so extensive, and the country +for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely visible,--we +never saw one from the beach,--and the solitude was that of the ocean +and the desert combined. A thousand men could not have seriously +interrupted it, but would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery +as their footsteps in the sand. + +The whole coast is so free from rocks, that we saw but one or two for +more than twenty miles. The sand was soft like the beach, and trying to +the eyes when the sun shone. A few piles of drift-wood, which some +wreckers had painfully brought up the bank and stacked up there to dry, +being the only objects in the desert, looked indefinitely large and +distant, even like wigwams, though, when we stood near them, they proved +to be insignificant little "jags" of wood. + +For sixteen miles, commencing at the Nauset Lights, the bank held its +height, though farther north it was not so level as here, but +interrupted by slight hollows, and the patches of Beach-grass and +Bayberry frequently crept into the sand to its edge. There are some +pages entitled "A description of the Eastern Coast of the County of +Barnstable," printed in 1802, pointing out the spots on which the +Trustees of the Humane Society have erected huts called Charity or +Humane Houses, "and other places where shipwrecked seamen may look for +shelter." Two thousand copies of this were dispersed, that every vessel +which frequented this coast might be provided with one. I have read this +Shipwrecked Seaman's Manual with a melancholy kind of interest,--for the +sound of the surf, or, you might say, the moaning of the sea, is heard +all through it, as if its author were the sole survivor of a shipwreck +himself. Of this part of the coast he says: "This highland approaches +the ocean with steep and lofty banks, which it is extremely difficult to +climb, especially in a storm. In violent tempests, during very high +tides, the sea breaks against the foot of them, rendering it then unsafe +to walk on the strand which lies between them and the ocean. Should the +seaman succeed in his attempt to ascend them, he must forbear to +penetrate into the country, as houses are generally so remote that they +would escape his research during the night; he must pass on to the +valleys by which the banks are intersected. These valleys, which the +inhabitants call Hollows, run at right angles with the shore, and in the +middle or lowest part of them a road leads from the dwelling-houses to +the sea." By the _word_ road must not always be understood a visible +cart-track. + +There were these two roads for us,--an upper and a lower one,--the bank +and the beach; both stretching twenty-eight miles northwest, from Nauset +Harbor to Race Point, without a single opening into the beach, and with +hardly a serious interruption of the desert. If you were to ford the +narrow and shallow inlet at Nauset Harbor, where there is not more than +eight feet of water on the bar at full sea, you might walk ten or twelve +miles farther, which would make a beach forty miles long,--and the bank +and beach, on the east side of Nantucket, are but a continuation of +these. I was comparatively satisfied. There I had got the Cape under me, +as much as if I were riding it bare-backed. It was not as on the map, or +seen from the stagecoach; but there I found it all out of doors, huge +and real, Cape Cod! as it cannot be represented on a map, color it as +you will; the thing itself, than which there is nothing more like it, no +truer picture or account; which you cannot go farther and see. I cannot +remember what I thought before that it was. They commonly celebrate +those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a +Humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man's works +are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is +land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the +landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but +dry land, and that is all you can say of it. + +We walked on quite at our leisure, now on the beach, now on the +bank,--sitting from time to time on some damp log, maple or yellow +birch, which had long followed the seas, but had now at last settled on +land; or under the lee of a sandhill, on the bank, that we might gaze +steadily on the ocean. The bank was so steep that, where there was no +danger of its caving, we sat on its edge, as on a bench. It was +difficult for us landsmen to look out over the ocean without imagining +land in the horizon; yet the clouds appeared to hang low over it, and +rest on the water as they never do on the land, perhaps on account of +the great distance to which we saw. The sand was not without advantage, +for, though it was "heavy" walking in it, it was soft to the feet; and, +notwithstanding that it had been raining nearly two days, when it held +up for half an hour, the sides of the sand-hills, which were porous and +sliding, afforded a dry seat. All the aspects of this desert are +beautiful, whether you behold it in fair weather or foul, or when the +sun is just breaking out after a storm, and shining on its moist surface +in the distance, it is so white, and pure, and level, and each slight +inequality and track is so distinctly revealed; and when your eyes slide +off this, they fall on the ocean. In summer the mackerel gulls--which +here have their nests among the neighboring sand-hills--pursue the +traveller anxiously, now and then diving close to his head with a +squeak, and he may see them, like swallows, chase some crow which has +been feeding on the beach, almost across the Cape. + +Though for some time I have not spoken of the roaring of the breakers, +and the ceaseless flux and reflux of the waves, yet they did not for a +moment cease to dash and roar, with such a tumult that if you had been +there, you could scarcely have heard my voice the while; and they are +dashing and roaring this very moment, though it may be with less din and +violence, for there the sea never rests. We were wholly absorbed by this +spectacle and tumult, and like Chryses, though in a different mood from +him, we walked silent along the shore of the resounding sea, + + [Greek: Bê d akeôy para thina polnphloisboio thalassêst.] [1] + +I put in a little Greek now and then, partly because it sounds so much +like the ocean,--though I doubt if Homer's _Mediterranean_ Sea ever +sounded so loud as this. + +The attention of those who frequent the camp-meetings at Eastham is said +to be divided between the preaching of the Methodists and the preaching +of the billows on the back-side of the Cape, for they all stream over +here in the course of their stay. I trust that in this case the loudest +voice carries it. With what effect may we suppose the ocean to say, "My +hearers!" to the multitude on the bank! On that side some John N. +Maffit; on this, the Reverend Poluphloisboios Thalassa. + +There was but little weed cast up here, and that kelp chiefly, there +being scarcely a rock for rockweed to adhere to. Who has not had a +vision from some vessel's deck, when he had still his land-legs on, of +this great brown apron, drifting half upright, and quite submerged +through the green water, clasping a stone or a deep-sea mussel in its +unearthly fingers? I have seen it carrying a stone half as large as my +head. We sometimes watched a mass of this cable-like weed, as it was +tossed up on the crest of a breaker, waiting with interest to see it +come in, as if there were some treasure buoyed up by it; but we were +always surprised and disappointed at the insignificance of the mass +which had attracted us. As we looked out over the water, the smallest +objects floating on it appeared indefinitely large, we were so impressed +by the vastness of the ocean, and each one bore so large a proportion to +the whole ocean, which we saw. We were so often disappointed in the size +of such things as came ashore, the ridiculous bits of wood or weed, with +which the ocean labored, that we began to doubt whether the Atlantic +itself would bear a still closer inspection, and wold not turn out to be +a but small pond, if it should come ashore to us. This kelp, oar-weed, +tangle, devils-apron, sole-leather, or ribbon-weed,--as various species +are called,--appeared to us a singularly marine and fabulous product, a +lit invention for Neptune to adorn his car with, or a freak of Proteus. +All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the +land, and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they +belonged to another planet, from sea-weed to a sailor's yarn, or a +fish-story. In this element the animal and vegetable kingdoms meet and +are strangely mingled. One species of kelp, according to Bory St. +Vincent, has a stem fifteen hundred feet long, and hence is the longest +vegetable known, and a brig's crew spent two days to no purpose +collecting the trunks of another kind cast ashore on the Falkland +Islands, mistaking it for drift-wood. (See Harvey on _Algæ_) This species +looked almost edible; at least, I thought that if I were starving I +would try it. One sailor told me that the cows ate it. It cut like +cheese: for I took the earliest opportunity to sit down and deliberately +whittle up a fathom or two of it, that I might become more intimately +acquainted with it, see how it cut, and if it were hollow all the way +through. The blade looked like a broad belt, whose edges had been +quilled, or as if stretched by hammering, and it was also twisted +spirally. The extremity was generally worn and ragged from the lashing +of the waves. A piece of the stem which I carried home shrunk to one +quarter of its size a week afterward, and was completely covered with +crystals of salt like frost. The reader will excuse my +greenness,--though it is not sea-greenness, like his, perchance,--for I +live by a river-shore, where this weed does not wash up. When we +consider in what meadows it grew. and how it was raked, and in what kind +of hay weather got in or out, we may well be curious about it. One who +is weatherwise has given the following account of the matter. + + "When descends on the Atlantic + The gigantic + Storm-wind of the equinox, + Landward in his wrath he scourges + The toiling surges, + Laden with sea-weed from the rocks. + + "From Bermuda's reefs, from edges + Of sunken ledges, + On some far-off bright Azore; + From Bahama and the dashing, + Silver-flashing + Surges of San Salvador; + + "From the trembling surf that buries + The Orkneyan Skerries. + Answering the hoarse Hebrides; + And from wrecks and ships and drifting + Spars, uplifting + On the desolate rainy seas; + + "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting + On the shifting + Currents of the restless main." + +But he was not thinking of this shore, when he added:-- + + "Till, in sheltered coves and reaches + Of sandy beaches, + All have found repose again." + +_These_ weeds were the symbols of those grotesque and fabulous thoughts +which have not yet got into the sheltered coves of literature. + + "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting + On the shifting + Currents of the restless heart," + _And not yet_ "in books recorded + They, like hoarded + Household words, no more depart." + +The beach was also strewn with beautiful sea-jellies, which the wreckers +called Sun-squall, one of the lowest forms of animal life, some white, +some wine-colored, and a foot in diameter. I at first thought that they +were a tender part of some marine monster, which the storm or some other +foe had mangled. What right has the sea to bear in its bosom such tender +things as sea-jellies and mosses, when it has such a boisterous shore +that the stoutest fabrics are wrecked against it? Strange that it should +undertake to dandle such delicate children in its arm. I did not at +first recognize these for the same which I had formerly seen in myriads +in Boston Harbor, rising, with a waving motion, to the surface, as if to +meet the sun, and discoloring the waters far and wide, so that I seemed +to be sailing through a mere sunfish soup. They say that when you +endeavor to take one up, it will spill out the other side of your hand +like quicksilver. Before the land rose out of the ocean, and became _dry_ +land, chaos reigned; and between high and low water mark, where she is +partially disrobed and rising, a sort of chaos reigns still, which only +anomalous creatures can inhabit. Mackerel-gulls were all the while +flying over our heads and amid the breakers, sometimes two white ones +pursuing a black one; quite at home in the storm, though they are as +delicate organizations as sea-jellies and mosses; and we saw that they +were adapted to their circumstances rather by their spirits than their +bodies. Theirs must be an essentially wilder, that is, less human, +nature than that of larks and robins. Their note was like the sound of +some vibrating metal, and harmonized well with the scenery and the roar +of the surf, as if one had rudely touched the strings of the lyre, which +ever lies on the shore; a ragged shred of ocean music tossed aloft on +the spray. But if I were required to name a sound the remembrance of +which most perfectly revives the impression which the beach has made, it +would be the dreary peep of the piping plover (_Charadrius melodus_) which +haunts there. Their voices, too, are heard as a fugacious part in the +dirge which is ever played along the shore for those mariners who have +been lost in the deep since first it was created. But through all this +dreariness we seemed to have a pure and unqualified strain of eternal +melody, for always the same strain which is a dirge to one household is +a morning song of rejoicing to another. + +A remarkable method of catching gulls, derived from the Indians, was +practised in Wellfleet in 1794. "The Gull House," it is said, "is built +with crotchets, fixed in the ground on the beach," poles being stretched +across for the top, and the sides made close with stakes and seaweed. +"The poles on the top are covered with lean whale. The man being placed +within, is not discovered by the fowls, and while they are contending +for and eating the flesh, he draws them in, one by one, between the +poles, until he has collected forty or fifty." Hence, perchance, a man +is said to be _gulled_, when he is _taken in_. We read that one "sort of +gulls is called by the Dutch _mallemucke, i.e._ the foolish fly, because +they fall upon a whale as eagerly as a fly, and, indeed, all gulls are +foolishly bold and easy to be shot. The Norwegians call this bird +_havhest_, sea-horse (and the English translator says, it is probably what +we call boobies). If they have eaten too much, they throw it up, and eat +it again till they are tired. It is this habit in the gulls of parting +with their property [disgorging the contents of their stomachs to the +skuas], which has given rise to the terms gull, guller, and gulling, +among men." We also read that they used to kill small birds which +roosted on the beach at night, by making a fire with hog's lard in a +frying-pan. The Indians probably used pine torches; the birds flocked to +the light, and were knocked down with a stick. We noticed holes dug near +the edge of the bank, where gunners conceal themselves to shoot the +large gulls which coast up and down a-fishing, for these are considered +good to eat. + +We found some large clams of the species _Mactra solidissima_, which the +storm had torn up from the bottom, and cast ashore. I selected one of +the largest, about six inches in length, and carried it along, thinking +to try an experiment on it. We soon after met a wrecker, with a grapple +and a rope, who said that he was looking for tow cloth, which had made +part of the cargo of the ship _Franklin_, which was wrecked here in the +spring, at which time nine or ten lives were lost. The reader may +remember this wreck, from the circumstance that a letter was found in +the captain's valise, which washed ashore, directing him to wreck the +vessel before he got to America, and from the trial which took place in +consequence. The wrecker said that tow cloth was still cast up in such +storms as this. He also told us that the clam which I had was the +sea-clam, or hen, and was good to eat. We took our nooning under a +sand-hill, covered with beach-grass, in a dreary little hollow, on the +top of the bank, while it alternately rained and shined. There, having +reduced some damp drift-wood, which I had picked up on the shore, to +shavings with my knife, I kindled a fire with a match and some paper and +cooked my clam on the embers for my dinner; for breakfast was commonly +the only meal which I took in a house on this excursion. When the clam +was done, one valve held the meat and the other the liquor. Though it +was very tough, I found it sweet and savory, and ate _the whole_ with a +relish. Indeed, with the addition of a cracker or two, it would have +been a bountiful dinner. I noticed that the shells were such as I had +seen in the sugar-kit at home. Tied to a stick, they formerly made the +Indian's hoe hereabouts. + +At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over +the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, +though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as +before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a Charity-house, which we +looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariner might fare. Far away in +some desolate hollow by the sea-side, just within the bank, stands a +lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put +through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, +perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the +fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to +shelter a ship-wrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to +inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and +that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that +storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may +pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number +dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the +families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must +have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings +around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human +dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the +grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the +ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds +through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, +perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for +shipwrecked men! What kind of sailors' homes were they? + +[Illustration: Wreckage under the sand-bluff] + +"Each hut," says the author of the "Description of the Eastern Coast of +the County of Barnstable," "stands on piles, is eight feet long, eight +feet wide, and seven feet high; a sliding door is on the south, a +sliding shutter on the west, and a pole, rising fifteen feet above the +top of the building, on the east. Within it is supplied either with +straw or hay, and is further accommodated with a bench." They have +varied little from this model now. There are similar huts at the Isle of +Sable and Anticosti, on the north, and how far south along the coast I +know not. It is pathetic to read the minute and faithful directions +which he gives to seamen who may be wrecked on this coast, to guide them +to the nearest Charity-house, or other shelter, for, as is said of +Eastham, though there are a few houses within a mile of the shore, yet +"in a snow-storm, which rages here with excessive fury, it would be +almost impossible to discover them either by night or by day." You hear +their imaginary guide thus marshalling, cheering, directing the +dripping, shivering, freezing troop along; "at the entrance of this +valley the sand has gathered, so that at present a little climbing is +necessary. Passing over several fences and taking heed not to enter the +wood on the right hand, at the distance of three-quarters of a mile a +house is to be found. This house stands on the south side of the road, +and not far from it on the south is Pamet River, which runs from east to +west through body of salt marsh." To him cast ashore in Eastham, he +says, "The meeting-house is without a steeple, but it may be +distinguished from the dwelling-houses near it by its situation, which +is between two small groves of locusts, one on the south and one on the +north,--that on the south being three times as long as the other. About +a mile and a quarter from the hut, west by north, appear the top and +arms of a windmill." And so on for many pages. + +We did not learn whether these houses had been the means of saving any +lives, though this writer says, of one erected at the head of Stout's +Creek in Truro, that "it was built in an improper manner, having a +chimney in it; and was placed on a spot where no beach-grass grew. The +strong winds blew the sand from its foundation and the weight of the +chimney brought it to the ground; so that in January of the present year +[1802] it was entirely demolished. This event took place about six weeks +before the _Brutus_ was cast away. If it had remained, it is probable that +the whole of the unfortunate crew of that ship would have been saved, as +they gained the shore a few rods only from the spot where the hut had +stood." + +This "Charity-house," as the wrecker called it, this "Humane-house," as +some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had neither +window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, +there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to +get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a +better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the +door, and after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,--not +knowing how many shipwrecked men's bones we might see at last, looking +with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may +not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a +knot-hole the inside shall be visible,--for we had had some practice at +looking inward,--by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the +light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, +and the beach,--till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays +of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be +enlarged by looking; there never was so dark a night but a faithful and +patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),--after all +this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,--if we may use +this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,--and we obtained +the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a +hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise of the divine +faculty, our prospects began decidedly to brighten, and we were ready +to exclaim with the blind bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained,"-- + + "Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first born, + Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam. + May I express thee unblamed?" + +A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when +our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that +there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an +empty fireplace at the further end; but it _was not_ supplied with +matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor "accommodated with a +bench." Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within. + +Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus looked through the +knot-hole into the Humane house, into the very bowels of mercy; and for +bread we found a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews +outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to sit outside, under +the lee of the Humane house, to escape the piercing wind; and there we +thought how cold is charity! how inhumane humanity! This, then, is what +charity hides! Virtues antique and far away with ever a rusty nail over +the latch; and very difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so +uncertain whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So we shivered +round about, not being able to get into it, ever and anon looking +through the knot-hole into that night without a star, until we concluded +that it was not a _humane_ house at all, but a sea-side box, now shut up. +belonging to some of the family of Night or Chaos, where they spent +their summers by the sea, for the sake of the sea breeze, and that it +was not proper for us to be prying into their concerns. + +My companion had declared before this that I had not a particle of +sentiment, in rather absolute terms, to my astonishment; but I suspect +he meant that my legs did not ache just then, though I am not wholly a +stranger to that sentiment. But I did not intend this for a +sentimental journey. + +[Illustration: Herring River at Wellfleet] + +[1] We have no word in English to express the sound of many waves, +dashing at once, whether gently or violently, [Greek: polnphloioboios] +to the ear, and, in the ocean's gentle moods, an [Greek: anarithmon +gelasma] to the eye. + + + +V + +THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN + +Having walked about eight miles since we struck the beach, and passed +the boundary between Wellfleet and Truro, a stone post in the sand,--for +even this sand comes under the jurisdiction of one town or another,--we +turned inland over barren hills and valleys, whither the sea, for some +reason, did not follow us, and, tracing up a Hollow, discovered two or +three sober-looking houses within half a mile, uncommonly near the +eastern coast. Their garrets were apparently so full of chambers, that +their roofs could hardly lie down straight, and we did not doubt that +there was room for us there. Houses near the sea are generally low and +broad. These were a story and a half high; but if you merely counted the +windows in their gable-ends, you would think that there were many +stories more, or, at any rate, that the half-story was the only one +thought worthy of being illustrated. The great number of windows in the +ends of the houses, and their irregularity in size and position, here +and elsewhere on the Cape, struck us agreeably,--as if each of the +various occupants who had their _cunabula_ behind had punched a hole where +his necessities required it, and, according to his size and stature, +without regard to outside effect. There were windows for the grown +folks, and windows for the children,--three or four apiece; as a certain +man had a large hole cut in his barn-door for the cat, and another +smaller one for the kitten. Sometimes they were so low under the eaves +that I thought they must have perforated the plate beam for another +apartment, and I noticed some which were triangular, to fit that part +more exactly. The ends of the houses had thus as many muzzles as a +revolver, and, if the inhabitants have the same habit of staring out the +windows that some of our neighbors have, a traveller must stand a small +chance with them. + +Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on the Cape looked +more comfortable, as well as picturesque, than the modern and more +pretending ones, which were less in harmony with the scenery, and less +firmly planted. + +[Illustration: A characteristic gable with many windows] + +These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, seven in number, +the source of a small stream called Herring River, which empties into +the Bay. There are many Herring Rivers on the Cape; they will, perhaps, +be more numerous than herrings soon. We knocked at the door of the first +house, but its inhabitants were all gone away. In the meanwhile, we saw +the occupants of the next one looking out the window at us, and before +we reached it an old woman came out and fastened the door of her +bulkhead, and went in again. Nevertheless, we did not hesitate to knock +at her door, when a grizzly-looking man appeared, whom we took to be +sixty or seventy years old. He asked us, at first, suspiciously, where +we were from, and what our business was; to which we returned plain +answers. + +"How far is Concord from Boston?" he inquired. + +"Twenty miles by railroad." + +"Twenty miles by railroad," he repeated. + +"Didn't you ever hear of Concord of Revolutionary fame?" + +"Didn't I ever hear of Concord? Why, I heard the guns fire at the battle +of Bunker Hill. [They hear the sound of heavy cannon across the Bay.] I +am almost ninety; I am eighty-eight year old. I was fourteen year old at +the time of Concord Fight,--and where were you then?" + +We were obliged to confess that we were not in the fight. + +"Well, walk in, we'll leave it to the women," said he. + +So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old woman taking our hats +and bundles, and the old man continued, drawing up to the large, +old-fashioned fireplace,-- + +"I am a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah says; I am all broken +down this year. I am under petticoat government here." + +The family consisted of the old man, his wife, and his daughter, who +appeared nearly as old as her mother, a fool, her son (a +brutish-looking, middle-aged man, with a prominent lower face, who was +standing by the hearth when we entered, but immediately went out), and a +little boy of ten. + +While my companion talked with the women, I talked with the old man. +They said that he was old and foolish, but he was evidently too knowing +for them. + +"These women," said he to me, "are both of them poor good-for-nothing +critturs. This one is my wife. I married her sixty-four years ago. She +is eighty-four years old, and as deaf as an adder, and the other is not +much better." + +He thought well of the Bible, or at least he _spoke_ well, and did not +_think_ ill, of it, for that would not have been prudent for a man of his +age. He said that he had read it attentively for many years, and he had +much of it at his tongue's end. He seemed deeply impressed with a sense +of his own nothingness, and would repeatedly exclaim,-- + +"I am a nothing. What I gather from my Bible is just this: that man is a +poor good-for-nothing crittur, and everything is just as God sees fit +and disposes." + +"May I ask your name?" I said. + +"Yes," he answered, "I am not ashamed to tell my name. My name is----. +My great-grandfather came over from England and settled here." + +He was an old Wellfleet oysterman, who had acquired a competency in that +business, and had sons still engaged in it. + +Nearly all the oyster shops and stands in Massachusetts, I am told, are +supplied and kept by natives of Wellfleet, and a part of this town is +still called Billingsgate from the oysters having been formerly planted +there; but the native oysters are said to have died in 1770. Various +causes are assigned for this, such as a ground frost, the carcasses of +blackfish kept to rot in the harbor, and the like, but the most common +account of the matter is,--and I find that a similar superstition with +regard to the disappearance of fishes exists almost everywhere,--that +when Wellfleet began to quarrel with the neighboring towns about the +right to gather them, yellow specks appeared in them, and Providence +caused them to disappear. A few years ago sixty thousand bushels were +annually brought from the South and planted in the harbor of Wellfleet +till they attained "the proper relish of Billingsgate"; but now they are +imported commonly full-grown, and laid down near their markets, at +Boston and elsewhere, where the water, being a mixture of salt and +fresh, suits them better. The business was said to be still good and +improving. + +The old man said that the oysters were liable to freeze in the winter, +if planted too high; but if it were not "so cold as to strain their +eyes" they were not injured. The inhabitants of New Brunswick have +noticed that "ice will not form over an oyster-bed, unless the cold is +very intense indeed, and when the bays are frozen over the oyster-beds +are easily discovered by the water above them remaining unfrozen, or as +the French residents say, _degèle_." Our host said that they kept them in +cellars all winter. + +"Without anything to eat or drink?" I asked. + +"Without anything to eat or drink," he answered. + +"Can the oysters move?" + +"Just as much as my shoe." + +[Illustration: A Welfleet oysterman] + +But when I caught him saying that they "bedded themselves down in the +sand, flat side up, round side down," I told him that my shoe could not +do that, without the aid of my foot in it; at which he said that they +merely settled down as they grew; if put down in a square they would be +found so; but the clam could move quite fast. I have since been told by +oystermen of Long Island, where the oyster is still indigenous and +abundant, that they are found in large masses attached to the parent in +their midst, and are so taken up with their tongs; in which case, they +say, the age of the young proves that there could have been no motion +for five or six years at least. And Buckland in his Curiosities of +Natural History (page 50) says: "An oyster who has once taken up his +position and fixed himself when quite young can never make a change. +Oysters, nevertheless, that have not fixed themselves, but remain loose +at the bottom of the sea, have the power of locomotion; they open their +shells to their fullest extent, and then suddenly contracting them, the +expulsion of the water forwards gives a motion backwards. A fisherman at +Guernsey told me that he had frequently seen oysters moving in this +way." + +Some still entertain the question "whether the oyster was indigenous in +Massachusetts Bay," and whether Wellfleet harbor was a "natural habitat" +of this fish; but, to say nothing of the testimony of old oystermen, +which, I think, is quite conclusive, though the native oyster may now be +extinct there, I saw that their shells, opened by the Indians, were +strewn all over the Cape. Indeed, the Cape was at first thickly settled +by Indians on account of the abundance of these and other fish. We saw +many traces of their occupancy after this, in Truro, near Great Hollow, +and at High-Head, near East Harbor River,--oysters, clams, cockles, and +other shells, mingled with ashes and the bones of deer and other +quadrupeds. I picked up half a dozen arrow-heads, and in an hour or two +could have filled my pockets with them. The Indians lived about the +edges of the swamps, then probably in some instances ponds, for shelter +and water. Moreover, Champlain in the edition of his "Voyages" printed +in 1613, says that in the year 1606 he and Poitrincourt explored a +harbor (Barnstable Harbor?) in the southerly part of what is now called +Massachusetts Bay, in latitude 42 degrees, about five leagues south, one +point west of _Cap Blanc_ (Cape Cod), and there they found many good +oysters, and they named it "_le Port aux Huistres_" (Oyster Harbor). In +one edition of his map (1632), the _"R. aux Escailles_" is drawn emptying +into the same part of the bay, and on the map "_Novi Belgii_," in Ogilby's +"America" (1670), the words "_Port aux Huistres_" are placed against the +same place. Also William Wood, who left New England in 1633, speaks, in +his "New England's Prospect," published in 1634, of "a great +oyster-bank" in Charles River, and of another in the Mistick, each of +which obstructed the navigation of its river. "The oysters," says he, +"be great ones in form of a shoehorn; some be a foot long; these breed +on certain banks that are bare every spring tide. This fish without the +shell is so big, that it must admit of a division before you can well +get it into your mouth." Oysters are still found there. (Also, see +Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan," page 90.) + +Our host told us that the sea-clam, or hen, was not easily obtained; it +was raked up, but never on the Atlantic side, only cast ashore there in +small quantities in storms. The fisherman sometimes wades in water +several feet deep, and thrusts a pointed stick into the sand before him. +When this enters between the valves of a clam, he closes them on it, and +is drawn out. It has been known to catch and hold coot and teal which +were preying on it. I chanced to be on the bank of the Acushnet at New +Bedford one day since this, watching some ducks, when a man informed me +that, having let out his young ducks to seek their food amid the +samphire (_Salicornia_) and other weeds along the river-side at low tide +that morning, at length he noticed that one remained stationary, amid +the weeds, something preventing it from following the others, and going +to it he found its foot tightly shut in a quahog's shell. He took up +both together, carried them to his home, and his wife opening the shell +with a knife released the duck and cooked the quahog. The old man said +that the great clams were good to eat, but that they always took out a +certain part which was poisonous, before they cooked them. "People said +it would kill a cat." I did not tell him that I had eaten a large one +entire that afternoon, but began to think that I was tougher than a cat. +He stated that pedlers came round there, and sometimes tried to sell the +women folks a skimmer, but he told them that their women had got a +better skimmer than _they_ could make, in the shell of their clams; it was +shaped just right for this purpose.--They call them "skim-alls" in some +places. He also said that the sun-squall was poisonous to handle, and +when the sailors came across it, they did not meddle with it, but heaved +it out of their way. I told him that I had handled it that afternoon, +and had felt no ill effects as yet. But he said it made the hands itch, +especially if they had previously been scratched, or if I put it into my +bosom I should find out what it was. + +He informed us that no ice ever formed on the back side of the Cape, or +not more than once in a century, and but little snow lay there, it being +either absorbed or blown or washed away. Sometimes in winter, when the +tide was down, the beach was frozen, and afforded a hard road up the +back side for some thirty miles, as smooth as a floor. One winter when +he was a boy, he and his father "took right out into the back side +before daylight, and walked to Provincetown and back to dinner." + +When I asked what they did with all that barren-looking land, where I +saw so few cultivated fields,--"Nothing," he said. + +"Then why fence your fields?" + +"To keep the sand from blowing and covering up the whole." + +"The yellow sand," said he, "has some life in it, but the white little +or none." + +When, in answer to his questions, I told him that I was a surveyor, he +said that they who surveyed his farm were accustomed, where the ground +was uneven, to loop up each chain as high as their elbows; that was the +allowance they made, and he wished to know if I could tell him why they +did not come out according to his deed, or twice alike. He seemed to +have more respect for surveyors of the old school, which I did not +wonder at. "King George the Third," said he, "laid out a road four rods +wide and straight the whole length of the Cape," but where it was now he +could not tell. + +This story of the surveyors reminded me of a Long-Islander, who once, +when I had made ready to jump from the bow of his boat to the shore, and +he thought that I underrated the distance and would fall short,--though +I found afterward that he judged of the elasticity of my joints by his +own,--told me that when he came to a brook which he wanted to get over, +he held up one leg, and then, if his foot appeared to cover any part of +the opposite bank, he knew that he could jump it. "Why," I told him, "to +say nothing of the Mississippi, and other small watery streams, I could +blot out a star with my foot, but I would not engage to jump that +distance," and asked how he knew when he had got his leg at the right +elevation. But he regarded his legs as no less accurate than a pair of +screw dividers or an ordinary quadrant, and appeared to have a painful +recollection of every degree and minute in the arc which they described; +and he would have had me believe that there was a kind of hitch in his +hip-joint which answered the purpose. I suggested that he should connect +his two ankles by a string of the proper length, which should be the +chord of an arc, measuring his jumping ability on horizontal +surfaces,--assuming one leg to be a perpendicular to the plane of the +horizon, which, however, may have been too bold an assumption in this +case. Nevertheless, this was a kind of geometry in the legs which it +interested me to hear of. + +Our host took pleasure in telling us the names of the ponds, most of +which we could see from his windows, and making us repeat them after +him, to see if we had got them right. They were Gull Pond, the largest +and a very handsome one, clear and deep, and more than a mile in +circumference, Newcomb's, Swett's, Slough, Horse-Leech, Round, and +Herring Ponds, all connected at high water, if I do not mistake. The +coast-surveyors had come to him for their names, and he told them of one +which they had not detected. He said that they were not so high as +formerly. There was an earthquake about four years before he was born, +which cracked the pans of the ponds, which were of iron, and caused them +to settle. I did not remember to have read of this. Innumerable gulls +used to resort to them; but the large gulls were now very scarce, for, +as he said, the English robbed their nests far in the north, where they +breed. He remembered well when gulls were taken in the gull-house, and +when small birds were killed by means of a frying-pan and fire at night. +His father once lost a valuable horse from this cause. A party from +Wellfleet having lighted their fire for this purpose, one dark night, on +Billingsgate Island, twenty horses which were pastured there, and this +colt among them, being frightened by it, and endeavoring in the dark to +cross the passage which separated them from the neighboring beach, and +which was then fordable at low tide, were all swept out to sea and +drowned. I ob-served that many horses were still turned out to pasture +all summer on the islands and beaches in Wellfleet, Eastham, and +Orleans, as a kind of common. He also described the killing of what he +called "wild hens" here, after they had gone to roost in the woods, when +he was a boy. Perhaps they were "Prairie hens" (pinnated grouse). + +He liked the Beach-pea (_Lathyrus maritimus_), cooked green, as well as +the cultivated. He had seen it growing very abundantly in Newfoundland, +where also the inhabitants ate them, but he had never been able to +obtain any ripe for seed. We read, under the head of Chatham, that "in +1555, during a time of great scarcity, the people about Orford, in +Sussex (England) were preserved from perishing by eating the seeds of +this plant, which grew there in great abundance on the sea-coast. Cows, +horses, sheep, and goats eat it." But the writer who quoted this could +not learn that they had ever been used in Barnstable County. + +He had been a voyager, then? O, he had been about the world in his day. +He once considered himself a pilot for all our coast; but now they had +changed the names so he might be bothered. + +He gave us to taste what he called the Summer Sweeting, a pleasant apple +which he raised, and frequently grafted from, but had never seen growing +elsewhere, except once,--three trees on Newfoundland, or at the Bay of +Chaleur, I forget which, as he was sailing by. He was sure that he could +tell the tree at a distance. + +At length the fool, whom my companion called the wizard, came in, +muttering between his teeth, "Damn book-pedlers,--all the time talking +about books. Better do something. Damn 'em. I'll shoot 'em. Got a doctor +down here. Damn him, I'll get a gun and shoot him"; never once holding +up his head. Whereat the old man stood up and said in a loud voice, as +if he was accustomed to command, and this was not the first time he had +been obliged to exert his authority there: "John, go sit down, mind your +business,--we've heard you talk before,--precious little you'll +do,--your bark is worse than your bite." But, without minding, John +muttered the same gibberish over again, and then sat down at the table +which the old folks had left. He ate all there was on it, and then +turned to the apples, which his aged mother was paring, that she might +give her guests some apple-sauce for breakfast, but she drew them away +and sent him off. + +[Illustration: Welfleet] + +When I approached this house the next summer, over the desolate hills +between it and the shore, which are worthy to have been the birthplace +of Ossian, I saw the wizard in the midst of a cornfield on the hillside, +but, as usual, he loomed so strangely, that I mistook him for a +scarecrow. + +This was the merriest old man that we had ever seen, and one of the best +preserved. His style of conversation was coarse and plain enough to have +suited Rabelais. He would have made a good Panurge. Or rather he was a +sober Silenus, and we were the boys Chromis and Mnasilus, who listened +to his story. + + "Not by Hæmonian hills the Thracian bard. + Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard + With deeper silence or with more regard." + +There was a strange mingling of past and present in his conversation, +for he had lived under King George, and might have remembered when +Napoleon and the moderns generally were born. He said that one day, when +the troubles between the Colonies and the mother country first broke +out, as he, a boy of fifteen, was pitching hay out of a cart, one Doane, +an old Tory, who was talking with his father, a good Whig, said to him, +"Why, Uncle Bill, you might as well undertake to pitch that pond into +the ocean with a pitchfork, as for the Colonies to undertake to gain +their independence." He remembered well General Washington, and how he +rode his horse along the streets of Boston, and he stood up to show us +how he looked. + +"He was a r--a--ther large and portly-looking man, a manly and +resolute-looking officer, with a pretty good leg as he sat on his +horse."--"There, I'll tell you, this was the way with Washington." Then +he jumped up again, and bowed gracefully to right and left, making show +as if he were waving his hat. Said he, _"That_ was Washington." + +He told us many anecdotes of the Revolution, and was much pleased when +we told him that we had read the same in history, and that his account +agreed with the written. + +"O," he said, "I know, I know! I was a young fellow of sixteen, with my +ears wide open; and a fellow of that age, you know, is pretty wide +awake, and likes to know everything that's going on. O, I know!" + +He told us the story of the wreck of the _Franklin_, which took place +there the previous spring: how a boy came to his house early in the +morning to know whose boat that was by the shore, for there was a vessel +in distress, and he, being an old man, first ate his breakfast, and then +walked over to the top of the hill by the shore, and sat down there, +having found a comfortable seat, to see the ship wrecked. She was on the +bar, only a quarter of a mile from him, and still nearer to the men on +the beach, who had got a boat ready, but could render no assistance on +account of the breakers, for there was a pretty high sea running. There +were the passengers all crowded together in the forward part of the +ship, and some were getting out of the cabin windows and were drawn on +deck by the others. + +"I saw the captain get out his boat," said he; "he had one little one; +and then they jumped into it one after another, down as straight as an +arrow. I counted them. There were nine. One was a woman, and she jumped +as straight as any of them. Then they shoved off. The sea took them +back, one wave went over them, and when they came up there were six +still clinging to the boat; I counted them. The next wave turned the +boat bottom upward, and emptied them all out. None of them ever came +ashore alive. There were the rest of them all crowded together on the +forecastle, the other parts of the ship being under water. They had seen +all that happened to the boat. At length a heavy sea separated the +forecastle from the rest of the wreck, and set it inside of the worst +breaker, and the boat was able to reach them, and it saved all that were +left, but one woman." + +He also told us of the steamer _Cambria's_ getting aground on his shore a +few months before we were there, and of her English passengers who +roamed over his grounds, and who, he said, thought the prospect from the +high hill by the shore "the most delightsome they had ever seen," and +also of the pranks which the ladies played with his scoop-net in the +ponds. He spoke of these travellers with their purses full of guineas, +just as our provincial fathers used to speak of British bloods in the +time of King George the Third. + +_Quid loquar?_ Why repeat what he told us? + + "Aut Scyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est, + Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris, + Dulichias vexâsse rates, et gurgite in alto + Ah timidos nautas canibus lacerâsse marinis?" + +In the course of the evening I began to feel the potency of the clam +which I had eaten, and I was obliged to confess to our host that I was +no tougher than the cat he told of; but he answered, that he was a +plain-spoken man, and he could tell me that it was all imagination. At +any rate, it proved an emetic in my case, and I was made quite sick by +it for a short time, while he laughed at my expense. I was pleased to +read afterward, in Mourt's Relation of the landing of the Pilgrims in +Provincetown Harbor, these words: "We found great muscles (the old +editor says that they were undoubtedly sea-clams) and very fat and full +of sea-pearl; but we could not eat them, for they made us all sick that +did eat, as well sailors as passengers, ... but they were soon well +again." It brought me nearer to the Pilgrims to be thus reminded by a +similar experience that I was so like them. Moreover, it was a valuable +confirmation of their story, and I am prepared now to believe every word +of Mourt's Relation. I was also pleased to find that man and the clam +lay still at the same angle to one another. But I did not notice +sea-pearl. Like Cleopatra, I must have swallowed it. I have since dug +these clams on a flat in the Bay and observed them. They could squirt +full ten feet before the wind, as appeared by the marks of the drops on +the sand. + +"Now I'm going to ask you a question," said the old man, "and I don't +know as you can tell me; but you are a learned man, and I never had any +learning, only what I got by natur."--It was in vain that we reminded +him that he could quote Josephus to our confusion.--"I've thought, if I +ever met a learned man I should like to ask him this question. Can you +tell me how _Axy_ is spelt, and what it means? _Axy_," says he; "there's a +girl over here is named _Axy_. Now what is it? What does it mean? Is it +Scripture? I've read my Bible twenty-five years over and over, and I +never came across it." + +"Did you read it twenty-five years for this object.''" I asked. + +"Well, _how_ is it spelt? Wife, how is it spelt?" She said: "It is in the +Bible; I've seen it." + +"Well, how do you spell it?" + +"I don't know. A c h, ach, s e h, seh,--Achseh." + +"Does that spell Axy? Well, do _you_ know what it means?" asked he, +turning to me. + +"No," I replied, "I never heard the sound before." + +"There was a schoolmaster down here once, and they asked him what it +meant, and he said it had no more meaning than a bean-pole." + +I told him that I held the same opinion with the schoolmaster. I had +been a schoolmaster myself, and had had strange names to deal with. I +also heard of such names as Zoleth, Beriah, Amaziah, Bethuel, and +Shearjashub, hereabouts. + +At length the little boy, who had a seat quite in the chimney-corner, +took off his stockings and shoes, warmed his feet, and having had his +sore leg freshly salved, went off to bed; then the fool made bare his +knotty-looking feet and legs, and followed him; and finally the old man +exposed his calves also to our gaze. We had never had the good fortune +to see an old man's legs before, and were surprised to find them fair +and plump as an infant's, and we thought that he took a pride in +exhibiting them. He then proceeded to make preparations for retiring, +discoursing meanwhile with Panurgic plainness of speech on the ills to +which old humanity is subject. We were a rare haul for him. He could +commonly get none but ministers to talk to, though sometimes ten of them +at once, and he was glad to meet some of the laity at leisure. The +evening was not long enough for him. As I had been sick, the old lady +asked if I would not go to bed,--it was getting late for old people; but +the old man, who had not yet done his stories, said, "You ain't +particular, are you?" + +"O, no," said I, "I am in no hurry. I believe I have weathered the Clam +cape." + +"They are good," said he; "I wish I had some of them now." + +"They never hurt me," said the old lady. + +"But then you took out the part that killed a cat," said I. + +At last we cut him short in the midst of his stories, which he promised +to resume in the morning. Yet, after all, one of the old ladies who came +into our room in the night to fasten the fire-board, which rattled, as +she went out took the precaution to fasten us in. Old women are by +nature more suspicious than old men. However, the winds howled around +the house, and made the fire-boards as well as the casements rattle well +that night. It was probably a windy night for any locality, but we could +not distinguish the roar which was proper to the ocean from that which +was due to the wind alone. + +The sounds which the ocean makes must be very significant and +interesting to those who live near it. When I was leaving the shore at +this place the next summer, and had got a quarter of a mile distant, +ascending a hill, I was startled by a sudden, loud sound from the sea, +as if a large steamer were letting off steam by the shore, so that I +caught my breath and felt my blood run cold for an instant, and I turned +about, expecting to see one of the Atlantic steamers thus far out of her +course, but there was nothing unusual to be seen. There was a low bank +at the entrance of the Hollow, between me and the ocean, and suspecting +that I might have risen into another stratum of air in ascending the +hill,--which had wafted to me only the ordinary roar of the sea,--I +immediately descended again, to see if I lost _hearing_ of it; but, +without regard to my ascending or descending, it died away in a minute +or two, and yet there was scarcely any wind all the while. The old man +said that this was what they called the "rut," a peculiar roar of the +sea before the wind changes, which, however, he could not account for. +He thought that he could tell all about the weather from the sounds +which the sea made. + +Old Josselyn, who came to New England in 1638, has it among his +weather-signs, that "the resounding of the sea from the shore, and +murmuring of the winds in the woods, without apparent wind, sheweth wind +to follow." + +Being on another part of the coast one night since this, I heard the +roar of the surf a mile distant, and the inhabitants said it was a sign +that the wind would work round east, and we should have rainy weather. +The ocean was heaped up somewhere at the eastward, and this roar was +occasioned by its effort to preserve its equilibrium, the wave reaching +the shore before the wind. Also the captain of a packet between this +country and England told me that he sometimes met with a wave on the +Atlantic coming against the wind, perhaps in a calm sea, which indicated +that at a distance the wind was blowing from an opposite quarter, but +the undulation had travelled faster than it. Sailors tell of "tide-rips" +and "ground-swells," which they suppose to have been occasioned by +hurricanes and earthquakes, and to have travelled many hundred, and +sometimes even two or three thousand miles. + +[Illustration: Hunting for a Leak] + +Before sunrise the next morning they let us out again, and I ran over to +the beach to see the sun come out of the ocean. The old woman of +eighty-four winters was already out in the cold morning wind, +bareheaded, tripping about like a young girl, and driving up the cow to +milk. She got the breakfast with despatch, and without noise or bustle; +and meanwhile the old man resumed his stories, standing before us, who +were sitting, with his back to the chimney, and ejecting his tobacco +juice right and left into the fire behind him, without regard to the +various dishes which were there preparing. At breakfast we had eels, +buttermilk cake, cold bread, green beans, doughnuts, and tea. The old +man talked a steady stream; and when his wife told him he had better eat +his breakfast, he said: "Don't hurry me; I have lived too long to be +hurried." I ate of the apple-sauce and the doughnuts, which I thought +had sustained the least detriment from the old man's shots, but my +companion refused the apple-sauce, and ate of the hot cake and green +beans, which had appeared to him to occupy the safest part of the +hearth. But on comparing notes afterward, I told him that the buttermilk +cake was particularly exposed, and I saw how it suffered repeatedly, and +therefore I avoided it; but he declared that, however that might be, he +witnessed that the apple-sauce was seriously injured, and had therefore +declined that. After breakfast we looked at his clock, which was out of +order, and oiled it with some "hen's grease," for want of sweet oil, for +he scarcely could believe that we were not tinkers or pedlers; meanwhile +he told a story about visions, which had reference to a crack in the +clock-case made by frost one night. He was curious to know to what +religious sect we belonged. He said that he had been to hear thirteen +kinds of preaching in one month, when he was young, but he did not join +any of them,--he stuck to his Bible. There was nothing like any of them +in his Bible. While I was shaving in the next room, I heard him ask my +companion to what sect he belonged, to which he answered:-- + +"O, I belong to the Universal Brotherhood." + +"What's that?" he asked, "Sons o' Temperance?" + +Finally, filling our pockets with doughnuts, which he was pleased to +find that we called by the same name that he did, and paying for our +entertainment, we took our departure; but he followed us out of doors, +and made us tell him the names of the vegetables which he had raised +from seeds that came out of the _Franklin_. They were cabbage, broccoli, +and parsley. As I had asked him the names of so many things, he tried me +in turn with all the plants which grew in his garden, both wild and +cultivated. It was about half an acre, which he cultivated wholly +himself. Besides the common garden vegetables, there were Yellow-Dock, +Lemon Balm, Hyssop, Gill-go-over-the-ground. Mouse-ear, Chick-weed, +Roman Wormwood, Elecampane, and other plants. As we stood there, I saw a +fish-hawk stoop to pick a fish out of his pond. + +"There," said I, "he has got a fish." + +"Well," said the old man, who was looking all the while, but could see +nothing, "he didn't dive, he just wet his claws." + +And, sure enough, he did not this time, though it is said that they +often do, but he merely stooped low enough to pick him out with his +talons; but as he bore his shining prey over the bushes, it fell to the +ground, and we did not see that he recovered it. That is not their +practice. + +Thus, having had another crack with the old man, he standing bareheaded +under the eaves, he directed us "athwart the fields," and we took to the +beach again for another day, it being now late in the morning. + +It was but a day or two after this that the safe of the Provincetown +Bank was broken open and robbed by two men from the interior, and we +learned that our hospitable entertainers did at least transiently harbor +the suspicion that we were the men. + + + + +VI + +THE BEACH AGAIN + +Our way to the high sand-bank, which I have described as extending all +along the coast, led, as usual, through patches of Bayberry bushes which +straggled into the sand. This, next to the Shrub-oak, was perhaps the +most common shrub thereabouts. I was much attracted by its odoriferous +leaves and small gray berries which are clustered about the short twigs, +just below the last year's growth. I know of but two bushes in Concord, +and they, being staminate plants, do not bear fruit. The berries gave it +a venerable appearance, and they smelled quite spicy, like small +confectionery. Robert Beverley, in his "History of Virginia," published +in 1705, states that "at the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon +the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the +myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a +curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of +this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch nor melt +with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever +offend the smell, like that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being +disagreeable, if an accident puts a candle out, it yields a pleasant +fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch that nice people often +put them out on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff. The +melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a +surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things with a salve made +of them." From the abundance of berries still hanging on the bushes, we +judged that the inhabitants did not generally collect them for tallow, +though we had seen a piece in the house we had just left. I have since +made some tallow myself. Holding a basket beneath the bare twigs in +April, I rubbed them together between my hands and thus gathered about a +quart in twenty minutes, to which were added enough to make three pints, +and I might have gathered them much faster with a suitable rake and a +large shallow basket. They have little prominences like those of an +orange all creased in tallow, which also fills the interstices down to +the stone. The oily part rose to the top, making it look like a savory +black broth, which smelled much like balm or other herb tea. You let it +cool, then skim off the tallow from the surface, melt this again and +strain it. I got about a quarter of a pound weight from my three pints, +and more yet remained within the berries. A small portion cooled in the +form of small flattish hemispheres, like crystallizations, the size of a +kernel of corn (nuggets I called them as I picked them out from amid the +berries), Loudon says, that "cultivated trees are said to yield more wax +than those that are found wild." (See Duplessy, Vegetaux Resineux, Vol. +II. p. 60.) If you get any pitch on your hands in the pine-woods you have +only to rub some of these berries between your hands to start it off. +But the ocean was the grand fact there, which made us forget both bay +berries and men. + +To-day the air was beautifully clear, and the sea no longer dark and +stormy, though the waves still broke with foam along the beach, but +sparkling and full of life. Already that morning I had seen the day +break over the sea as if it came out of its bosom:-- + + "The saffron-robed Dawn rose in haste from the streams + Of Ocean, that she might bring light to immortals and to mortals." + +The sun rose visibly at such a distance over the sea that the cloud-bank +in the horizon, which at first concealed him, was not perceptible until +he had risen high behind it, and plainly broke and dispersed it, like an +arrow. But as yet I looked at him as rising over land, and could not, +without an effort, realize that he was rising over the sea. Already I +saw some vessels on the horizon, which had rounded the Cape in the +night, and were now well on their watery way to other lands. + +We struck the beach again in the south part of Truro. In the early part +of the day, while it was flood tide and the beach was narrow and soft, +we walked on the bank, which was very high here, but not so level as the +day before, being more interrupted by slight hollows. The author of the +Description of the Eastern Coast says of this part, that "the bank is +very high and steep. From the edge of it west, there is a strip of sand +a hundred yards in breadth. Then succeeds low brushwood, a quarter of a +mile wide, and almost impassable. After which comes a thick, perplexing +forest, in which not a house is to be discovered. Seamen, therefore, +though the distance between these two hollows (Newcomb's and Brush +Hollows) is great, must not attempt to enter the wood, as in a snowstorm +they must undoubtedly perish." This is still a true description of the +country, except that there is not much high wood left. + +[Illustration: Truro--Starting on a voyage] + +There were many vessels, like gulls, skimming over the surface of the +sea, now half concealed in its troughs, their dolphin-strikers ploughing +the water, now tossed on the top of the billows. One, a bark standing +down parallel with the coast, suddenly furled her sails, came to anchor, +and swung round in the wind, near us, only half a mile from the shore. +At first we thought that her captain wished to communicate with us, and +perhaps we did not regard the signal of distress, which a mariner would +have understood, and he cursed us for cold-hearted wreckers who turned +our backs on him. For hours we could still see her anchored there behind +us, and we wondered how she could afford to loiter so long in her +course. Or was she a smuggler who had chosen that wild beach to land her +cargo on? Or did they wish to catch fish, or paint their vessel? Erelong +other barks, and brigs, and schooners, which had in the mean while +doubled the Cape, sailed by her in the smacking breeze, and our +consciences were relieved. Some of these vessels lagged behind, while +others steadily went ahead. We narrowly watched their rig, and the cut +of their jibs, and how they walked the water, for there was all the +difference between them that there is between living creatures. But we +wondered that they should be remembering Boston and New York and +Liverpool, steering for them, out there; as if the sailor might forget +his peddling business on such a grand highway. They had perchance +brought oranges from the Western Isles; and were they carrying back the +peel? We might as well transport our old traps across the ocean of +eternity. Is _that_ but another "trading-flood," with its blessed isles? +Is Heaven such a harbor as the Liverpool docks? + +Still held on without a break, the inland barrens and shrubbery, the +desert and the high sand bank with its even slope, the broad white +beach, the breakers, the green water on the bar, and the Atlantic Ocean; +and we traversed with delight new reaches of the shore; we took another +lesson in sea-horses' manes and sea-cows' tails, in sea-jellies and +sea-clams, with our new-gained experience. The sea ran hardly less than +the day before. It seemed with every wave to be subsiding, because such +was our expectation, and yet when hours had elapsed we could see no +difference. But there it was, balancing itself, the restless ocean by +our side, lurching in its gait. Each wave left the sand all braided or +woven, as it were, with a coarse woof and warp, and a distinct raised +edge to its rapid work. We made no haste, since we wished to see the +ocean at our leisure; and indeed that soft sand was no place in which to +be in a hurry, for one mile there was as good as two elsewhere. Besides, +we were obliged frequently to empty our shoes of the sand which one took +in in climbing or descending the bank. + +As we were walking close to the water's edge this morning we turned +round, by chance, and saw a large black object which the waves had just +cast up on the beach behind us, yet too far off for us to distinguish +what it was; and when we were about to return to it, two men came +running from the bank, where no human beings had appeared before, as if +they had come out of the sand, in order to save it before another wave +took it. As we approached, it took successively the form of a huge fish, +a drowned man, a sail or a net, and finally of a mass of tow-cloth, part +of the cargo of the _Franklin_, which the men loaded into a cart. + +Objects on the beach, whether men or inanimate things, look not only +exceedingly grotesque, but much larger and more wonderful than they +actually are. Lately, when approaching the seashore several degrees +south of this, I saw before me, seemingly half a mile distant, what +appeared like bold and rugged cliffs on the beach, fifteen feet high, +and whitened by the sun and waves; but after a few steps it proved to be +low heaps of rags,--part of the cargo of a wrecked vessel,--scarcely +more than a foot in height. Once also it was my business to go in search +of the relics of a human body, mangled by sharks, which had just been +cast up, a week after a wreck, having got the direction from a +light-house: I should find it a mile or two distant over the sand, a +dozen rods from the water, covered with a cloth, by a stick stuck up. I +expected that I must look very narrowly to find so small an object, but +the sandy beach, half a mile wide, and stretching farther than the eye +could reach, was so perfectly smooth and bare, and the mirage toward the +sea so magnifying, that when I was half a mile distant the insignificant +sliver which marked the spot looked like a bleached spar, and the relics +were as conspicuous as if they lay in state on that sandy plain, or a +generation had labored to pile up their cairn there. Close at hand they +were simply some bones with a little flesh adhering to them, in fact, +only a slight inequality in the sweep of the shore. There was nothing at +all remarkable about them, and they were singularly inoffensive both to +the senses and the imagination. But as I stood there they grew more and +more imposing. They were alone with the beach and the sea, whose hollow +roar seemed addressed to them, and I was impressed as if there was an +understanding between them and the ocean which necessarily left me out, +with my snivelling sympathies. That dead body had taken possession of +the shore, and reigned over it as no living one, could, in the name of a +certain majesty which belonged to it. + +We afterward saw many small pieces of tow-cloth washed up, and I learn +that it continued to be found in good condition, even as late as +November in that year, half a dozen bolts at a time. + +We eagerly filled our pockets with the smooth round pebbles which in +some places, even here, were thinly sprinkled over the sand, together +with flat circular shells (_Scutelloe?_); but, as we had read, when they +were dry they had lost their beauty, and at each sitting we emptied our +pockets again of the least remarkable, until our collection was well +culled. Every material was rolled into the pebble form by. the waves; +not only stones of various kinds, but the hard coal which some vessel +had dropped, bits of glass, and in one instance a mass of peat three +feet long, where there was nothing like it to be seen for many miles. +All the great rivers of the globe are annually, if not constantly, +discharging great quantities of lumber, which drifts to distant shores. +I have also seen very perfect pebbles of brick, and bars of Castile soap +from a wreck rolled into perfect cylinders, and still spirally streaked +with red, like a barber's pole. When a cargo of rags is washed ashore, +every old pocket and bag-like recess will be filled to bursting with +sand by being rolled on the beach; and on one occasion, the pockets in +the clothing of the wrecked being thus puffed up, even after they had +been ripped open by wreckers, deluded me into the hope of identifying +them by the contents. A pair of gloves looked exactly as if filled by a +hand. The water in such clothing is soon wrung out and evaporated, but +the sand, which works itself into every seam, is not so easily got rid +of. Sponges, which are picked up on the shore, as is well known, retain +some of the sand of the beach to the latest day, in spite of every +effort to extract it. + +I found one stone on the top of the bank, of a dark gray color, shaped +exactly like a giant clam (_Mactra solidissima_), and of the same size; +and, what was more remarkable, one-half of the outside had shelled off +and lay near it, of the same form and depth with one of the valves of +this clam, while the other half was loose, leaving a solid core of a +darker color within it. I afterward saw a stone resembling a razor clam, +but it was a solid one. It appeared as if the stone, in the process of +formation, had filled the mould which a clam-shell furnished; or the +same law that shaped the clam had made a clam of stone. Dead clams, with +shells full of sand, are called sand clams. There were many of the large +clamshells filled with sand; and sometimes one valve was separately +filled exactly even, as if it had been heaped and then scraped. Even, +among the many small stones on the top of the bank, I found one +arrow-head. + +Beside the giant clam and barnacles, we found on the shore a small clam +(_Mesodesma arctata_), which I dug with my hands in numbers on the bars, +and which is sometimes eaten by the inhabitants, in the absence of the +_Mya arenaria_, on this side. Most of their empty shells had been +perforated by some foe.--Also, the + +_Astarte castanea_. + +The Edible Mussel (_Mytilus edulis_) on the few rocks, and washed up in +curious bunches of forty or fifty, held together by its rope-like +_byssus_. + +The Scollop Shell (_Pecten concentricus_), used for card-racks and +pin-cushions. + +Cockles, or Cuckoos (_Natica heros_), and their remarkable _nidus_, called +"sand-circle," looking like the top of a stone jug without the stopple, +and broken on one side, or like a flaring dickey made of sand-paper. +Also, + +_Cancellaria Couthouyi_ (?), and + +Periwinkles (?) (_Fusus decemcostatus_). + +We afterward saw some other kinds on the Bay-side. Gould states that +this Cape "has Hitler proved a barrier to the migrations of many +species of Mollusca."--"Of the one hundred and ninety-seven species +[which he described in 1840 as belonging to Massachusetts], eighty-three +do not pass to the South shore, and fifty are not found on the North +shore of the Cape." + +Among Crustacea, there were the shells of Crabs and Lobsters, often +bleached quite white high up the beach; Sea or Beach Fleas (_Amphipoda_); +and the cases of the Horse-shoe Crab, or Saucepan Fish (_Limulus +Polyphoemus_), of which we saw many alive on the Bay side, where they +feed pigs on them. Their tails were used as arrow-heads by the Indians. + +Of Radiata, there were the Sea Chestnut or Egg (_Echinus granulatus_), +commonly divested of its spines; flat circular shells (_Scutella parma?_) +covered with chocolate-colored spines, but becoming smooth and white, +with five petal-like figures; a few Star-fishes or Five-fingers +(_Asterias rubens_); and Sun-fishes or Sea-jellies (_Aurelioe_). + +There was also at least one species of Sponge. + +The plants which I noticed here and there on the pure sandy shelf, +between the ordinary high-water mark and the foot of the bank, were Sea +Rocket (_Cakile Americana_), Saltwort (_Salsola kali_), Sea Sandwort +(_Honkenya peploides_), Sea Burdock (_Xanthium echinatum_), Sea-side Spurge +(_Euphorbia poylgonifolia_); also, Beach Grass (_Arundo, Psamma_, or +_Calamagrostis arenaria_), Sea-side Golden-rod (_Solidago sempervirens_), +and the Beach Pea (_Lathyrus maritimus_). + +Sometimes we helped a wrecker turn over a larger log than usual, or we +amused ourselves with rolling stones down the bank, but we rarely could +make one reach the water, the beach was so soft and wide; or we bathed +in some shallow within a bar, where the sea covered us with sand at +every flux, though it was quite cold and windy. The ocean there is +commonly but a tantalizing prospect in hot weather, for with all that +water before you, there is, as we were afterward told, no bathing on the +Atlantic side, on account of the undertow and the rumor of sharks. At +the lighthouse both in Eastham and Truro, the only houses quite on the +shore, they declared, the next year, that they would not bathe there +"for any sum," for they sometimes saw the sharks tossed up and quiver +for a moment on the sand. Others laughed at these stories, but perhaps +they could afford to because they never bathed anywhere. One old wrecker +told us that he killed a regular man-eating shark fourteen feet long, +and hauled him out with his oxen, where we had bathed; and another, that +his father caught a smaller one of the same kind that was stranded +there, by standing him up on his snout so that the waves could not take +him. They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which +I do not presume to doubt utterly,--how they will sometimes upset a +boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily +believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen +years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles +long. I should add, however, that in July we walked on the bank here a +quarter of a mile parallel with a fish about six feet in length, +possibly a shark, which was prowling slowly along within two rods of the +shore. It was of a pale brown color, singularly film-like and indistinct +in the water, as if all nature abetted this child of ocean, and showed +many darker transverse bars or rings whenever it came to the surface. It +is well known that different fishes even of the same species are colored +by the water they inhabit. We saw it go into a little cove or +bathing-tub, where we had just been bathing, where the water was only +four or five feet deep at that time, and after exploring it go slowly +out again; but we continued to bathe there, only observing first from +the bank if the cove was preoccupied. We thought that the water was +fuller of life, more aerated perhaps than that of the Bay, like +soda-water, for we were as particular as young salmon, and the +expectation of encountering a shark did not subtract anything from its +life-giving qualities. + +Sometimes we sat on the wet beach and watched the beach birds, +sand-pipers, and others, trotting along close to each wave, and waiting +for the sea to cast up their breakfast. The former (_Charadrius melodus_) +ran with great rapidity and then stood stock still remarkably erect and +hardly to be distinguished from the beach. The wet sand was covered with +small skipping Sea Fleas, which apparently make a part of their food. +These last are the little scavengers of the beach, and are so numerous +that they will devour large fishes, which have been cast up, in a very +short time. One little bird not larger than a sparrow,--it may have been +a Phalarope.--would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers +were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, +cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the +air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding +safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its +instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus +to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as +the breakers in theirs. There was also an almost uninterrupted line of +coots rising and falling with the waves, a few rods from the shore, the +whole length of the Cape. They made as constant a part of the ocean's +border as the pads or pickerel-weed do of that of a pond. We read the +following as to the Storm Petrel (_Thalassidroma Wilsonii_), which is seen +in the Bay as well as on the outside. "The feathers on the breast of the +Storm Petrel are, like those of all swimming birds, water-proof; but +substances not susceptible of being wetted with water are, for that very +reason, the best fitted for collecting oil from its surface. That +function is performed by the feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrels +as they touch on the surface; and though that may not be the only way in +which they procure their food, it is certainly that in which they obtain +great part of it. They dash along till they have loaded their feathers +and then they pause upon the wave and remove the oil with their bills." + +Thus we kept on along the gently curving shore, seeing two or three +miles ahead at once,--along this ocean side-walk, where there was none +to turn out for, with the middle of the road the highway of nations on +our right, and the sand cliffs of the Cape on our left. We saw this +forenoon a part of the wreck of a vessel, probably the _Franklin_, a large +piece fifteen feet square, and still freshly painted. With a grapple and +a line we could have saved it, for the waves repeatedly washed it within +cast, but they as often took it back. It would have been a lucky haul +for some poor wrecker, for I have been told that one man who paid three +or four dollars for a part of the wreck of that vessel, sold fifty or +sixty dollars' worth of iron out of it. Another, the same who picked up +the Captain's valise with the memorable letter in it, showed me, growing +in his garden, many pear and plum trees which washed ashore from her, +all nicely tied up and labelled, and he said that he might have got five +hundred dollars' worth; for a Mr. Bell was importing the nucleus of a +nursery to be established near Boston. His turnip-seed came from the +same source. Also valuable spars from the same vessel and from the +_Cactus_ lay in his yard. In short the inhabitants visit the beach to see +what they have caught as regularly as a fisherman his weir or a lumberer +his boom; the Cape is their boom. I heard of one who had recently picked +up twenty barrels of apples in good condition, probably a part of a deck +load thrown over in a storm. + +Though there are wreck-masters appointed to look after valuable property +which must be advertised, yet undoubtedly a great deal of value is +secretly carried off. But are we not all wreckers contriving that some +treasure may be washed up on our beach, that we may secure it, and do we +not infer the habits of these Nauset and Barnegat wreckers from the +common modes of getting a living? + +The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of +human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not +vomit up. It lets nothing lie; not even the giant clams which cling to +its bottom. It is still heaving up the tow-cloth of the _Franklin_, and +perhaps a piece of some old pirate's ship, wrecked more than a hundred +years ago, comes ashore to-day. Some years since, when a vessel was +wrecked here which had nutmegs in her cargo, they were strewn all along +the beach, and for a considerable time were not spoiled by the salt +water. Soon afterward, a fisherman caught a cod which was full of them. +Why, then, might not the Spice-Islanders shake their nutmeg trees into +the ocean, and let all nations who stand in need of them pick them up? +However, after a year, I found that the nutmegs from the _Franklin_ had +become soft. + +You might make a curious list of articles which fishes have +swallowed,--sailors' open clasp-knives, and bright tin snuff-boxes, not +knowing what was in them,--and jugs, and jewels, and Jonah. The other +day I came across the following scrap in a newspaper. + +"A Religious Fish.--A short time ago, mine host Stewart, of the Denton +Hotel, purchased a rock-fish, weighing about sixty pounds. On opening it +he found in it a certificate of membership of the M. E. Church, which we +read as follows:-- + + Member + Methodist E. Church. + Founded A. D. 1784. + Quarterly Ticket. + 18 + Minister. + +'For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a +far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'--"2 Cor. iv. 17. + + 'O what are all my sufferings here, + If, Lord, thou count me meet + With that enraptured host t' appear, + And worship at thy feet!' + +"The paper was of course in a crumpled and wet condition, but on +exposing it to the sun, and ironing the kinks out of it, it became quite +legible.--_Denton (Md.) Journal_." + +From time to time we saved a wreck ourselves, a box or barrel, and set +it on its end, and appropriated it with crossed sticks; and it will lie +there perhaps, respected by brother wreckers, until some more violent +storm shall take it, really lost to man until wrecked again. We also +saved, at the cost of wet feet only, a valuable cord and buoy, part of a +seine, with which the sea was playing, for it seemed ungracious to +refuse the least gift which so great a personage offered you. We brought +this home and still use it for a garden line. I picked up a bottle half +buried in the wet sand, covered with barnacles, but stoppled tight, and +half full of red ale, which still smacked of juniper,--all that remained +I fancied from the wreck of a rowdy world,--that great salt sea on the +one hand, and this little sea of ale on the other, preserving their +separate characters. What if it could tell us its adventures over +countless ocean waves! Man would not be man through such ordeals as it +had passed. But as I poured it slowly out on to the sand, it seemed to +me that man himself was like a half-emptied bottle of pale ale, which +Time had drunk so far, yet stoppled tight for a while, and drifting +about in the ocean of circumstances; but destined erelong to mingle with +the surrounding waves, or be spilled amid the sands of a distant shore. + +In the summer I saw two men fishing for Bass hereabouts. Their bait was +a bullfrog, or several small frogs in a bunch, for want of squid. They +followed a retiring wave and whirling their lines round and round their +heads with increasing rapidity, threw them as far as they could into the +sea; then retreating, sat down, flat on the sand, and waited for a bite. +It was literally (or _littorally_) walking down to the shore, and throwing +your line into the Atlantic. I should not have known what might take +hold of the other end, whether Proteus or another. At any rate, if you +could not pull him in, why, you might let him go without being pulled in +yourself. And _they_ knew by experience that it would be a Striped Bass, +or perhaps a Cod, for these fishes play along near the shore. + +From time to time we sat under the lee of a sand-hill on the bank, +thinly covered with coarse Beach-grass, and steadily gazed on the sea, +or watched the vessels going south, all Blessings of the Bay of course. +We could see a little more than half a circle of ocean, besides the +glimpses of the Bay which we got behind us; the sea there was not wild +and dreary in all respects, for there were frequently a hundred sail in +sight at once on the Atlantic. You can commonly count about eighty in a +favorable summer day and pilots sometimes land and ascend the bank to +look out for these which require their services. These had been waiting +for fair weather, and had come out of Boston Harbor together. The same +is the case when they have been assembled in the Vineyard Sound, so that +you may see but few one day, and a large fleet the next. Schooners with +many jibs and stay-sails crowded all the sea road; square-rigged vessels +with their great height and breadth of canvas were ever and anon +appearing out of the far horizon, or disappearing and sinking into it; +here and there a pilot-boat was towing its little boat astern toward +some distant foreigner who had just fired a gun, the echo of which along +the shore sounded like the caving of the bank. We could see the pilot +looking through his glass toward the distant ship which was putting back +to speak with him. He sails many a mile to meet her; and now she puts +her sails aback, and communicates with him alongside,--sends some +important message to the owners, and then bids farewell to these shores +for good and all; or, perchance a propeller passed and made fast to some +disabled craft, or one that had been becalmed, whose cargo of fruit +might spoil. Though silently, and for the most part incommunicatively, +going about their business, they were, no doubt, a source of +cheerfulness and a kind of society to one another. + +[Illustration: Unloading the day's catch] + +To-day it was the Purple Sea, an epithet which I should not before have +accepted. There were distinct patches of the color of a purple grape +with the bloom rubbed off. But first and last the sea is of all colors. +Well writes Gilpin concerning "the brilliant hues which are continually +playing on the surface of a quiet ocean," and this was not too turbulent +at a distance from the shore. "Beautiful," says he, "no doubt in a high +degree are those glimmering tints which often invest the tops of +mountains; but they are mere coruscations compared with these marine +colors, which are continually varying and shifting into each other in +all the vivid splendor of the rainbow, through the space often of +several leagues." Commonly, in calm weather, for half a mile from the +shore, where the bottom tinges it, the sea is green, or greenish, as are +some ponds; then blue for many miles, often with purple tinges, bounded +in the distance by a light almost silvery stripe; beyond which there is +generally a dark-blue rim, like a mountain-ridge in the horizon, as if, +like that, it owed its color to the intervening atmosphere. On another +day it will be marked with long streaks, alternately smooth and rippled, +light-colored and dark, even like our inland meadows in a freshet, and +showing which way the wind sets. + +Thus we sat on the foaming shore, looking on the wine-colored ocean,-- + + [Greek: Thin eph alos pliês oroôn epi oinopa ponton.] + +Here and there was a darker spot on its surface, the shadow of a cloud, +though the sky was so clear that no cloud would have been noticed +otherwise, and no shadow would have been seen on the land, where a much +smaller surface is visible at once. So, distant clouds and showers may +be seen on all sides by a sailor in the course of a day, which do not +necessarily portend rain where he is. In July we saw similar dark-blue +patches where schools of Menhaden rippled the surface, scarcely to be +distinguished from the shadows of clouds. Sometimes the sea was spotted +with them far and wide, such is its inexhaustible fertility. Close at +hand you see their back fin, which is very long and sharp, projecting +two or three inches above water. From time to time also we saw the white +bellies of the Bass playing along the shore. + +It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for +half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our +ears: Fayal, and Babelmandel, ay, and Chagres, and Panama,--bound to the +famous Bay of San Francisco, and the golden streams of Sacramento and +San Joaquin, to Feather River and the American Fork, where Sutter's Fort +presides, and inland stands the City de los Angeles. It is remarkable +that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable +was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes and discoverers have +found true more than was previously believed, only when they were +expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries +dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a +frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. Referred to the world's +standard, they are always insane. Even savages have indirectly surmised +as much. Humboldt, speaking of Columbus approaching the New World, says: +"The grateful coolness of the evening air, the ethereal purity of the +starry firmament, the balmy fragrance of flowers, wafted to him by the +land breeze, all led him to suppose (as we are told by Herrara, in the +Decades) that he was approaching the garden of Eden, the sacred abode of +our first parents. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four rivers +which, according to the venerable tradition of the ancient world, flowed +from Paradise, to water and divide the surface of the earth, newly +adorned with plants." So even the expeditions for the discovery of El +Dorado, and of the Fountain of Youth, led to real, if not compensatory +discoveries. + +We discerned vessels so far off, when once we began to look, that only +the tops of their masts in the horizon were visible, and it took a +strong intention of the eye, and its most favorable side, to see them at +all, and sometimes we doubted if we were not counting our eyelashes. +Charles Darwin states that he saw, from the base of the Andes, "the +masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, although not +less than twenty-six geographical miles distant," and that Anson had +been surprised at the distance at which his vessels were discovered from +the coast, without knowing the reason, namely, the great height of the +land and the transparency of the air. Steamers may be detected much +farther than sailing vessels, for, as one says, when their hulls and +masts of wood and iron are down, their smoky masts and streamers still +betray them; and the same writer, speaking of the comparative advantages +of bituminous and anthracite coal for war-steamers, states that, "from +the ascent of the columns of smoke above the horizon, the motions of the +steamers in Calais Harbor [on the coast of France] are at all times +observable at Ramsgate [on the English coast], from the first lighting +of the fires to the putting out at sea; and that in America the steamers +burning the fat bituminous coal can be tracked at sea at least seventy +miles before the hulls become visible, by the dense columns of black +smoke pouring out of their chimneys, and trailing along the horizon." + +Though there were numerous vessels at this great distance in the horizon +on every side, yet the vast spaces between them, like the spaces between +the stars, far as they were distant from us, so were they from one +another,--nay, some were twice as far from each other as from +us,--impressed us with a sense of the immensity of the ocean, the +"unfruitful ocean," as it has been called, and we could see what +proportion man and his works bear to the globe. As we looked off, and +saw the water growing darker and darker and deeper and deeper the +farther we looked, till it was awful to consider, and it appeared to +have no relation to the friendly land, either as shore or bottom,--of +what use is a bottom if it is out of sight, if it is two or three miles +from the surface, and you are to be drowned so long before you get to +it, though it were made of the same stuff with your native soil?--over +that ocean, where, as the Veda says, "there is nothing to give support, +nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to," I felt that I was a land +animal. The man in a balloon even may commonly alight on the earth in a +few moments, but the sailor's only hope is that he may reach the distant +shore. I could then appreciate the heroism of the old navigator. Sir +Humphrey Gilbert, of whom it is related that, being overtaken by a storm +when on his return from America, in the year 1583, far northeastward +from where we were, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, just before +he was swallowed up in the deep, he cried out to his comrades in the +_Hind_, as they came within hearing, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as +by land." I saw that it would not be easy to realize. + +On Cape Cod, the next most eastern land you hear of is St. George's Bank +(the fishermen tell of "Georges," "Cashus," and other sunken lands which +they frequent). Every Cape man has a theory about George's Bank having +been an island once, and in their accounts they gradually reduce the +shallowness from six, five, four, two fathoms, to somebody's confident +assertion that he has seen a mackerel-gull sitting; on a piece of dry +land there. It reminded me, when I thought of the shipwrecks which had +taken place there, of the Isle of Demons, laid down off this coast in +old charts of the New World. There must be something monstrous, +methinks, in a vision of the sea bottom from over some bank a thousand +miles from the shore, more awful than its imagined bottomlessness; a +drowned continent, all livid and frothing at the nostrils, like the body +of a drowned man, which is better sunk deep than near the surface. + +I have been surprised to discover from a steamer the shallowness of +Massachusetts Bay itself. Off Billingsgate Point I could have touched +the bottom with a pole, and I plainly saw it variously shaded with +sea-weed, at five or six miles from the shore. This is "The Shoal-ground +of the Cape," it is true, but elsewhere the bay is not much deeper than +a country pond. We are told that the deepest water in the English +Channel between Shakespeare's Cliff and Cape Grinéz, in France, is one +hundred and eighty feet; and Guyot says that "the Baltic Sea has a depth +of only one hundred and twenty feet between the coasts of Germany and +those of Sweden," and "the Adriatic between Venice and Trieste has a +depth of only one hundred and thirty feet." A pond in my native town, +only half a mile long, is more than one hundred feet deep. + +The ocean is but a larger lake. At midsummer you may sometimes see a +strip of glassy smoothness on it, a few rods in width and many miles +long, as if the surface there were covered with a thin pellicle of oil, +just as on a country pond; a sort of stand-still, you would say, at the +meeting or parting of two currents of air (if it does not rather mark +the unrippled steadiness of a current of water beneath), for sailors +tell of the ocean and land breeze meeting between the fore and aft sails +of a vessel, while the latter are full, the former being suddenly taken +aback. Daniel Webster, in one of his letters describing blue-fishing off +Martha's Vineyard, referring to those smooth places, which fishermen and +sailors call "slicks," says: "We met with them yesterday, and our +boatman made for them, whenever discovered. He said they were caused by +the blue-fish chopping up their prey. That is to say, those voracious +fellows get into a school of menhaden, which are too large to swallow +whole, and they bite them into pieces to suit their tastes. And the oil +from this butchery, rising to the surface, makes the 'slick.'" + +Yet this same placid Ocean, as civil now as a city's harbor, a place for +ships and commerce, will erelong be lashed into sudden fury, and all its +caves and cliffs will resound with tumult. It will ruthlessly heave +these vessels to and fro, break them in pieces in its sandy or stony +jaws, and deliver their crews to sea-monsters. It will play with them +like sea-weed, distend them like dead frogs, and carry them about, now +high, now low, to show to the fishes, giving them a nibble. This gentle +Ocean will toss and tear the rag of a man's body like the father of mad +bulls, and his relatives may be seen seeking the remnants for weeks +along the strand. From some quiet inland hamlet they have rushed weeping +to the unheard-of shore, and now stand uncertain where a sailor has +recently been buried amid the sandhills. + +It is generally supposed that they who have long been conversant with +the Ocean can foretell by certain indications, such as its roar and the +notes of sea-fowl, when it will change from calm to storm; but probably +no such ancient mariner as we dream of exists; they know no more, at +least, than the older sailors do about this voyage of life on which we +are all embarked. Nevertheless, we love to hear the sayings of old +sailors, and their accounts of natural phenomena, which totally ignore, +and are ignored by, science; and possibly they have not always looked +over the gunwale so long in vain. Kalm repeats a story which was told +him in Philadelphia by a Mr. Cock, who was one day sailing to the West +Indies in a small yacht, with an old man on board who was well +acquainted with those seas. "The old man sounding the depth, called to +the mate to tell Mr. Cock to launch the boats immediately, and to put a +sufficient number of men into them, in order to tow the yacht during the +calm, that they might reach the island before them as soon as possible, +as within twenty-four hours there would be a strong hurricane. Mr. Cock +asked him what reasons he had to think so; the old man replied that, on +sounding, he saw the lead in the water at a distance of many fathoms +more than he had seen it before; that therefore the water was become +clear all of a sudden, which he looked upon as a certain sign of an +impending hurricane in the sea." The sequel of the story is that, by +good fortune and by dint of rowing they managed to gain a safe +harbor before the hurricane had reached its height; but it finally +raged with so much violence that not only many ships were lost and +houses unroofed, but even their own vessel in harbor was washed so far +on shore that several weeks elapsed before it could be got off. + +The Greeks would not have called the ocean [Greek: atrnletos,] or +unfruitful, though it does not produce wheat, if they had viewed it by +the light of modern science; for naturalists now assert that "the sea, +and not the land, is the principal seat of life,"--though not of +vegetable life. Darwin affirms that "our most thickly inhabited forests +appear almost as deserts when we come to compare them with the +corresponding regions of the ocean." Agassiz and Gould tell us that "the +sea teems with animals of all classes, far beyond the extreme point of +flowering plants"; but they add that "experiments of dredging in very +deep water have also taught us that the abyss of the ocean is nearly a +desert";--"so that modern investigations," to quote the words of Desor, +"merely go to confirm the great idea which was vaguely anticipated by +the ancient poets and philosophers, that the Ocean is the origin of all +things." Yet marine animals and plants hold a lower rank in the scale of +being than land animals and plants. "There is no instance known," says +Desor, "of an animal becoming aquatic in its perfect state, after having +lived in its lower stage on dry land." but as in the case of the +tadpole, "the progress invariably points towards the dry land." In +short, the dry land itself came through and out of the water in its way +to the heavens, for, "in going back through the geological ages, we come +to an epoch when, according to all appearances, the dry land did not +exist, and when the surface of our globe was entirely covered with +water." We looked on the sea, then, once more, not as [Greek: +atrnletos,] or unfruitful, but as it has been more truly called, the +"laboratory of continents." + +Though we have indulged in some placid reflections of late, the reader +must not forget that the dash and roar of the waves were incessant. +Indeed, it would be well if he were to read with a large conch-shell at +his ear. But notwithstanding that it was very cold and windy to-day, it +was such a cold as we thought would not cause one to take cold who was +exposed to it, owing to the saltness of the air and the dryness of the +soil. Yet the author of the old Description of Wellfleet says: "The +atmosphere is very much impregnated with saline particles, which, +perhaps, with the great use of fish, and the neglect of cider and +spruce-beer, may be a reason why the people are more subject to sore +mouths and throats than in other places." + + + +VII + +ACROSS THE CAPE + +When we have returned from the seaside, we sometimes ask ourselves why +we did not spend more time in gazing at the sea; but very soon the +traveller does not look as the sea more than at the heavens. As for the +interior, if the elevated sand-bar in the midst of the ocean can be said +to have any interior, it was an exceedingly desolate landscape, with +rarely a cultivated or cultivable field in sight. We saw no villages, +and seldom a house, for these are generally on the Bay side. It was a +succession of shrubby hills and valleys, now wearing an autumnal tint. +You would frequently think, from the character of the surface, the +dwarfish trees, and the bearberries around, that you were on the top of +a mountain. The only wood in Eastham was on the edge of Wellfleet. The +pitch-pines were not commonly more than fifteen or eighteen feet high. +The larger ones covered with lichens,--often hung with the long gray +_Usnea_. There is scarcely a white-pine on the forearm of the Cape. Yet in +the northwest part of Eastham, near the Camp Ground, we saw, the next +summer, some quite rural, and even sylvan retreats, for the Cape, where +small rustling groves of oaks and locusts and whispering pines, on +perfectly level ground, made a little paradise. The locusts, both +transplanted and growing naturally about the houses there, appeared to +flourish better than any other tree. There were thin belts of wood in +Wellfleet and Truro, a mile or more from the Atlantic, but, for the most +part, we could see the horizon through them, or, if extensive, the trees +were not large. Both oaks and pines had often the same flat look with +the apple-trees. Commonly, the oak woods twenty-five years old were a +mere scraggy shrubbery nine or ten feet high, and we could frequently +reach to their topmost leaf. Much that is called "woods" was about half +as high as this,--only patches of shrub-oak, bayberry, beach-plum, and +wild roses, overrun with woodbine. When the roses were in bloom, these +patches in the midst of the sand displayed such a profusion of blossoms, +mingled with the aroma of the bayberry, that no Italian or other +artificial rose-garden could equal them. They were perfectly Elysian, +and realized my idea of an oasis in the desert. Huckleberry-bushes were +very abundant, and the next summer they bore a remarkable quantity of +that kind of gall called Huckleberry-apple, forming quite handsome +though monstrous blossoms. But it must be added, that this shrubbery +swarmed with wood-ticks, sometimes very troublesome parasites, and which +it takes very horny fingers to crack. + +[Illustration: A Truro footpath] + +The inhabitants of these towns have a great regard for a tree, though +their standard for one is necessarily neither large nor high; and when +they tell you of the large trees that once grew here, you must think of +them, not as absolutely large, but large compared with the present +generation. Their "brave old oaks," of which they speak with so much +respect, and which they will point out to you as relics of the primitive +forest, one hundred or one hundred and fifty, ay, for aught they know, +two hundred years old, have a ridiculously dwarfish appearance, which +excites a smile in the beholder. The largest and most venerable which +they will show you in such a case are, perhaps, not more than twenty or +twenty-five feet high. I was especially amused by the Liliputian old +oaks in the south part of Truro. To the inexperienced eye, which +appreciated their proportions only, they might appear vast as the tree +which saved his royal majesty, but measured, they were dwarfed at once +almost into lichens which a deer might eat up in a morning. Yet they +will tell you that large schooners were once built of timber which grew +in Wellfleet. The old houses also are built of the timber of the Cape; +but instead of the forests in the midst of which they originally stood, +barren heaths, with poverty-grass for heather, now stretch away on every +side. The modern houses are built of what is called "dimension timber," +_imported_ from Maine, all ready to be set up, so that commonly they do +not touch it again with an axe. Almost all the wood used for fuel is +imported by vessels or currents, and of course all the coal. I was told +that probably a quarter of the fuel and a considerable part of the +lumber used in North Truro was drift-wood. Many get _all_ their fuel from +the beach. + +Of birds not found in the interior of the State,--at least in my +neighborhood,--I heard, in the summer, the Black-throated Bunting +(_Fringilla Americana_) amid the shrubbery, and in the open land the +Upland Plover (_Totanus Bartramius_), whose quivering notes were ever and +anon prolonged into a clear, somewhat plaintive, yet hawk-like scream, +which sounded at a very indefinite distance. The bird may have been in +the next field, though it sounded a mile off. + +To-day we were walking through Truro, a town of about eighteen hundred +inhabitants. We had already come to Pamet River, which empties into the +Bay. This was the limit of the Pilgrims' journey up the Cape from +Provincetown, when seeking a place for settlement. It rises in a hollow +within a few rods of the Atlantic, and one who lives near its source +told us that in high tides the sea leaked through, yet the wind and +waves preserve intact the barrier between them, and thus the whole river +is steadily driven westward butt-end foremost,--fountain-head, channel, +and light-house at the mouth, all together. + +Early in the afternoon we reached the Highland Light, whose white tower +we had seen rising out of the bank in front of us for the last mile or +two. It is fourteen miles from the Nauset Lights, on what is called the +Clay Pounds, an immense bed of clay abutting on the Atlantic, and, as +the keeper told us, stretching quite across the Cape, which is here only +about two miles wide. We perceived at once a difference in the soil, for +there was an interruption of the desert, and a slight appearance of a +sod under our feet, such as we had not seen for the last two days. + +After arranging to lodge at the light-house, we rambled across the Cape +to the Bay, over a singularly bleak and barren-looking country, +consisting of rounded hills and hollows, called by geologists diluvial +elevations and depressions,--a kind of scenery which has been compared +to a chopped sea, though this suggests too sudden a transition. There is +a delineation of this very landscape in Hitchcock's Report on the +Geology of Massachusetts, a work which, by its size at least, reminds +one of a diluvial elevation itself. Looking southward from the +light-house, the Cape appeared like an elevated plateau, sloping very +regularly, though slightly, downward from the edge of the bank on the +Atlantic side, about one hundred and fifty feet above the ocean, to that +on the Bay side. On traversing this we found it to be interrupted by +broad valleys or gullies, which become the hollows in the bank when the +sea has worn up to them. They are commonly at right angles with the +shore, and often extend quite across the Cape. Some of the valleys, +however, are circular, a hundred feet deep without any outlet, as if the +Cape had sunk in those places, or its sands had run out. The few +scattered houses which we passed, being placed at the bottom of the +hollows for shelter and fertility, were, for the most part, concealed +entirely, as much as if they had been swallowed up in the earth. Even a +village with its meeting-house, which we had left little more than a +stone's throw behind, had sunk into the earth, spire and all, and we saw +only the surface of the upland and the sea on either hand. When +approaching it, we had mistaken the belfry for a summer-house on the +plain. We began to think that we might tumble into a village before we +were aware of it, as into an ant-lion's hole, and be drawn into the sand +irrecoverably. The most conspicuous objects on the land were a distant +windmill, or a meeting-house standing alone, for only they could afford +to occupy an exposed place. A great part of the township, however, is a +barren, heath-like plain, and perhaps one third of it lies in common, +though the property of individuals. The author of the old "Description +of Truro," speaking of the soil, says: "The snow, which would be of +essential service to it provided it lay level and covered the ground, is +blown into drifts and into the sea." This peculiar open country, with +here and there a patch of shrubbery, extends as much as seven miles, or +from Pamet River on the south to High Head on the north, and from Ocean +to Bay. To walk over it makes on a stranger such an impression as being +at sea, and he finds it impossible to estimate distances in any weather. +A windmill or a herd of cows may seem to be far away in the horizon, +yet, after going a few rods, he will be close upon them. He is also +deluded by other kinds of mirage. When, in the summer, I saw a family +a-blueberrying a mile off, walking about amid the dwarfish bushes which +did not come up higher than their ankles, they seemed to me to be a race +of giants, twenty feet high at least. + +The highest and sandiest portion next the Atlantic was thinly covered +with Beach-grass and Indigo-weed. Next to this the surface of the upland +generally consisted of white sand and gravel, like coarse salt, through +which a scanty vegetation found its way up. It will give an +ornithologist some idea of its barrenness if I mention that the next +June, the month of grass. I found a night-hawk's eggs there, and that +almost any square rod thereabouts, taken at random, would be an eligible +site for such a deposit. The kildeer-plover, which loves a similar +locality, also drops its eggs there, and fills the air above with its +din. This upland also produced _Cladonia_ lichens, poverty-grass, +savory-leaved aster (_Diplopappus linariifolius_), mouse-ear, bear-berry, +&c. On a few hillsides the savory-leaved aster and mouse-ear alone made +quite a dense sward, said to be very pretty when the aster is in bloom. +In some parts the two species of poverty-grass (_Hudsonia tomentosa_ and +_ericoides_), which deserve a better name, reign for miles in little +hemispherical tufts or islets, like moss, scattered over the waste. They +linger in bloom there till the middle of July. Occasionally near the +beach these rounded beds, as also those of the sea-sandwort (_Honkenya +peploides_), were filled with sand within an inch of their tops, and were +hard, like large ant-hills, while the surrounding sand was soft. In +summer, if the poverty-grass grows at the head of a Hollow looking +toward the sea, in a bleak position where the wind rushes up, the +northern or exposed half of the tuft is sometimes all black and dead +like an oven-broom, while the opposite half is yellow with blossoms, the +whole hillside thus presenting a remarkable contrast when seen from the +poverty-stricken and the flourishing side. This plant, which in many +places would be esteemed an ornament, is here despised by many on +account of its being associated with barrenness. It might well be +adopted for the Barnstable coat-of-arms, in a field _sableux_. I should +be proud of it. Here and there were tracts of Beach-grass mingled with +the Sea-side Goldenrod and Beach-pea, which reminded us still more +forcibly of the ocean. + +[Illustration: Truro meeting-house on the hill] + +We read that there was not a brook in Truro. Yet there were deer here +once, which must often have panted in vain; but I am pretty sure that I +afterward saw a small fresh-water brook emptying into the south side of +Pamet River, though I was so heedless as not to taste it. At any rate, a +little boy near by told me that he drank at it. There was not a tree as +far as we could see, and that was many miles each way, the general level +of the upland being about the same everywhere. Even from the Atlantic +side we overlooked the Bay, and saw to Manomet Point in Plymouth, and +better from that side because it was the highest. The almost universal +bareness and smoothness of the landscape were as agreeable as novel, +making it so much the more like the deck of a vessel. We saw vessels +sailing south into the Bay, on the one hand, and north along the +Atlantic shore, on the other, all with an aft wind. + +The single road which runs lengthwise the Cape, now winding over the +plain, now through the shrubbery which scrapes the wheels of the stage, +was a mere cart-track in the sand, commonly without any fences to +confine it, and continually changing from this side to that, to harder +ground, or sometimes to avoid the tide. But the inhabitants travel the +waste here and there pilgrim-wise and staff in hand, by narrow +footpaths, through which the sand flows out and reveals the nakedness of +the land. We shuddered at the thought of living there and taking our +afternoon walks over those barren swells, where we could overlook every +step of our walk before taking it, and would have to pray for a fog or a +snow-storm to conceal our destiny. The walker there must soon eat his +heart. + +In the north part of the town there is no house from shore to shore for +several miles, and it is as wild and solitary as the Western +Prairies--used to be. Indeed, one who has seen every house in Truro will +be surprised to hear of the number of the inhabitants, but perhaps five +hundred of the men and boys of this small town were then abroad on their +fishing grounds. Only a few men stay at home to till the sand or watch +for blackfish. The farmers are fishermen-farmers and understand better +ploughing the sea than the land. They do not disturb their sands much, +though there is a plenty of sea-weed in the creeks, to say nothing of +blackfish occasionally rotting the shore. Between the Pond and East +Harbor Village there was an interesting plantation of pitch-pines, +twenty or thirty acres in extent, like those which we had already seen +from the stage. One who lived near said that the land was purchased by +two men for a shilling or twenty-five cents an acre. Some is not +considered worth writing a deed for. This soil or sand, which was +partially covered with poverty and beach grass, sorrel, &c., was +furrowed at intervals of about four feet and the seed dropped by a +machine. The pines had come up admirably and grown the first year three +or four inches, and the second six inches and more. Where the seed had +been lately planted the white sand was freshly exposed in an endless +furrow winding round and round the sides of the deep hollows, in a +vertical spiral manner, which produced a very singular effect, as if you +were looking into the reverse side of a vast banded shield. This +experiment, so important to the Cape, appeared very successful, and +perhaps the time will come when the greater part of this kind of land in +Barnstable County will be thus covered with an artificial pine forest, +as has been done in some parts of France. In that country 12,500 acres +of downs had been thus covered in 1811 near Bayonne. They are called +_pignadas_, and according to Loudon "constitute the principal riches of +the inhabitants, where there was a drifting desert before." It seemed a +nobler kind of grain to raise than corn even. + +[Illustration: A herd of cows] + +A few years ago Truro was remarkable among the Cape towns for the number +of sheep raised in it; but I was told that at this time only two men +kept sheep in the town, and in 1855, a Truro boy ten years old told me +that he had never seen one. They were formerly pastured on the unfenced +lands or general fields, but now the owners were more particular to +assert their rights, and it cost too much for fencing. The rails are +cedar from Maine, and two rails will answer for ordinary purposes, but +four are required for sheep. This was the reason assigned by one who had +formerly kept them for not keeping them any longer. Fencing stuff is so +expensive that I saw fences made with only one rail, and very often the +rail when split was carefully tied with a string. In one of the villages +I saw the next summer a cow tethered by a rope six rods long, the rope +long in proportion as the feed was short and thin. Sixty rods, ay, all +the cables of the Cape, would have been no more than fair. Tethered in +the desert for fear that she would get into Arabia Felix! I helped a man +weigh a bundle of hay which he was selling to his neighbor, holding one +end of a pole from which it swung by a steel-yard hook, and this was +just half his whole crop. In short, the country looked so barren that I +several times refrained from asking the inhabitants for a string or a +piece of wrapping-paper, for fear I should rob them, for they plainly +were obliged to import these things as well as rails, and where there +were no newsboys, I did not see what they would do for waste paper. + +The objects around us, the make-shifts of fishermen ashore, often made +us look down to see if we were standing on terra firma. In the wells +everywhere a block and tackle were used to raise the bucket, instead of +a windlass, and by almost every house was laid up a spar or a plank or +two full of auger-holes, saved from a wreck. The windmills were partly +built of these, and they were worked into the public bridges. The +light-house keeper, who was having his barn shingled, told me casually +that he had made three thousand good shingles for that purpose out of a +mast. You would sometimes see an old oar used for a rail. Frequently +also some fair-weather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the +coast was nailed up against an outhouse. I saw fastened to a shed near +the lighthouse a long new sign with the words "ANGLO SAXON" on it in +large gilt letters, as if it were a useless part which the ship could +afford to lose, or which the sailors had discharged at the same time +with the pilot. But it interested somewhat as if it had been a part of +the Argo, clipped off in passing through the Symplegades. + +To the fisherman, the Cape itself is a sort of store-ship laden with +supplies,--a safer and larger craft which carries the women and +children, the old men and the sick; and indeed sea-phrases are as +common on it as on board a vessel. Thus is it ever with a sea-going +people. The old Northmen used to speak of the "keel-ridge" of the +country, that is, the ridge of the Doffrafield Mountains, as if the land +were a boat turned bottom up. I was frequently reminded of the Northmen +here. The inhabitants of the Cape are often at once farmers and +sea-rovers; they are more than vikings or kings of the bays, for their +sway extends over the open sea also. A farmer in Wellfleet, at whose +house I afterward spent a night, who had raised fifty bushels of +potatoes the previous year, which is a large crop for the Cape, and had +extensive salt-works, pointed to his schooner, which lay in sight, in +which he and his man and boy occasionally ran down the coast a-trading +as far as the Capes of Virginia. This was his market-cart, and his hired +man knew how to steer her. Thus he drove two teams a-field, + + "ere the high _seas_ appeared + Under the opening eyelids of the mom." + +Though probably he would not hear much of the "gray fly" on his way to +Virginia. + +A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad +about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of +one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into +the shade. I have just heard of a Cape Cod captain who was expected home +in the beginning of the winter from the West Indies, but was long since +given up for lost, till his relations at length have heard with joy, +that, after getting within forty miles of Cape Cod light, he was driven +back by nine successive gales to Key West, between Florida and Cuba, and +was once again shaping his course for home. Thus he spent his winter. In +ancient times the adventures of these two or three men and boys would +have been made the basis of a myth, but now such tales are crowded into +a line of shorthand signs, like an algebraic formula in the shipping +news. "Wherever over the world," said Palfrey in his oration at +Barnstable, "you see the stars and stripes floating, you may have good +hope that beneath them some one will be found who can tell you the +soundings of Barnstable, or Wellfleet, or Chatham Harbor." + +I passed by the home of somebody's (or everybody's) Uncle Bill, one day +over on the Plymouth shore. It was a schooner half keeled-up on the mud: +we aroused the master out of a sound sleep at noonday, by thumping on +the bottom of his vessel till he presented himself at the hatchway, for +we wanted to borrow his clam-digger. Meaning to make him a call, I +looked out the next morning, and lo! he had run over to "the Pines" the +evening before, fearing an easterly storm. He outrode the _great_ gale in +the spring of 1851, dashing about alone in Plymouth Bay. He goes after +rockweed, lighters vessels, and saves wrecks. I still saw him lying in +the mud over at "the Pines" in the horizon, which place he could not +leave if he would till flood tide. But he would not then probably. This +waiting for the tide is a singular feature in life by the sea-shore. A +frequent answer is, "Well! you can't start for two hours yet." It is +something new to a landsman, and at first he is not disposed to wait. +History says that "two inhabitants of Truro were the first who +adventured to the Falkland Isles in pursuit of whales. This voyage was +undertaken in the year 1774, by the advice of Admiral Montague of the +British navy, and was crowned with success." + +At the Pond Village we saw a pond three eighths of a mile long densely +filled with cat-tail flags, seven feet high,--enough for all the coopers +in New England. + +[Illustration: Pond Village] + +The western shore was nearly as sandy as the eastern, but the water was +much smoother, and the bottom was partially covered with the slender +grass-like seaweed (_Zostera_), which we had not seen on the Atlantic +side; there were also a few rude sheds for trying fish on the beach +there, which made it appear less wild. In the few marshes on this side +we afterward saw Samphire, Rosemary, and other plants new to us +inlanders. + +In the summer and fall sometimes, hundreds of blackfish (the +Social Whale, _Globicephalus Melas_ of De Kay; called also Black +Whale-fish, Howling Whale, Bottlehead, etc.), fifteen feet or more in +length, are driven ashore in a single school here. I witnessed such a +scene in July, 1855. A carpenter who was working at the lighthouse +arriving early in the morning remarked that he did not know but he had +lost fifty dollars by coming to his work; for as he came along the Bay +side he heard them driving a school of blackfish ashore, and he had +debated with himself whether he should not go and join them and take his +share, but had concluded to come to his work. After breakfast I came +over to this place, about two miles distant, and near the beach met some +of the fishermen returning from their chase. Looking up and down the +shore, I could see about a mile south some large black masses on the +sand, which I knew must be blackfish, and a man or two about them. As I +walked along towards them I soon came to a huge carcass whose head was +gone and whose blubber had been stripped off some weeks before; the tide +was just beginning to move it, and the stench compelled me to go a long +way round. When I came to Great Hollow I found a fisherman and some boys +on the watch, and counted about thirty blackfish, just killed, with many +lance wounds, and the water was more or less bloody around. They were +partly on shore and partly in the water, held by a rope round their +tails till the tide should leave them. A boat had been somewhat stove by +the tail of one. They were a smooth shining black, like India-rubber, +and had remarkably simple and lumpish forms for animated creatures, with +a blunt round snout or head, whale-like, and simple stiff-looking +flippers. The largest were about fifteen feet long, but one or two were +only five feet long, and still without teeth. The fisherman slashed one +with his jackknife, to show me how thick the blubber was,--about three +inches; and as I passed my finger through the cut it was covered thick +with oil. The blubber looked like pork, and this man said that when they +were trying it the boys would sometimes come round with a piece of bread +in one hand, and take a piece of blubber in the other to eat with it, +preferring it to pork scraps. He also cut into the flesh beneath, which +was firm and red like beef, and he said that for his part he preferred +it when fresh to beef. It is stated that in 1812 blackfish were used as +food by the poor of Bretagne. They were waiting for the tide to leave +these fishes high and dry, that they might strip off the blubber and +carry it to their try-works in their boats, where they try it on the +beach. They get commonly a barrel of oil, worth fifteen or twenty +dollars, to a fish. There were many lances and harpoons in the +boats,--much slenderer instruments than I had expected. An old man came +along the beach with a horse and wagon distributing the dinners of the +fishermen, which their wives had put up in little pails and jugs, and +which he had collected in the Pond Village, and for this service, I +suppose, he received a share of the oil. If one could not tell his own +pail, he took the first he came to. + +As I stood there they raised the cry of "another school," and we could +see their black backs and their blowing about a mile northward, as they +went leaping over the sea like horses. Some boats were already in +pursuit there, driving them toward the beach. Other fishermen and boys +running up began to jump into the boats and push them off from where I +stood, and I might have gone too had I chosen. Soon there were +twenty-five or thirty boats in pursuit, some large ones under sail, and +others rowing with might and main, keeping outside of the school, those +nearest to the fishes striking on the sides of their boats and blowing +horns to drive them on to the beach. It was an exciting race. If they +succeed in driving them ashore each boat takes one share, and then each +man, but if they are compelled to strike them off shore each boat's +company take what they strike. I walked rapidly along the shore toward +the north, while the fishermen were rowing still more swiftly to join +their companions, and a little boy who walked by my side was +congratulating himself that his father's boat was beating another one. +An old blind fisherman whom we met, inquired, "Where are they? I can't +see. Have they got them?" In the mean while the fishes had turned and +were escaping northward toward Provincetown, only occasionally the back +of one being seen. So the nearest crews were compelled to strike them, +and we saw several boats soon made fast, each to its fish, which, four +or five rods ahead, was drawing it like a race-horse straight toward the +beach, leaping half out of water, blowing blood and water from its hole, +and leaving a streak of foam behind. But they went ashore too far north +for us, though we could see the fishermen leap out and lance them on the +sand. It was just like pictures of whaling which I have seen, and a +fisherman told me that it was nearly as dangerous. In his first trial he +had been much excited, and in his haste had used a lance with its +scabbard on, but nevertheless had thrust it quite through his fish. + +I learned that a few days before this one hundred and eighty blackfish +had been driven ashore in one school at Eastham, a little farther south, +and that the keeper of Billingsgate Point light went out one morning +about the same time and cut his initials on the backs of a large school +which had run ashore in the night, and sold his right to them to +Provincetown for one thousand dollars, and probably Provincetown made as +much more. Another fisherman told me that nineteen years ago three +hundred and eighty were driven ashore in one school at Great Hollow. In +the Naturalists' Library, it is said that, in the winter of 1809-10, one +thousand one hundred and ten "approached the shore of Hralfiord, +Iceland, and were captured." De Kay says it is not known why they are +stranded. But one fisherman declared to me that they ran ashore in +pursuit of squid, and that they generally came on the coast about the +last of July. + +About a week afterward, when I came to this shore, it was strewn, as far +as I could see with a glass, with the carcasses of blackfish stripped of +their blubber and their heads cut off; the latter lying higher up. +Walking on the beach was out of the question on account of the stench. +Between Provincetown and Truro they lay in the very path of the stage. +Yet no steps were taken to abate the nuisance, and men were catching +lobsters as usual just off the shore. I was told that they did sometimes +tow them out and sink them; yet I wondered where they got the stones to +sink them with. Of course they might be made into guano, and Cape Cod is +not so fertile that her inhabitants can afford to do without this +manure,--to say nothing of the diseases they may produce. + +After my return home, wishing to learn what was known about the +Blackfish, I had recourse to the reports of the zoological surveys of +the State, and I found that Storer had rightfully omitted it in his +Report on the Fishes, since it is not a fish; so I turned to Emmons's +Report of the Mammalia, but was surprised to find that the seals and +whales were omitted by him, because he had had no opportunity to observe +them. Considering how this State has risen and thriven by its +fisheries.--that the legislature which authorized the Zoological Survey +sat under the emblem of a codfish,--that Nantucket and New Bedford are +within our limits,--that an early riser may find a thousand or fifteen +hundred dollars' worth of blackfish on the shore in a morning,--that the +Pilgrims saw the Indians cutting up a blackfish on the shore at Eastham, +and called a part of that shore "Grampus Bay," from the number of +blackfish they found there, before they got to Plymouth,--and that from +that time to this these fishes have continued to enrich one or two +counties almost annually, and that their decaying carcasses were now +poisoning the air of one county for more than thirty miles,--I thought +it remarkable that neither the popular nor scientific name was to +be found in a report on our mammalia,--a catalogue of the productions of +our land and water. + +We had here, as well as all across the Cape, a fair view of +Provincetown, five or six miles distant over the water toward the west, +under its shrubby sand-hills, with its harbor now full of vessels whose +masts mingled with the spires of its churches, and gave it the +appearance of a quite large seaport town. + +The inhabitants of all the lower Cape towns enjoy thus the prospect of +two seas. Standing on the western or larboard shore, and looking; across +to where the distant mainland looms, they can say. This is Massachusetts +Bay; and then, after an hour's sauntering walk, they may stand on the +starboard side, beyond which no land is seen to loom, and say, This is +the Atlantic Ocean. + +On our way back to the lighthouse, by whose white-washed tower we +steered as securely as the mariner by its light at night, we passed +through a graveyard, which apparently was saved from being blown away by +its slates, for they had enabled a thick bed of huckleberry-bushes to +root themselves amid the graves. We thought it would be worth the while +to read the epitaphs where so many were lost at sea; however, as not +only their lives, but commonly their bodies also, were lost or not +identified, there were fewer epitaphs of this sort than we expected, +though there were not a few. Their graveyard is the ocean. Near the +eastern side we started up a fox in a hollow, the only kind of wild +quadruped, if I except a skunk in a salt-marsh, that we saw in all our +walk (unless painted and box tortoises may be called quadrupeds). He was +a large, plump, shaggy fellow, like a yellow dog, with, as usual, a +white tip to his tail, and looked as if he fared well on the Cape. He +cantered away into the shrub-oaks and bayberry-bushes which chanced to +grow there, but were hardly high enough to conceal him. I saw another +the next summer leaping over the top of a beach-plum a little farther +north, a small arc of his course (which I trust is not yet run), from +which I endeavored in vain to calculate his whole orbit: there were too +many unknown attractions to be allowed for. I also saw the exuviae of a +third fast sinking into the sand, and added the skull to my collection. +Hence I concluded that they must be plenty thereabouts; but a traveller +may meet with more than an inhabitant, since he is more likely to take +an unfrequented route across the country. They told me that in some +years they died off in great numbers by a kind of madness, under the +effect of which they were seen whirling round and round as if in pursuit +of their tails. In Crantz's account of Greenland, he says: "They (the +foxes) live upon birds and their eggs, and, when they can't get them, +upon crowberries, mussels, crabs, and what the sea casts out." + +Just before reaching the light-house, we saw the sun set in the +Bay,--for standing on that narrow Cape was, as I have said, like being +on the deck of a vessel, or rather at the masthead of a man-of-war, +thirty miles at sea, though we knew that at the same moment the sun was +setting behind our native hills, which were just below the horizon in +that direction. This sight drove everything else quite out of our heads, +and Homer and the Ocean came in again with a rush,-- + + [Greek: En d epes Ôkeanô lamron phaos êelioio,] + +the shining torch of the sun fell into the ocean. + + + + +VIII + +THE HIGHLAND LIGHT + +This light-house, known to mariners as the Cape Cod or Highland Light, +is one of our "primary sea-coast lights," and is usually the first seen +by those approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from Europe. It +is forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from Boston +Light. It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which is +here formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, level and +dividers, of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and using one +of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant, +with pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of elevation of the +Bank opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the length +of its slope, and so measured its height on the shingle. It rises one +hundred and ten feet above its immediate base, or about one hundred and +twenty-three feet above mean low water. Graham, who has carefully +surveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty +feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the +horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No +cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is +fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest +land in North Truro. Even this vast clay bank is fast wearing away. +Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or three +rods, have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic roofs +fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and rugged-looking as +rocks; and in one place the bank is curiously eaten out in the form of a +large semicircular crater. + +[Illustration: Dragging a dory up on the beach] + +According to the light-house keeper, the Cape is wasting here on both +sides, though most on the eastern. In some places it had lost many rods +within the last year, and, erelong, the light-house must be moved. We +calculated, _from his data_, how soon the Cape would be quite worn away at +this point, "for," said he, "I can remember sixty years back." We were +even more surprised at this last announcement,--that is, at the slow +waste of life and energy in our informant, for we had taken him to be +not more than forty,--than at the rapid wasting of the Cape, and we +thought that he stood a fair chance to outlive the former. + +Between this October and June of the next year I found that the bank had +lost about forty feet in one place, opposite the light-house, and it was +cracked more than forty feet farther from the edge at the last date, the +shore being strewn with the recent rubbish. But I judged that generally +it was not wearing away here at the rate of more than six feet annually. +Any conclusions drawn from the observations of a few years or one +generation only are likely to prove false, and the Cape may balk +expectation by its durability. In some places even a wrecker's foot-path +down the bank lasts several years. One old inhabitant told us that when +the light-house was built, in 1798, it was calculated that it would +stand forty-five years, allowing the bank to waste one length of fence +each year, "but," said he, "there it is" (or rather another near the +same site, about twenty rods from the edge of the bank). + +The sea is not gaining on the Cape everywhere, for one man told me of a +vessel wrecked long ago on the north of Provincetown whose "bones" (this +was his word) are still visible many rods within the present line of the +beach, half buried in sand. Perchance they lie alongside the timbers of +a whale. The general statement of the inhabitants is that the Cape is +wasting on both sides, but extending itself on particular points on the +south and west, as at Chatham and Monomoy Beaches, and at Billingsgate, +Long, and Race Points. James Freeman stated in his day that above three +miles had been added to Monomoy Beach during the previous fifty years, +and it is said to be still extending as fast as ever. A writer in the +Massachusetts Magazine, in the last century, tells us that "when the +English first settled upon the Cape, there was an island off Chatham, at +three leagues' distance, called Webbs' Island, containing twenty acres, +covered with red-cedar or savin. The inhabitants of Nantucket used to +carry wood from it"; but he adds that in his day a large rock alone +marked the spot, and the water was six fathoms deep there. The entrance +to Nauset Harbor, which was once in Eastham, has now travelled south +into Orleans. The islands in Wellfleet Harbor once formed a continuous +beach, though now small vessels pass between them. And so of many other +parts of this coast. + +Perhaps what the Ocean takes from one part of the Cape it gives to +another,--robs Peter to pay Paul. On the eastern side the sea appears to +be everywhere encroaching on the land. Not only the land is undermined, +and its ruins carried off by currents, but the sand is blown from the +beach directly up the steep bank where it is one hundred and fifty feet +high, and covers the original surface there many feet deep. If you sit +on the edge you will have ocular demonstration of this by soon getting +your eyes full. Thus the bank preserves its height as fast as it is worn +away. This sand is steadily travelling westward at a rapid rate, "more +than a hundred yards," says one writer, within the memory of inhabitants +now living; so that in some places peat-meadows are buried deep under +the sand, and the peat is cut through it; and in one place a large +peat-meadow has made its appearance on the shore in the bank covered +many feet deep, and peat has been cut there. This accounts for that +great pebble of peat which we saw in the surf. The old oysterman had +told us that many years ago he lost a "crittur" by her being mired in a +swamp near the Atlantic side east of his house, and twenty years ago he +lost the swamp itself entirely, but has since seen signs of it appearing +on the beach. He also said that he had seen cedar stumps "as big as +cart-wheels"(!) on the bottom of the Bay, three miles off Billingsate +Point, when leaning over the side of his boat in pleasant weather, and +that that was dry land not long ago. Another told us that a log canoe +known to have been buried many years before on the Bay side at East +Harbor in Truro, where the Cape is extremely narrow, appeared at length +on the Atlantic side, the Cape having rolled over it, and an old woman +said,--"Now, you see, it is true what I told you, that the Cape is +moving." + +The bars along the coast shift with every storm, and in many places +there is occasionally none at all. We ourselves observed the effect of a +single storm with a high tide in the night, in July, 1855. It moved the +sand on the beach opposite the light-house to the depth of six feet, and +three rods in width as far as we could see north and south, and carried +it bodily off no one knows exactly where, laying bare in one place a +large rock five feet high which was invisible before, and narrowing the +beach to that extent. There is usually, as I have said, no bathing on +the back-side of the Cape, on account of the undertow, but when we were +there last, the sea had, three months before, cast up a bar near this +lighthouse, two miles long and ten rods wide, over which the tide did +not flow, leaving a narrow cove, then a quarter of a mile long, between +it and the shore, which afforded excellent bathing. This cove had from +time to time been closed up as the bar travelled northward, in one +instance imprisoning four or five hundred whiting and cod, which died +there, and the water as often turned fresh, and finally gave place to +sand. This bar, the inhabitants assured us, might be wholly removed, and +the water six feet deep there in two or three days. + +The light-house keeper said that when the wind blowed strong on to the +shore, the waves ate fast into the bank, but when it blowed off they +took no sand away; for in the former case the wind heaped up the surface +of the water next to the beach, and to preserve its equilibrium a strong +undertow immediately set back again into the sea which carried with it +the sand and whatever else was in the way, and left the beach hard to +walk on; but in the latter case the undertow set on and carried the sand +with it, so that it was particularly difficult for shipwrecked men to +get to land when the wind blowed on to the shore, but easier when it +blowed off. This undertow, meeting the next surface wave on the bar +which itself has made, forms part of the dam over which the latter +breaks, as over an upright wall. The sea thus plays with the land +holding a sand-bar in its mouth awhile before it swallows it, as a cat +plays with a mouse; but the fatal gripe is sure to come at last. The sea +sends its rapacious east wind to rob the land, but before the former has +got far with its prey, the land sends its honest west wind to recover +some of its own. But, according to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, extent, +and distribution of sand-bars and banks are principally determined, not +by winds and waves but by tides. + +Our host said that you would be surprised if you were on the beach when +the wind blew a hurricane directly on to it, to see that none of the +drift-wood came ashore, but all was carried directly northward and +parallel with the shore as fast as a man can walk, by the inshore +current, which sets strongly in that direction at flood tide. The +strongest swimmers also are carried along with it, and never gain an +inch toward the beach. Even a large rock has been moved half a mile +northward along-the beach. He assured us that the sea was never still on +the back-side of the Cape, but ran commonly as high as your head, so +that a great part of the time you could not launch a boat there, and +even in the calmest weather the waves run six or eight feet up the +beach, though then you could get off on a plank. Champlain and +Pourtrincourt could not land here in 1606, on account of the swell (_la +houlle_), yet the savages came off to them in a canoe. In the Sieur de la +Borde's "Relation des Caraibes," my edition of which was published at +Amsterdam in 1711, at page 530 he says:-- + +"Couroumon a Caraibe, also a star [_i.e._ a god], makes the great _lames á +la mer_, and overturns canoes. _Lames á la mer_ are the long _vagues_ which +are not broken (_entrecoupées_), and such as one sees come to land all in +one piece, from one end of a beach to another, so that, however little +wind there may be, a shallop or a canoe could hardly land (_aborder +terre_) without turning over, or being filled with water." + +But on the Bay side the water even at its edge is often as smooth and +still as in a pond. Commonly there are no boats used along this beach. +There was a boat belonging to the Highland Light which the next keeper +after he had been there a year had not launched, though he said that +there was good fishing just off the shore. Generally the Life Boats +cannot be used when needed. When the waves run very high it is +impossible to get a boat off, however skilfully you steer it, for it +will often be completely covered by the curving edge of the approaching +breaker as by an arch, and so filled with water, or it will be lifted up +by its bows, turned directly over backwards, and all the contents +spilled out. A spar thirty feet long is served in the same way. + +I heard of a party who went off fishing back of Wellfleet some years +ago, in two boats, in calm weather, who, when they had laden their boats +with fish, and approached the land again, found such a swell breaking on +it, though there was no wind, that they were afraid to enter it. At +first they thought to pull for Provincetown, but night was coming on, +and that was many miles distant. Their case seemed a desperate one. As +often as they approached the shore and saw the terrible breakers that +intervened, they were deterred. In short, they were thoroughly +frightened. Finally, having thrown their fish overboard, those in one +boat chose a favorable opportunity, and succeeded, by skill and good +luck, in reaching the land, but they were unwilling to take the +responsibility of telling the others when to come in, and as the other +helmsman was inexperienced, their boat was swamped at once, yet all +managed to save themselves. + +Much smaller waves soon make a boat "nail-sick," as the phrase is. The +keeper said that after a long and strong blow there would be three large +waves, each successively larger than the last, and then no large ones +for some time, and that, when they wished to land in a boat, they came +in on the last and largest wave. Sir Thomas Browne (as quoted in Brand's +Popular Antiquities, p. 372), on the subject of the tenth wave being +"greater or more dangerous than any other," after quoting Ovid,-- + + "Qui venit hic fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes + Posterior nono est, undecimo que prior,"-- + +says, "Which, notwithstanding, is evidently false; nor can it be made +out either by observation either upon the shore or the ocean, as we have +with diligence explored in both. And surely in vain we expect regularity +in the waves of the sea, or in the particular motions thereof, as we may +in its general reciprocations, whose causes are constant, and effects +therefore correspondent; whereas its fluctuations are but motions +subservient, which winds, storms, shores, shelves, and every +interjacency, irregulates." + +We read that the Clay Pounds, were so called "because vessels have had +the misfortune to be pounded against it in gales of wind," which we +regard as a doubtful derivation. There are small ponds here, upheld by +the clay, which were formerly called the Clay Pits. Perhaps this, or +Clay Ponds, is the origin of the name. Water is found in the clay quite +near the surface; but we heard of one man who had sunk a well in the +sand close by, "till he could see stars at noonday," without finding +any. Over this bare Highland the wind has full sweep. Even in July it +blows the wings over the heads of the young turkeys, which do not know +enough to head against it; and in gales the doors and windows are blown +in, and you must hold on to the lighthouse to prevent being blown into +the Atlantic. They who merely keep out on the beach in a storm in the +winter are sometimes rewarded by the Humane Society. If you would feel +the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount +Washington, or at the Highland Light, in Truro. + +It was said in 1794 that more vessels were cast away on the east shore +of Truro than anywhere in Barnstable County. Notwithstanding that this +light-house has since been erected, after almost every storm we read of +one or more vessels wrecked here, and sometimes more than a dozen wrecks +are visible from this point at one time. The inhabitants hear the crash +of vessels going to pieces as they sit round their hearths, and they +commonly date from some memorable shipwreck. If the history of this +beach could be written from beginning to end, it would be a thrilling +page in the history of commerce. + +Truro was settled in the year 1700 as _Dangerfield_. This was a very +appropriate name, for I afterward read on a monument in the graveyard, +near Pamet River, the following inscription:-- + + Sacred + to the memory of + 57 citizens of Truro, + who were lost in seven + vessels, which + foundered at sea in + the memorable gale + of Oct. 3d, 1841. + +Their names and ages by families were recorded on different sides of the +stone. They are said to have been lost on George's Bank, and I was told +that only one vessel drifted ashore on the backside of the Cape, with +the boys locked into the cabin and drowned. It is said that the homes of +all were "within a circuit of two miles." Twenty-eight inhabitants of +Dennis were lost in the same gale; and I read that "in one day, +immediately after this storm, nearly or quite one hundred bodies were +taken up and buried on Cape Cod." The Truro Insurance Company failed for +want of skippers to take charge of its vessels. But the surviving +inhabitants went a-fishing again the next year as usual. I found that it +would not do to speak of shipwrecks there, for almost every family has +lost some of its members at sea. "Who lives in that house?" I inquired. +"Three widows," was the reply. The stranger and the inhabitant view the +shore with very different eyes. The former may have come to see and +admire the ocean in a storm; but the latter looks on it as the scene +where his nearest relatives were wrecked. When I remarked to an old +wrecker partially blind, who was sitting on the edge of the bank smoking +a pipe, which he had just lit with a match of dried beach-grass, that I +supposed he liked to hear the sound of the surf, he answered: "No, I do +not like to hear the sound of the surf." He had lost at least one son in +"the memorable gale," and could tell many a tale of the shipwrecks which +he had witnessed there. + +In the year 1717, a noted pirate named Bellamy was led on to the bar off +Wellfleet by the captain of a _snow_ which he had taken, to whom he had +offered his vessel again if he would pilot him into Provincetown Harbor. +Tradition says that the latter threw over a burning tar-barrel in the +night, which drifted ashore, and the pirates followed it. A storm coming +on, their whole fleet was wrecked, and more than a hundred dead bodies +lay along the shore. Six who escaped shipwreck were executed. "At times +to this day" (1793), says the historian of Wellfleet, "there are King +William and Queen Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces of silver called +cob-money. The violence of the seas moves the sands on the outer bar, so +that at times the iron caboose of the ship [that is, Bellamy's] at low +ebbs has been seen." Another tells us that, "For many years after this +shipwreck, a man of a very singular and frightful aspect used every +spring and autumn to be seen travelling on the Cape, who was supposed to +have been one of Bellamy's crew. The presumption is that he went to some +place where money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such a supply +as his exigencies required. When he died, many pieces of gold were found +in a girdle which he constantly wore." + +[Illustration: An old wrecker at home] + +As I was walking on the beach here in my last visit, looking for shells +and pebbles, just after that storm, which I have mentioned as moving the +sand to a great depth, not knowing but I might find some cob-money, I +did actually pick up a French crown piece, worth about a dollar and six +cents, near high-water mark, on the still moist sand, just under the +abrupt, caving base of the bank. It was of a dark slate color, and +looked like a flat pebble, but still bore a very distinct and handsome +head of Louis XV., and the usual legend on the reverse. _Sit Nomen Domini +Benedictum_ (Blessed be the Name of the Lord), a pleasing sentiment to +read in the sands of the sea-shore, whatever it might be stamped on, and +I also made out the date, 1741. Of course, I thought at first that it +was that same old button which I have found so many times, but my knife +soon showed the silver. Afterward, rambling on the bars at low tide, I +cheated my companion by holding up round shells (_Scutelloe_) between my +fingers, whereupon he quickly stripped and came off to me. + +In the Revolution, a British ship of war called the Somerset was wrecked +near the Clay Pounds, and all on board, some hundreds in number, were +taken prisoners. My informant said that he had never seen any mention of +this in the histories, but that at any rate he knew of a silver watch, +which one of those prisoners by accident left there, which was still +going to tell the story. But this event is noticed by some writers. + +The next summer I saw a sloop from Chatham dragging for anchors and +chains just oft' this shore. She had her boats out at the work while she +shuffled about on various tacks, and, when anything was found, drew up +to hoist it on board. It is a singular employment, at which men are +regularly hired and paid for their industry, to hunt to-day in pleasant +weather for anchors which have been lost,--the sunken faith and hope of +mariners, to which they trusted in vain; now, perchance, it is the rusty +one of some old pirate's ship or Norman fisherman, whose cable parted +here two hundred years ago; and now the best bower anchor of a Canton or +a California ship, which has gone about her business. If the roadsteads +of the spiritual ocean could be thus dragged, what rusty flukes of hope +deceived and parted chain-cables of faith might again be windlassed +aboard! enough to sink the finder's craft, or stock new navies to the +end of time. The bottom of the sea is strewn with anchors, some deeper +and some shallower, and alternately covered and uncovered by the sand, +perchance with a small length of iron cable still attached,--to which +where is the other end? So many unconcluded tales to be continued +another time. So, if we had diving-bells adapted to the spiritual deeps, +we should see anchors with their cables attached, as thick as eels in +vinegar, all wriggling vainly toward their holding-ground. But that is +not treasure for us which another man has lost; rather it is for us to +seek what no other man has found or can find,--not be Chatham men, +dragging for anchors. + +The annals of this voracious beach! who could write them, unless it were +a shipwrecked sailor? How many who have seen it have seen it only in the +midst of danger and distress, the last strip of earth which their mortal +eyes beheld. Think of the amount of suffering which a single strand has +witnessed. The ancients would have represented it as a sea-monster with +open jaws, more terrible than Scylla and Charybdis. An inhabitant of +Truro told me that about a fortnight after the _St. John_ was wrecked at +Cohasset he found two bodies on the shore at the Clay Pounds. They were +those of a man, and a corpulent woman. The man had thick boots on, +though his head was off, but "it was alongside." It took the finder some +weeks to get over the sight. Perhaps they were man and wife, and whom +God had joined the ocean currents had not put asunder. Yet by what +slight accidents at first may they have been associated in their +drifting. Some of the bodies of those passengers were picked up far out +at sea, boxed up and sunk; some brought ashore and buried. There are +more consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters notice. The Gulf +Stream may return some to their native shores, or drop them in some +out-of-the-way cave of Ocean, where time and the elements will write new +riddles with their bones.--But to return to land again. + +In this bank, above the clay, I counted in the summer, two hundred holes +of the Bank Swallow within a space six rods long, and there were at +least one thousand old birds within three times that distance, +twittering over the surf. I had never associated them in my thoughts +with the beach before. One little boy who had been a-birds-nesting had +got eighty swallows' eggs for his share! Tell it not to the Humane +Society. There were many young birds on the clay beneath, which had +tumbled out and died. Also there were many Crow-blackbirds hopping about +in the dry fields, and the Upland Plover were breeding close by the +light-house. The keeper had once cut off one's wing while mowing, as she +sat on her eggs there. This is also a favorite resort for gunners in the +fall to shoot the Golden Plover. As around the shores of a pond are seen +devil's-needles, butterflies, etc., so here, to my surprise, I saw at +the same season great devil's-needles of a size proportionably larger, +or nearly as big as my finger, incessantly coasting up and down the edge +of the bank, and butterflies also were hovering over it, and I never saw +so many dorr-bugs and beetles of various kinds as strewed the beach. +They had apparently flown over the bank in the night, and could not get +up again, and some had perhaps fallen into the sea and were washed +ashore. They may have been in part attracted by the light-house lamps. + +The Clay Pounds are a more fertile tract than usual. We saw some fine +patches of roots and corn here. As generally on the Cape, the plants had +little stalk or leaf, but ran remarkably to seed. The corn was hardly +more than half as high as in the interior, yet the ears were large and +full, and one farmer told us that he could raise forty bushels on an +acre without manure, and sixty with it. The heads of the rye also were +remarkably large. The Shadbush (_Amelanchier_), Beach Plums, and +Blueberries (_Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum_), like the apple-trees and oaks, +were very dwarfish, spreading over the sand, but at the same time very +fruitful. The blueberry was but an inch or two high, and its fruit often +rested on the ground, so that you did not suspect the presence of the +bushes, even on those bare hills, until you were treading on them. I +thought that this fertility must be owing mainly to the abundance of +moisture in the atmosphere, for I observed that what little grass there +was was remarkably laden with dew in the morning, and in summer dense +imprisoning fogs frequently last till midday, turning one's beard into a +wet napkin about his throat, and the oldest inhabitant may lose his way +within a stone's throw of his house or be obliged to follow the beach +for a guide. The brick house attached to the light-house was exceedingly +damp at that season, and, writing-paper lost all its stiffness in it. It +was impossible to dry your towel after bathing, or to press flowers +without their mildewing. The air was so moist that we rarely wished to +drink, though we could at all times taste the salt on our lips. Salt was +rarely used at table, and our host told us that his cattle invariably +refused it when it was offered them, they got so much with their grass +and at every breath, but he said that a sick horse or one just from the +country would sometimes take a hearty draught of salt water, and seemed +to like it and be the better for it. + +It was surprising to see how much water was contained in the terminal +bud of the sea-side golden-rod, standing in the sand early in July, and +also how turnips, beets, carrots, etc., flourished even in pure sand. A +man travelling by the shore near there not long before us noticed +something green growing in the pure sand of the beach, just at +high-water mark, and on approaching found it to be a bed of beets +flourishing vigorously, probably from seed washed out of the _Franklin_. +Also beets and turnips came up in the sea-weed used for manure in many +parts of the Cape. This suggests how various plants may have been +dispersed over the world to distant islands and continents. Vessels, +with seeds in their cargoes, destined for particular ports, where +perhaps they were not needed, have been cast away on desolate islands, +and though their crews perished, some of their seeds have been +preserved. Out of many kinds a few would find a soil and climate adapted +to them, become naturalized, and perhaps drive out the native plants at +last, and so fit the land for the habitation of man. It is an ill wind +that blows nobody any good, and for the time lamentable shipwrecks may +thus contribute a new vegetable to a continent's stock, and prove on the +whole a lasting blessing to its inhabitants. Or winds and currents might +effect the same without the intervention of man. What indeed are the +various succulent plants which grow on the beach but such beds of beets +and turnips, sprung originally from seeds which perhaps were cast on the +waters for this end, though we do not know the _Franklin_ which they came +out of? In ancient times some Mr. Bell (?) was sailing this way in his +ark with seeds of rocket, salt-wort, sandwort, beachgrass, samphire, +bayberry, poverty-grass, etc., all nicely labelled with directions, +intending to establish a nursery somewhere; and did not a nursery get +established, though he thought that he had failed? + +About the light-house I observed in the summer the pretty _Polygala +polygama_, spreading ray-wise flat on the ground, white pasture thistles +(_Cirsium pumilum_), and amid the shrubbery the _Smilax glauca_, which is +commonly said not to grow so far north; near the edge of the banks about +half a mile southward, the broom crow-berry (_Empetrum Conradii_), for +which Plymouth is the only locality in Massachusetts usually named, +forms pretty green mounds four or five feet in diameter by one foot +high,--soft, springy beds for the wayfarer. I saw it afterward in +Provincetown, but prettiest of all the scarlet pimpernel, or poor-man's +weather-glass (_Anagallis-arvensis_), greets you in fair weather on almost +every square yard of sand. From Yarmouth, I have received the _Chrysopsis +falcata_ (golden aster), and _Vaccinium stamineum_ (Deerberry or Squaw +Huckleberry), with fruit not edible, sometimes as large as a cranberry +(Sept. 7). + +[Illustration: The Highland Light] + +The Highland Light-house, [1] where we were staying, is a +substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by +an iron cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story +high, also of brick, and built by government. As we were going to spend +the night in a light-house, we wished to make the most of so novel an +experience, and therefore told our host that we would like to accompany +him when he went to light up. At rather early candle-light he lighted a +small Japan lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on +ordinary occasions, and told us to follow him. He led the way first +through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the light-house, and +then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, between whitewashed +walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light-house, where +many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a +winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil +and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into +the lantern. It was a neat building, with everything in apple-pie order, +and no danger of anything; rusting there for want of oil. The light +consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave +reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal +circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down +the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by +large plate-glass windows, which defied the storms, with iron sashes, on +which rested the iron cap. All the iron work, except the floor, was +painted white. And thus the light-house was completed. We walked slowly +round in that narrow space as the keeper lighted each lamp in +succession, conversing with him at the same moment that many a sailor on +the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His duty was to +fill and trim and light his lamps, and keep bright the reflectors. He +filled them every morning, and trimmed them commonly once in the course +of the night. He complained of the quality of the oil which was +furnished. This house consumes about eight hundred gallons in a year, +which cost not far from one dollar a gallon; but perhaps a few lives +would be saved if better oil were provided. Another light-house keeper +said that the same proportion of winter-strained oil was sent to the +southernmost light-house in the Union as to the most northern. Formerly, +when this light-house had windows with small and thin panes, a severe +storm would sometimes break the glass, and then they were obliged to put +up a wooden shutter in haste to save their lights and reflectors,--and +sometimes in tempests, when the mariner stood most in need of their +guidance, they had thus nearly converted the light-house into a dark +lantern, which emitted only a few feeble rays, and those commonly on the +land or lee side. He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility +which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that +many a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the +oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle +in his house at midnight, and fill his lamps over again,--for he could +not have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat on the +windows. His successor told me that he could not keep too hot a fire in +such a case. All this because the oil was poor. The government lighting +the mariners on its wintry coast with summer-strained oil, to save +expense! That were surely a summer-strained mercy. + +This keeper's successor, who kindly entertained me the next year stated +that one extremely cold night, when this and all the neighboring lights +were burning summer oil, but he had been provident enough to reserve a +little winter oil against emergencies, he was waked up with anxiety, and +found that his oil was congealed, and his lights almost extinguished; +and when, after many hours' exertion, he had succeeded in replenishing +his reservoirs with winter oil at the wick end, and with difficulty had +made them burn, he looked out and found that the other lights in the +neighborhood, which were usually visible to him, had gone out, and he +heard afterward that the Pamet River and Billingsgate Lights also had +been extinguished. + +Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows caused him much +trouble, and in sultry summer nights the moths covered them and dimmed +his lights; sometimes even small birds flew against the thick plate +glass, and were found on the ground beneath in the morning with their +necks broken. In the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small +yellow-birds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds, thus lying dead +around the light-house; and sometimes in the fall he had seen where a +golden plover had struck the glass in the night, and left the down and +the fatty part of its breast on it. + +Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his light shining before +men. Surely the light-house keeper has a responsible, if an easy, +office. When his lamp goes out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such +accident is pardoned. + +I thought it a pity that some poor student did not live there, to profit +by all that light, since he would not rob the mariner. "Well," he said, +"I do sometimes come up here and read the newspaper when they are noisy +down below." Think of fifteen argand lamps to read the newspaper by! +Government oil!--light, enough, perchance, to read the Constitution by! +I thought that he should read nothing less than his Bible by that light. +I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a light-house, +which was more light, we think, than the University afforded. + +When we had come down and walked a dozen rods from the light-house, we +found that we could not get the full strength of its light on the narrow +strip of land between it and the shore, being too low for the focus, and +we saw only so many feeble and rayless stars; but at forty rods inland +we could see to read, though we were still indebted to only one lamp. +Each reflector sent forth a separate "fan" of light,--one shone on the +windmill, and one in the hollow, while the intervening spaces were in +shadow. This light is said to be visible twenty nautical miles and more +from an observer fifteen feet above the level of the sea. We could see +the revolving light at Race Point, the end of the Cape, about nine miles +distant, and also the light on Long Point, at the entrance of +Provincetown Harbor, and one of the distant Plymouth Harbor Lights, +across the Bay, nearly in a range with the last, like a star in the +horizon. The keeper thought that the other Plymouth Light was concealed +by being exactly in a range with the Long Point Light. He told us that +the mariner was sometimes led astray by a mackerel fisher's lantern, who +was afraid of being run down in the night, or even by a cottager's +light, mistaking them for some well-known light on the coast, and, when +he discovered his mistake, was wont to curse the prudent fisher or the +wakeful cottager without reason. + +Though it was once declared that Providence placed this mass of clay +here on purpose to erect a light-house on, the keeper said that the +light-house should have been erected half a mile farther south, where +the coast begins to bend, and where the light could be seen at the same +time with the Nauset Lights, and distinguished from them. They now talk +of building one there. It happens that the present one is the more +useless now, so near the extremity of the Cape, because other +light-houses have since been erected there. + +Among the many regulations of the Light-house Board, hanging against the +wall here, many of them excellent, perhaps, if there were a regiment +stationed here to attend to them, there is one requiring the keeper to +keep an account of the number of vessels which pass his light during the +day. But there are a hundred vessels in sight at once, steering in all +directions, many on the very verge of the horizon, and he must have more +eyes than Argus, and be a good deal farther-sighted, to tell which are +passing his light. It is an employment in some respects best suited to +the habits of the gulls which coast up and down here, and circle over +the sea. + +I was told by the next keeper, that on the 8th of June following, a +particularly clear and beautiful morning, he rose about half an hour +before sunrise, and having a little time to spare, for his custom was to +extinguish his lights at sunrise, walked down toward the shore to see +what he might find. When he got to the edge of the bank he looked up, +and, to his astonishment, saw the sun rising, and already part way above +the horizon. Thinking that his clock was wrong, he made haste back, and +though it was still too early by the clock, extinguished his lamps, and +when he had got through and come down, he looked out the window, and, to +his still greater astonishment, saw the sun just where it was before, +two-thirds above the horizon. He showed me where its rays fell on the +wall across the room. He proceeded to make a fire, and when he had done, +there was the sun still at the same height. Whereupon, not trusting to +his own eyes any longer, he called up his wife to look at it, and she +saw it also. There were vessels in sight on the ocean, and their crews, +too, he said, must have seen it, for its rays fell on them. It remained +at that height for about fifteen minutes by the clock, and then rose as +usual, and nothing else extraordinary happened during that day. Though +accustomed to the coast, he had never witnessed nor heard of such a +phenomenon before. I suggested that there might have been a cloud in the +horizon invisible to him, which rose with the sun, and his clock was +only as accurate as the average; or perhaps, as he denied the +possibility of this, it was such a looming of the sun as is said to +occur at Lake Superior and elsewhere. Sir John Franklin, for instance, +says in his Narrative, that when he was on the shore of the Polar Sea, +the horizontal refraction varied so much one morning that "the upper +limb of the sun twice appeared at the horizon before it finally rose." + +He certainly must be a son of Aurora to whom the sun looms, when there +are so many millions to whom it _glooms_ rather, or who never see it till +an hour _after_ it has risen. But it behooves us old stagers to keep our +lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not trust to the sun's +looming. + +This keeper remarked that the centre of the flame should be exactly +opposite the centre of the reflectors, and that accordingly, if he was +not careful to turn down his wicks in the morning, the sun falling on +the reflectors on the south side of the building would set fire to them, +like a burning-glass, in the coldest day, and he would look up at noon +and see them all lighted! When your light is ready to give light, it is +readiest to receive it, and the sun will light it. His successor said +that he had never known them to blaze in such a case, but merely to +smoke. + +I saw that this was a place of wonders. In a sea turn or shallow fog +while I was there the next summer, it being clear overhead, the edge of +the bank twenty rods distant, appeared like a mountain pasture in the +horizon. I was completely deceived by it, and I could then understand +why mariners sometimes ran ashore in such cases, especially in the +night, supposing it to be far away, though they could see the land. Once +since this, being in a large oyster boat two or three hundred miles from +here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of mist on land and +water, we came so near to running on to the land before our skipper was +aware of it, that the first warning was my hearing the sound of the surf +under my elbow. I could almost have jumped ashore, and we were obliged +to go about very suddenly to prevent striking. The distant light for +which we were steering, supposing it a light-house five or six miles +off, came through the cracks of a fisherman's bunk not more than six +rods distant. + +The keeper entertained us handsomely in his solitary little ocean house. +He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our +queries struck him, rung as clear as a bell in response. The light-house +lamps a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it as +bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that +night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike the last, this +was as still as a summer night. I thought, as I lay there, half awake +and half asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights above +my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the Ocean +stream--mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the various +watches of the night--were directed toward my couch. + +[1] The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a _Fresnel_ light. + + + + +IX + +THE SEA AND THE DESERT + +The light-house lamps were still burning, though now with a silvery +lustre, when I rose to see the sun come out of the Ocean; for he still +rose eastward of us; but I was convinced that he must have come out of a +dry bed beyond that stream, though he seemed to come out of the water. + + "The sun once more touched the fields, + Mounting to heaven from the fair flowing + Deep-running Ocean." + +Now we saw countless sails of mackerel fishers abroad on the deep, one +fleet in the north just pouring round the Cape, another standing down +toward Chatham, and our host's son went off to join some lagging member +of the first which had not yet left the Bay. + +Before we left the light-house we were obliged to anoint our shoes +faithfully with tallow, for walking on the beach, in the salt water and +the sand, had turned them red and crisp. To counterbalance this, I have +remarked that the seashore, even where muddy, as it is not here, is +singularly clean; for notwithstanding the spattering of the water and +mud and squirting of the clams while walking to and from the boat, your +best black pants retain no stain nor dirt, such as they would acquire +from walking in the country. + +We have heard that a few days after this, when the Provincetown Bank was +robbed, speedy emissaries from Provincetown made particular inquiries +concerning us at this light-house. Indeed, they traced us all the way +down the Cape, and concluded that we came by this unusual route down the +back-side and on foot, in order that we might discover a way to get off +with our booty when we had committed the robbery. The Cape is so long +and narrow, and so bare withal, that it is wellnigh impossible for a +stranger to visit it without the knowledge of its inhabitants generally, +unless he is wrecked on to it in the night. So, when this robbery +occurred, all their suspicions seem to have at once centred on us two +travellers who had just passed down it. If we had not chanced to leave +the Cape so soon, we should probably have been arrested. The real +robbers were two young men from Worcester County who travelled with a +centre-bit, and are said to have done their work very neatly. But the +only bank that we pried into was the great Cape Cod sand-bank, and we +robbed it only of an old French crown piece, some shells and pebbles, +and the materials of this story. + +Again we took to the beach for another day (October 13), walking along +the shore of the resounding sea, determined to get it into us. We wished +to associate with the Ocean until it lost the pond-like look which it +wears to a country-man. We still thought that we could see the other +side. Its surface was still more sparkling than the day before, and we +beheld "the countless smilings of the ocean waves"; though some of them +were pretty broad grins, for still the wind blew and the billows broke +in foam along the beach. The nearest beach to us on the other side, +whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, +whose capital is Santiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have +been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west +now. At first we were abreast of that part of Portugal _entre Douro e +Mino_, and then Galicia and the port of Pontevedra opened to us as we +walked along; but we did not enter, the breakers ran so high. The bold +headland of Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, jutted toward us +next, with its vain brag, for we flung back,--"Here is Cape Cod,--Cape +Land's-Beginning." A little indentation toward the north,--for the land +loomed to our imaginations by a common mirage,--we knew was the Bay of +Biscay, and we sang:-- + + "There we lay, till next day. + In the Bay of Biscay O!" + +A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and +farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we +inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,--for we had +the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,--the +inhabitants shouted _Ne plus ultra_ (no more beyond), but the wind bore to +us the truth only, _plus ultra_ (more beyond), and over the Bay westward +was echoed _ultra_ (beyond). We spoke to them through the surf about the +Far West, the true Hesperia, [Greek: eô peras] or end of the day, the +This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the _Pacific_, and we +advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the +shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,--the only _ne_ plus +ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had +taken the wind out of all their sails. + +We could not perceive that any of their leavings washed up here, though +we picked up a child's toy, a small dismantled boat, which may have been +lost at Pontevedra. + +The Cape became narrower and narrower as we approached its wrist between +Truro and Provincetown, and the shore inclined more decidedly to the +west. At the head of East Harbor Creek, the Atlantic is separated but by +half a dozen rods of sand from the tide-waters of the Bay. From the Clay +Pounds the bank flatted off for the last ten miles to the extremity at +Race Point, though the highest parts, which are called "islands" from +their appearance at a distance on the sea, were still seventy or eighty +feet above the Atlantic, and afforded a good view of the latter, as well +as a constant view of the Bay, there being no trees nor a hill +sufficient to interrupt it. Also the sands began to invade the land more +and more, until finally they had entire possession from sea to sea, at +the narrowest part. For three or four miles between Truro and +Provincetown there were no inhabitants from shore to shore, and there +were but three or four houses for twice that distance. + +As we plodded along, either by the edge of the ocean, where the sand was +rapidly drinking up the last wave that wet it, or over the sand-hills of +the bank, the mackerel fleet continued to pour round the Cape north of +us, ten or fifteen miles distant, in countless numbers, schooner after +schooner, till they made a city on the water. They were so thick that +many appeared to be afoul of one another; now all standing on this tack, +now on that. We saw how well the New-Englanders had followed up Captain +John Smith's suggestions with regard to the fisheries, made in 1616,--to +what a pitch they had carried "this contemptible trade of fish," as he +significantly styles it, and were now equal to the Hollanders whose +example he holds up for the English to emulate; notwithstanding that "in +this faculty," as he says, "the former are so naturalized, and of their +vents so certainly acquainted, as there is no likelihood they will ever +be paralleled, having two or three thousand busses, flat-bottoms, +sword-pinks, todes, and such like, that breeds them sailors, mariners, +soldiers, and merchants, never to be wrought out of that trade and fit +for any other." We thought that it would take all these names and more +to describe the numerous craft which we saw. Even then, some years +before our "renowned sires" with their "peerless dames" stepped on +Plymouth Rock, he wrote, "Newfoundland doth yearly freight neir eight +hundred sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, poor-john, and cor +fish," though all their supplies must be annually transported from +Europe. Why not plant a colony here then, and raise those supplies on +the spot? "Of all the four parts of the world," says he, "that I have +yet seen, not inhabited, could I have but means to transport a colony, I +would rather live here than anywhere. And if it did not maintain itself, +were we but once indifferently well fitted, let us starve." Then +"fishing before your doors," you "may every night sleep quietly ashore, +with good cheer and what fires you will, or, when you please, with your +wives and family." Already he anticipates "the new towns in New England +in memory of their old,"--and who knows what may be discovered in the +"heart and entrails" of the land, "seeing even the very edges," etc., +etc. + +[Illustration: Towing along shore] + +All this has been accomplished, and more, and where is Holland now? +Verily the Dutch have taken it. There was no long interval between the +suggestion of Smith and the eulogy of Burke. + +Still one after another the mackerel schooners hove in sight round the +head of the Cape, "whitening all the sea road," and we watched each one +for a moment with an undivided interest. It seemed a pretty sport. Here +in the country it is only a few idle boys or loafers that go a-fishing +on a rainy day; but there it appeared as if every able-bodied man and +helpful boy in the Bay had gone out on a pleasure excursion in their +yachts, and all would at last land and have a chowder on the Cape. The +gazetteer tells you gravely how many of the men and boys of these towns +are engaged in the whale, cod, and mackerel fishery, how many go to the +banks of Newfoundland, or the coast of Labrador, the Straits of Belle +Isle or the Bay of Chaleurs (Shalore the sailors call it); as if I were +to reckon up the number of boys in Concord who are engaged during the +summer in the perch, pickerel, bream, hornpout, and shiner fishery, of +which no one keeps the statistics,--though I think that it is pursued +with as much profit to the moral and intellectual man (or boy), and +certainly with less danger to the physical one. + +One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a printer, and was somewhat +of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and +his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he +said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again +as if only an afternoon had intervened. + +I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole +day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a +serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally +shiftlessness and a grovelling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like +industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus +everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, _viewed from +the shore_, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous. + +I once sailed three miles on a mackerel cruise myself. It was a Sunday +evening after a very warm day in which there had been frequent +thunder-showers, and I had walked along the shore from Cohasset to +Duxbury. I wished to get over from the last place to Clark's Island, but +no boat could stir, they said, at that stage of the tide, they being +left high on the mud. At length I learned that the tavern-keeper, +Winsor, was going out mackerelling with seven men that evening, and +would take me. When there had been due delay, we one after another +straggled down to the shore in a leisurely manner, as if waiting for the +tide still, and in India-rubber boots, or carrying our shoes in our +hands, waded to the boats, each of the crew bearing an armful of wood, +and one a bucket of new potatoes besides. Then they resolved that each +should bring one more armful of wood, and that would be enough. They had +already got a barrel of water, and had some more in the schooner. We +shoved the boats a dozen rods over the mud and water till they floated, +then rowing half a mile to the vessel climbed aboard, and there we were +in a mackerel schooner, a fine stout vessel of forty-three tons, whose +name I forget. The baits were not dry on the hooks. There was the mill +in which they ground the mackerel, and the trough to hold it, and the +long-handled dipper to cast it overboard with; and already in the harbor +we saw the surface rippled with schools of small mackerel, the real +_Scomber vernalis_. The crew proceeded leisurely to weigh anchor and raise +their two sails, there being a fair but very slight wind;--and the sun +now setting clear and shining on the vessel after the thundershowers, I +thought that I could not have commenced the voyage under more favorable +auspices. They had four dories and commonly fished in them, else they +fished on the starboard side aft where their fines hung ready, two to a +man. The boom swung round once or twice, and Winsor cast overboard the +foul juice of mackerel mixed with rain-water which remained in his +trough, and then we gathered about the helmsman and told stories. I +remember that the compass was affected by iron in its neighborhood and +varied a few degrees. There was one among us just returned from +California, who was now going as passenger for his health and +amusement. They expected to be gone about a week, to begin fishing the +next morning, and to carry their fish fresh to Boston. They landed me at +Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims landed, for my companions wished to +get some milk for the voyage. But I had seen the whole of it. The rest +was only going to sea and catching the mackerel. Moreover, it was as +well that I did not remain with them, considering the small quantity of +supplies they had taken. + +Now I saw the mackerel fleet _on its fishing-ground_, though I was not at +first aware of it. So my experience was complete. + +It was even more cold and windy to-day than before, and we were +frequently glad to take shelter behind a sand-hill. None of the elements +were resting. On the beach there is a ceaseless activity, always +something going on, in storm and in calm, winter and summer, night and +day. Even the sedentary man here enjoys a breadth of view which is +almost equivalent to motion. In clear weather the laziest may look +across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as +far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too +lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash +and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a +whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, +the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings. No +creature could move slowly where there was so much life around. The few +wreckers were either going or coming, and the ships and the sand-pipers, +and the screaming gulls overhead; nothing stood still but the shore. The +little beach-birds trotted past close to the water's edge, or paused but +an instant to swallow their food, keeping time with the elements. I +wondered how they ever got used to the sea, that they ventured so near +the waves. Such tiny inhabitants the land brought forth! except one fox. +And what could a fox do, looking on the Atlantic from that high bank? +What is the sea to a fox? Sometimes we met a wrecker with his cart and +dog,--and his dog's faint bark at us wayfarers, heard through the +roaring of the surf, sounded ridiculously faint. To see a little +trembling dainty-footed cur stand on the margin of the ocean, and +ineffectually bark at a beach-bird, amid the roar of the Atlantic! Come +with design to bark at a whale, perchance! That sound will do for +farmyards. All the dogs looked out of place there, naked and as if +shuddering at the vastness; and I thought that they would not have been +there had it not been for the countenance of their masters. Still less +could you think of a cat bending her steps that way, and shaking her wet +foot over the Atlantic; yet even this happens sometimes, they tell me. +In summer I saw the tender young of the Piping Plover, like chickens +just hatched, mere pinches of down on two legs, running in troops, with +a faint peep, along the edge of the waves. I used to see packs of +half-wild dogs haunting the lonely beach on the south shore of Staten +Island, in New York Bay, for the sake of the carrion there cast up; and +I remember that once, when for a long time I had heard a furious barking +in the tall grass of the marsh, a pack of half a dozen large dogs burst +forth on to the beach, pursuing a little one which ran straight to me +for protection, and I afforded it with some stones, though at some risk +to myself; but the next day the little one was the first to bark at me. +under these circumstances I could not but remember the words of the +poet:-- + + "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, + Thou art not so unkind + As _his_ ingratitude; + Thy tooth is not so keen, + Because thou art not seen, + Although thy breath be rude. + + "Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, + Thou dost not bite so nigh + As benefits forgot; + Though thou the waters warp, + Thy sting is not so sharp + As friend remembered not." + +Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of a horse or ox which lay +on the beach there, where there was no living creature in sight, a dog +would unexpectedly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful of +offal. + +The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point +from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The +waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to +be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and +the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime. + +It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in it. Strewn with +crabs, horse-shoes, and razor-clams, and whatever the sea casts up,--a +vast _morgue_, where famished dogs may range in packs, and crows come +daily to glean the pittance which the tide leaves them. The carcasses of +men and beasts together lie stately up upon its shelf, rotting and +bleaching in the sun and waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, +and tucks fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature, inhumanly +sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where +gulls wheel amid the spray. + +We saw this forenoon what, at a distance, looked like a bleached log +with a branch still left on it. It proved to be one of the principal +bones of a whale, whose carcass, having been stripped of blubber at sea +and cut adrift, had been washed up some months before. It chanced that +this was the most conclusive evidence which we met with to prove, what +the Copenhagen antiquaries assert, that these shores were the +_Furdustrandas_ which Thorhall, the companion of Thorfinn during his +expedition to Vinland in 1007. sailed past in disgust. It appears that +after they had left the Cape and explored the country about +Straum-Fiordr (Buzzards' Bay!), Thorhall, who was disappointed at not +getting any wine to drink there, determined to sail north again in +search of Vinland. Though the antiquaries have given us the original +Icelandic. I prefer to quote their translation, since theirs is the only +Latin which I know to have been aimed at Cape Cod. + + "Cum parati erant, sublato + velo, cecinit Thorhallus: + Eò redeamus, ubi conterranei + sunt nostri! faciamus aliter, + expansi arenosi peritum, + lata navis explorare curricula: + dum procellam incitantes gladii + moræ impatientes, qui terram + collaudant, Furdustrandas + inhabitant et coquunt balænas." + +In other words: "When they were ready and their sail hoisted, Thorhall +sang: Let us return thither where our fellow-countrymen are. Let us make +a bird [1] skilful to fly through the heaven of sand, [2] to explore the +broad track of ships; while warriors who impel to the tempest of swords, +[3] who praise the land, inhabit Wonder-Strands, _and cook whales_.'" And +so he sailed north past Cape Cod, as the antiquaries say, "and was +shipwrecked on to Ireland." + +Though once there were more whales cast up here, I think that it was +never more wild than now. We do not associate the idea of antiquity with +the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of +the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians +have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized +man and the savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed. The ocean +is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, +and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the +gardens of our sea-side residences. Serpents, bears, hyenas, tigers, +rapidly vanish as civilization advances, but the most populous and +civilized city cannot scare a shark far from its wharves. It is no +further advanced than Singapore, with its tigers, in this respect. The +Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I +had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish +people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see +families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as +the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the +sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,--to +realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark. + +We saw no fences as we walked the beach, no birchen _riders_, highest of +rails, projecting into the sea to keep the cows from wading round, +nothing to remind us that man was proprietor of the shore. Yet a Truro +man did tell us that owners of land on the east side of that town were +regarded as owning the beach, in order that they might have the control +of it so far as to defend themselves against the encroachments of the +sand and the beach-grass,--for even this friend is sometimes regarded as +a foe; but he said that this was not the case on the Bay side. Also I +have seen in sheltered parts of the Bay temporary fences running to +low-water mark, the posts being set in sills or sleepers placed +transversely. + +After we had been walking many hours, the mackerel fleet still hovered +in the northern horizon nearly in the same direction, but farther off, +hull down. Though their sails were set they never sailed away, nor yet +came to anchor, but stood on various tacks as close together as vessels +in a haven, and we in our ignorance thought that they were contending +patiently with adverse winds, beating eastward; but we learned afterward +that they were even then on their fishing-ground, and that they caught +mackerel without taking in their mainsails or coming to anchor, "a smart +breeze" (thence called a mackerel breeze) "being," as one says, +"considered most favorable" for this purpose. We counted about two +hundred sail of mackerel fishers within one small arc of the horizon, +and a nearly equal number had disappeared southward. Thus they hovered +about the extremity of the Cape, like moths round a candle; the lights +at Race Point and Long Point being bright candles for them at +night,--and at this distance they looked fair and white, as if they had +not yet flown into the light, but nearer at hand afterward, we saw how +some had formerly singed their wings and bodies. + +A village seems thus, where its able-bodied men are all ploughing the +ocean together, as a common field. In North Truro the women and girls +may sit at their doors, and see where their husbands and brothers are +harvesting their mackerel fifteen or twenty miles off, on the sea, with +hundreds of white harvest wagons, just as in the country the farmers' +wives sometimes see their husbands working in a distant hillside field. +But the sound of no dinner-horn can reach the fisher's ear. + +Having passed the narrowest part of the waist of the Cape, though still +in Truro, for this township is about twelve miles long on the shore, we +crossed over to the Bay side, not half a mile distant, in order to spend +the noon on the nearest shrubby sand-hill in Provincetown, called Mount +Ararat, which rises one hundred feet above the ocean. On our way thither +we had occasion to admire the various beautiful forms and colors of the +sand, and we noticed an interesting mirage, which I have since found +that Hitchcock also observed on the sands of the Cape. We were crossing +a shallow valley in the Desert, where the smooth and spotless sand +sloped upward by a small angle to the horizon on every side, and at the +lowest part was a long chain of clear but shallow pools. As we were +approaching these for a drink in a diagonal direction across the valley, +they appeared inclined at a slight but decided angle to the horizon, +though they were plainly and broadly connected with one another, and +there was not the least ripple to suggest a current; so that by the time +we had reached a convenient part of one we seemed to have ascended +several feet. They appeared to lie by magic on the side of the vale, +like a mirror left in a slanting position. It was a very pretty mirage +for a Provincetown desert, but not amounting to what, in Sanscrit, is +called "the thirst of the gazelle," as there was real water here for a +base, and we were able to quench our thirst after all. + +Professor Rafn, of Copenhagen, thinks that the mirage which I noticed, +but which an old inhabitant of Provincetown, to whom I mentioned it, had +never seen nor heard of, had something to do with the name +"Furdustrandas," i.e. Wonder-Strands, given, as I have said, in the old +Icelandic account of Thorfinn's expedition to Vinland in the year 1007, +to a part of the coast on which he landed. But these sands are more +remarkable for their length than for their mirage, which is common to +all deserts, and the reason for the name which the Northmen them-selves +give,--"because it took a long time to sail by them,"--is sufficient and +more applicable to these shores. However, if you should sail all the way +from Greenland to Buzzards' Bay along the coast, you would get sight of +a good many sandy beaches. But whether Thorfinn saw the mirage here or +not, Thor-eau, one of the same family, did; and perchance it was because +Lief the Lucky had, in a previous voyage, taken Thor-er and his people +off the rock in the middle of the sea, that Thor-eau was born to see it. + +This was not the only mirage which I saw on the Cape. That half of the +beach next the bank is commonly level, or nearly so, while the other +slopes downward to the water. As I was walking upon the edge of the bank +in Wellfleet at sundown, it seemed to me that the inside half of the +beach sloped upward toward the water to meet the other, forming a ridge +ten or twelve feet high the whole length of the shore, but higher always +opposite to where I stood; and I was not convinced of the contrary till +I descended the bank, though the shaded outlines left by the waves of a +previous tide but half-way down the apparent declivity might have taught +me better. A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest +inhabitant, for the strange is his province. The old oysterman, speaking +of gull-shooting, had said that you must aim under, when firing down +the bank. + +A neighbor tells me that one August, looking through a glass from +Naushon to some vessels which were sailing along near Martha's Vineyard, +the water about them appeared perfectly smooth, so that they were +reflected in it, and yet their full sails proved that it must be +rippled, and they who were with him thought that it was mirage, _i.e._ a +reflection from a haze. + +From the above-mentioned sand-hill we over-looked Provincetown and its +harbor, now emptied of vessels, and also a wide expanse of ocean. As we +did not wish to enter Provincetown before night, though it was cold and +windy, we returned across the Deserts to the Atlantic side, and walked +along the beach again nearly to Race Point, being still greedy of the +sea influence. All the while it was not so calm as the reader may +suppose, but it was blow, blow, blow,--roar, roar, roar,--tramp, tramp, +tramp,--without interruption. The shore now trended nearly east and +west. + +Before sunset, having already seen the mackerel fleet returning into the +Bay, we left the sea-shore on the north of Provincetown, and made our +way across the Desert to the eastern extremity of the town. From the +first high sand-hill, covered with beach-grass and bushes to its top, on +the edge of the desert, we overlooked the shrubby hill and swamp country +which surrounds Provincetown on the north, and protects it, in some +measure, from the invading sand. Notwithstanding the universal +barrenness, and the contiguity of the desert, I never saw an autumnal +landscape so beautifully painted as this was. It was like the richest +rug imaginable spread over an uneven surface; no damask nor velvet, nor +Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any loom, could ever match it. +There was the incredibly bright red of the Huckleberry, and the reddish +brown of the Bayberry, mingled with the bright and living green of small +Pitch-Pines, and also the duller green of the Bayberry, Boxberry, and +Plum, the yellowish green of the Shrub-oaks, and the various golden and +yellow and fawn-colored tints of the Birch and Maple and Aspen,--each +making its own figure, and, in the midst, the few yellow sand-slides on +the sides of the hills looked like the white floor seen through rents in +the rug. Coming from the country as I did, and many autumnal woods as I +had seen, this was perhaps the most novel and remarkable sight that I +saw on the Cape. Probably the brightness of the tints was enhanced by +contrast with the sand which surrounded this tract. This was a part of +the furniture of Cape Cod. We had for days walked up the long and bleak +piazza which runs along her Atlantic side, then over the sanded floor of +her halls, and now we were being introduced into her boudoir. The +hundred white sails crowding round Long Point into Provincetown Harbor, +seen over the painted hills in front, looked like toy ships upon a +mantel-piece. + +The peculiarity of this autumnal landscape consisted in the lowness and +thickness of the shrubbery, no less than in the brightness of the tints. +It was like a thick stuff of worsted or a fleece, and looked as if a +giant could take it up by the hem, or rather the tasselled fringe which +trailed out on the sand, and shake it, though it needed not to be +shaken. But no doubt the dust would fly in that case, for not a little +has accumulated underneath it. Was it not such an autumnal landscape as +this which suggested our high-colored rugs and carpets? Hereafter when I +look on a richer rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, +there are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser swamps of boxberry +and blueberry: there the shrub-oak patches and the bayberries, there the +maples and the birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be +compared to these? They were warmer colors than I had associated with +the New England coast. + +After threading a swamp full of boxberry, and climbing several hills +covered with shrub-oaks, without a path, where shipwrecked men would be +in danger of perishing in the night, we came down upon the eastern +extremity of the four planks which run the whole length of Provincetown +street. This, which is the last town on the Cape, lies mainly in one +street along the curving beach fronting the southeast. The sand-hills, +covered with shrubbery and interposed with swamps and ponds, rose +immediately behind it in the form of a crescent, which is from half a +mile to a mile or more wide in the middle, and beyond these is the +desert, which is the greater part of its territory, stretching to the +sea on the east and west and north. The town is compactly built in the +narrow space, from ten to fifty rods deep, between the harbor and the +sand-hills, and contained at that time about twenty-six hundred +inhabitants. The houses, in which a more modern and pretending style has +at length prevailed over the fisherman's hut, stand on the inner or +plank side of the street, and the fish and store houses, with the +picturesque-looking windmills of the Salt-works, on the water side. The +narrow portion of the beach between, forming the street, about eighteen +feet wide, the only one where one carriage could pass another, if there +was more than one carriage in the town, looked much "heavier" than any +portion of the beach or the desert which we had walked on, it being +above the reach of the highest tide, and the sand being kept loose by +the occasional passage of a traveller. We learned that the four planks +on which we were walking had been bought by the town's share of the +Surplus Revenue, the disposition of which was a bone of contention +between the inhabitants, till they wisely resolved thus to put it under +foot. Yet some, it was said, were so provoked because they did not +receive their particular share in money, that they persisted in walking +in the sand a long time after the sidewalk was built. This is the only +instance which I happen to know in which the surplus revenue proved a +blessing to any town. A surplus revenue of dollars from the treasury to +stem the greater evil of a surplus revenue of sand from the ocean. They +expected to make a hard road by the time these planks were worn out. +Indeed, they have already done so since we were there, and have almost +forgotten their sandy baptism. + +As we passed along we observed the inhabitants engaged in curing either +fish or the coarse salt hay which they had brought home and spread on +the beach before their doors, looking as yellow as if they had raked it +out of the sea. The front-yard plots appeared like what indeed they +were, portions of the beach fenced in, with Beach-grass growing in them, +as if they were sometimes covered by the tide. You might still pick up +shells and pebbles there. There were a few trees among the houses, +especially silver abeles, willows, and balm-of-Gileads; and one man +showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, +thinking it an apple-tree. But every man to his trade. Though he had +little woodcraft, he was not the less weatherwise, and gave us one piece +of information; viz., he had observed that when a thunder-cloud came up +with a flood-tide it did not rain. This was the most completely maritime +town that we were ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded by +land dry, if not firm,--an inhabited beach, whereon fishermen cured and +stored their fish, without any back country. When ashore the inhabitants +still walk on planks. A few small patches have been reclaimed from the +swamps, containing commonly half a dozen square rods only each. We saw +one which was fenced with four lengths of rail; also a fence made wholly +of hogshead-staves stuck in the ground. These, and such as these, were +all the cultivated and cultivable land in Provincetown. We were told +that there were thirty or forty acres in all, but we did not discover a +quarter part so much, and that was well dusted with sand, and looked as +if the desert was claiming it. They are now turning some of their swamps +into Cranberry Meadows on quite an extensive scale. + +[Illustration: A cranberry meadow] + +Yet far from being out of the way. Provincetown is directly in the way +of the navigator, and he is lucky who does not run afoul of it in the +dark. It is situated on one of the highways of commerce, and men from +all parts of the globe touch there in the course of a year. + +The mackerel fleet had nearly all got in before us, it being Saturday +night, excepting that division which had stood down towards Chatham in +the morning; and from a hill where we went to see the sun set in the Bay +we counted two hundred goodly looking schooners at anchor in the harbor +at various distances from the shore, and more were yet coming round the +Cape. As each came to anchor, it took in sail and swung round in the +wind, and lowered its boat. They belonged chiefly to Wellfleet, Truro, +and Cape Ann. This was that city of canvas which we had seen hull down +in the horizon. Near at hand, and under bare poles, they were +unexpectedly black-looking vessels, [Greek: melaiuai nêes.] A +fisherman told us that there were fifteen hundred vessels in the +mackerel fleet, and that he had counted three hundred and fifty in +Provincetown Harbor at one time. Being obliged to anchor at a +considerable distance from the shore on account of the shallowness of +the water, they made the impression of a larger fleet than the vessels +at the wharves of a large city. As they had been manoeuvring out there +all day seemingly for our entertainment, while we were walking +north-westward along the Atlantic, so now we found them flocking into +Provincetown Harbor at night, just as we arrived, as if to meet us, and +exhibit themselves close at hand. Standing by Race Point and Long Point +with various speed, they reminded me of fowls coming home to roost. + +These were genuine New England vessels. It is stated in the Journal of +Moses Prince, a brother of the annalist, under date of 1721, at which +time he visited Gloucester, that the first vessel of the class called +schooner was built at Gloucester about eight years before, by Andrew +Robinson; and late in the same century one Cotton Tufts gives us the +tradition with some particulars, which he learned on a visit to the same +place. According to the latter, Robinson having constructed a vessel +which he masted and rigged in a peculiar manner, on her going off the +stocks a bystander cried out, "_O, how she scoons!_" whereat Robinson +replied, "_A schooner let her be!_" "From which time," says Tufts, +"vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by the name of schooners; +before which, vessels of this description were not known in Europe." +(See Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. IX., 1st Series, and Vol. I., 4th Series.) +Yet I can hardly believe this, for a schooner has always seemed to +me--the typical vessel. + +According to C. E. Potter of Manchester, New Hampshire, the very word +_schooner_ is of New England origin, being from the Indian _schoon_ or +_scoot_, meaning to rush, as Schoodic, from _scoot_ and _anke_, a place +where water rushes. N. B. Somebody of Gloucester was to read a paper on +this matter before a genealogical society, in Boston, March 3, 1859, +according to the _Boston Journal_, q. v. + +Nearly all who come out must walk on the four planks which I have +mentioned, so that you are pretty sure to meet all the inhabitants of +Provincetown who come out in the course of a day, provided you keep out +yourself. This evening the planks were crowded with mackerel fishers, to +whom we gave and from whom we took the wall, as we returned to our +hotel. This hotel was kept by a tailor, his shop on the one side of the +door, his hotel on the other, and his day seemed to be divided between +carving meat and carving broadcloth. + +The next morning, though it was still more cold and blustering than the +day before, we took to the Deserts again, for we spent our days wholly +out of doors, in the sun when there was any, and in the wind which never +failed. After threading the shrubby hill country at the southwest end of +the town, west of the Shank-Painter Swamp, whose expressive name--for we +understood it at first as a landsman naturally would--gave it importance +in our eyes, we crossed the sands to the shore south of Race Point and +three miles distant, and thence roamed round eastward through the desert +to where we had left the sea the evening before. We travelled five or +six miles after we got out there, on a curving line, and might have gone +nine or ten, over vast platters of pure sand, from the midst of which we +could not see a particle of vegetation, excepting the distant thin +fields of Beach-grass, which crowned and made the ridges toward which +the sand sloped upward on each side;--all the while in the face of a +cutting wind as cold as January; indeed, we experienced no weather so +cold as this for nearly two months afterward. This desert extends from +the extremity of the Cape, through Provincetown into Truro, and many a +time as we were traversing it we were reminded of "Riley's Narrative" of +his captivity in the sands of Arabia, notwithstanding the cold. Our eyes +magnified the patches of Beach-grass into cornfields in the horizon, and +we probably exaggerated the height of the ridges on account of the +mirage. I was pleased to learn afterward, from Kalm's Travels in North +America, that the inhabitants of the Lower St. Lawrence call this grass +(_Calamagrostis arenaria_), and also Sea-lyme grass (_Elymus arenarius_), +_seigle de mer;_ and he adds, "I have been assured that these plants grow +in great plenty in Newfoundland, and on other North American shores; the +places covered with them looking, at a distance, like cornfields; which +might explain the passage in our northern accounts [he wrote in 1749] of +the excellent wine land [_Vinland det goda_, Translator], which mentions +that they had found whole fields of wheat growing wild." + +The Beach-grass is "two to four feet high, of a seagreen color," and it +is said to be widely diffused over the world. In the Hebrides it is used +for mats, pack-saddles, bags, hats, etc.; paper has been made of it at +Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when tender. It has heads +somewhat like rye, from six inches to a foot in length, and it is +propagated both by roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some +botanists have called it _Psamma arenaria_, which is the Greek for sand, +qualified by the Latin for sandy,--or sandy sand. As it is blown about +by the wind, while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad +circles in the sand as accurately as if they were made by compasses. + +It was the dreariest scenery imaginable. The only animals which we saw +on the sand at that time were spiders, which are to be found almost +everywhere whether on snow or ice-water or sand,--and a +venomous-looking, long, narrow worm, one of the myriapods, or +thousand-legs. We were surprised to see spider-holes in that flowing +sand with an edge as firm as that of a stoned well. + +In June this sand was scored with the tracks of turtles both large and +small, which had been out in the night, leading to and from the swamps. +I was told by a _terroe filius_ who has a "farm" on the edge of the +desert, and is familiar with the fame of Provincetown, that one man had +caught twenty-five snapping-turtles there the previous spring. His own +method of catching them was to put a toad on a mackerel-hook and cast it +into a pond, tying the line to a stump or stake on shore. Invariably the +turtle when hooked crawled up the line to the stump, and was found +waiting there by his captor, however long afterward. He also said that +minks, muskrats, foxes, coons, and wild mice were found there, but no +squirrels. We heard of sea-turtle as large as a barrel being found on +the beach and on East Harbor marsh, but whether they were native there, +or had been lost out of some vessel, did not appear. Perhaps they were +the Salt-water Terrapin, or else the Smooth Terrapin, found thus far +north. Many toads were met with where there was nothing but sand and +beach-grass. In Truro I had been surprised at the number of large +light-colored toads everywhere hopping over the dry and sandy fields, +their color corresponding to that of the sand. Snakes also are common on +these pure sand beaches, and I have never been so much troubled by +mosquitoes as in such localities. At the same season strawberries grew +there abundantly in the little hollows on the edge of the desert +standing amid the beach-grass in the sand, and the fruit of the shadbush +or Amelanchier, which the inhabitants call Josh-pears (some think from +juicy?), is very abundant on the hills. I fell in with an obliging man +who conducted me to the best locality for strawberries. He said that he +would not have shown me the place if he had not seen that I was a +stranger, and could not anticipate him another year; I therefore feel +bound in honor not to reveal it. When we came to a pond, he being the +native did the honors and carried me over on his shoulders, like +Sindbad. One good turn deserves another, and if he ever comes our way I +will do as much for him. + +In one place we saw numerous dead tops of trees projecting through the +otherwise uninterrupted desert, where, as we afterward learned, thirty +or forty years before a flourishing forest had stood, and now, as the +trees were laid bare from year to year, the inhabitants cut off their +tops for fuel. + +We saw nobody that day outside of the town; it was too wintry for such +as had seen the Backside before, or for the greater number who never +desire to see it, to venture out; and we saw hardly a track to show that +any had ever crossed this desert. Yet I was told that some are always +out on the Back-side night and day in severe weather, looking for +wrecks, in order that they may get the job of discharging the cargo, or +the like,--and thus shipwrecked men are succored. But, generally +speaking, the inhabitants rarely visit these sands. One who had lived in +Provincetown thirty years told me that he had not been through to the +north side within that time. Sometimes the natives themselves come near +perishing by losing their way in snow-storms behind the town. + +The wind was not a Sirocco or Simoon, such as we associate with the +desert, but a New England northeaster,--and we sought shelter in vain +under the sand-hills, for it blew all about them, rounding them into +cones, and was sure to find us out on whichever side we sat. From time +to time we lay down and drank at little pools in the sand, filled with +pure fresh water, all that was left, probably, of a pond or swamp. The +air was filled with dust like snow, and cutting sand which made the face +tingle, and we saw what it must be to face it when the weather was +drier, and, if possible, windier still,--to face a migrating sand-bar in +the air, which has picked up its duds and is off,--to be whipped with a +cat, not o' nine-tails, but of a myriad of tails, and each one a sting +to it. A Mr. Whitman, a former minister of Wellfleet, used to write to +his inland friends that the blowing sand scratched the windows so that +he was obliged to have one new pane set every week, that he might see +out. + +On the edge of the shrubby woods the sand had the appearance of an +inundation which was overwhelming them, terminating in an abrupt bank +many feet higher than the surface on which they stood, and having +partially buried the out-side trees. The moving sand-hills of England, +called Dunes or Downs, to which these have been likened, are either +formed of sand cast up by the sea, or of sand taken from the land itself +in the first place by the wind, and driven still farther inward. It is +here a tide of sand impelled by waves and wind, slowly flowing from the +sea toward the town. The northeast winds are said to be the strongest, +but the northwest to move most sand, because they are the driest. On the +shore of the Bay of Biscay many villages were formerly destroyed in this +way. Some of the ridges of beach-grass which we saw were planted by +government many years ago, to preserve the harbor of Provincetown and +the extremity of the Cape. I talked with some who had been employed in +the planting. In the "Description of the Eastern Coast," which I have +already referred to, it is said: "Beach-grass during the spring and +summer grows about two feet and a half. If surrounded by naked beach, +the storms of autumn and winter heap up the sand on all sides, and cause +it to rise nearly to the top of the plant. In the ensuing spring the +grass mounts anew; is again covered with sand in the winter; and thus a +hill or ridge continues to ascend as long as there is a sufficient base +to support it, or till the circumscribing sand, being also covered with +beach-grass, will no longer yield to the force of the winds." Sand-hills +formed in this way are sometimes one hundred feet high and of every +variety of form, like snow-drifts, or Arab tents, and are continually +shifting. The grass roots itself very firmly. When I endeavored to pull +it up, it usually broke off ten inches or a foot below the surface, at +what had been the surface the year before, as appeared by the numerous +offshoots there, it being a straight, hard, round shoot, showing by its +length how much the sand had accumulated the last year; and sometimes +the dead stubs of a previous season were pulled up with it from still +deeper in the sand, with their own more decayed shoot attached,--so +that the age of a sand-hill, and its rate of increase for several years, +is pretty accurately recorded in this way. + +[Illustration: The sand dunes drifting in upon the trees] + +Old Gerard, the English herbalist, says, p. 1250: "I find mention in +Stowe's Chronicle, in Anno 1555, of a certain pulse or pease, as they +term it, wherewith the poor people at that time, there being a great +dearth, were miraculously helped: he thus mentions it. In the month of +August (saith he), in Suffolke, at a place by the sea side all of hard +stone and pibble, called in those parts a shelf, lying between the towns +of Orford and Aldborough, where neither grew grass nor any earth was +ever seen; it chanced in this barren place suddenly to spring up without +any tillage or sowing, great abundance of peason, whereof the poor +gathered (as men judged) above one hundred quarters, yet remained some +ripe and some blossoming, as many as ever there were before: to the +which place rode the Bishop of Norwich and the Lord Willoughby, with +others in great number, who found nothing but hard, rocky stone the +space of three yards under the roots of these peason, which roots were +great and long, and very sweet." He tells us also that Gesner learned +from Dr. Cajus that there were enough there to supply thousands of men. +He goes on to say that "they without doubt grew there many years before, +but were not observed till hunger made them take notice of them, and +quickened their invention, which commonly in our people is very dull, +especially in finding out food of this nature. My worshipful friend Dr. +Argent hath told me that many years ago he was in this place, and caused +his man to pull among the beach with his hands, and follow the roots so +long until he got some equal in length unto his height, yet could come +to no ends of them." Gerard never saw them, and is not certain what kind +they were. + +In Dwight's Travels in New England it is stated that the inhabitants of +Truro were formerly regularly warned under the authority of law in the +month of April yearly, to plant beachgrass, as elsewhere they are warned +to repair the highways. They dug up the grass in bunches, which were +afterward divided into several smaller ones, and set about three feet +apart, in rows, so arranged as to break joints and obstruct the passage +of the wind. It spread itself rapidly, the weight of the seeds when ripe +bending the heads of the grass, and so dropping directly by its side and +vegetating there. In this way, for instance, they built up again that +part of the Cape between Truro and Provincetown where the sea broke over +in the last century. They have now a public road near there, made by +laying sods, which were full of roots, bottom upward and close together +on the sand, double in the middle of the track, then spreading brush +evenly over the sand on each side for half a dozen feet, planting +beachgrass on the banks in regular rows, as above described, and +sticking a fence of brush against the hollows. + +The attention of the general government was first attracted to the +danger which threatened Cape Cod Harbor from the inroads of the sand, +about thirty years ago, and commissioners were at that time appointed by +Massachusetts, to examine the premises. They reported in June, 1825, +that, owing to "the trees and brush having been cut down, and the +beach-grass destroyed on the seaward side of the Cape, opposite the +Harbor," the original surface of the ground had been broken up and +removed by the wind toward the Harbor,--during the previous fourteen +years,--over an extent of "one half a mile in breadth, and about four +and a half miles in length."--"The space where a few years since were +some of the highest lands on the Cape, covered with trees and bushes," +presenting "an extensive waste of undulating sand ";--and that, during +the previous twelve months, the sand "had approached the Harbor an +average distance of fifty rods, for an extent of four and a half miles!" +and unless some measures were adopted to check its progress, it would in +a few years destroy both the harbor and the town. They therefore +recommended that beach-grass be set out on a curving line over a space +ten rods wide and four and a half miles long, and that cattle, horses, +and sheep be prohibited from going abroad, and the inhabitants from +cutting the brush. + +I was told that about thirty thousand dollars in all had been +appropriated to this object, though it was complained that a great part +of this was spent foolishly, as the public money is wont to be. Some say +that while the government is planting beach-grass behind the town for +the protection of the harbor, the inhabitants are rolling the sand into +the harbor in wheelbarrows, in order to make house-lots. The +Patent-Office has recently imported the seed of this grass from Holland, +and distributed it over the country, but probably we have as much as the +Hollanders. + +Thus Cape Cod is anchored to the heavens, as it were, by a myriad little +cables of beach-grass, and, if they should fail, would become a total +wreck, and erelong go to the bottom. Formerly, the cows were permitted +to go at large, and they ate many strands of the cable by which the Cape +is moored, and well-nigh set it adrift, as the bull did the boat which +was moored with a grass rope; but now they are not permitted to wander. + +A portion of Truro which has considerable taxable property on it has +lately been added to Provincetown, and I was told by a Truro man that +his townsmen talked of petitioning the legislature to set off the next +mile of their territory also to Provincetown, in order that she might +have her share of the lean as well as the fat, and take care of the road +through it; for its whole value is literally to hold the Cape together, +and even this it has not always done. But Provincetown strenuously +declines the gift. + +The wind blowed so hard from the northeast that, cold as it was, we +resolved to see the breakers on the Atlantic side, whose din we had +heard all the morning; so we kept on eastward through the Desert, till +we struck the shore again northeast of Provincetown, and exposed +ourselves to the full force of the piercing blast. There are extensive +shoals there over which the sea broke with great force. For half a mile +from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, +made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak. Of this part +of the coast it is said: "A northeast storm, the most violent and fatal +to seamen, as it is frequently accompanied with snow, blows directly on +the land: a strong current sets along the shore; add to which that +ships, during the operation of such a storm, endeavor to work northward, +that they may get into the bay. Should they be unable to weather Race +Point, the wind drives them on the shore, and a shipwreck is inevitable. +Accordingly, the strand is everywhere covered with the fragments of +vessels." But since the Highland Light was erected, this part of the +coast is less dangerous, and it is said that more shipwrecks occur south +of that light, where they were scarcely known before. + +[Illustration: The white breakers on the Atlantic side] + +This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,--more _tumultuous_, my +companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far +greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only +one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a +harbor. It was high tide when we reached the shore, and in one place, +for a considerable distance, each wave dashed up so high that it was +difficult to pass between it and the bank. Further south, where the bank +was higher, it would have been dangerous to attempt it. A native of the +Cape has told me that, many years ago, three boys, his playmates, having +gone to this beach in Wellfleet to visit a wreck, when the sea receded +ran down to the wreck, and when it came in ran before it to the bank, +but the sea following fast at their heels, caused the bank to cave and +bury them alive. + +It was the roaring sea, [Greek: thalassa êchêessa,-- + + amphi de t akrai + Êiones booôsin, erenomenês alos exô.] + + And the summits of the bank + Around resound, the sea being vomited forth. + +As we stood looking on this scene we were gradually convinced that +fishing here and in a pond were not, in all respects, the same, and that +he who waits for fair weather and a calm sea may never see the glancing +skin of a mackerel, and get no nearer to a cod than the wooden emblem in +the State House. + +Having lingered on the shore till we were well-nigh chilled to death by +the wind, and were ready to take shelter in a Charity-house, we turned +our weather-beaten faces toward Provincetown and the Bay again, having +now more than doubled the Cape. + +[1] I. e. a vessel. + +[2] The sea, which is arched over its sandy bottom like a heaven. + +[3] Battle. + + + + +X + +PROVINCETOWN + +Early the next morning I walked into a fish-house near our hotel, where +three or four men were engaged in trundling out the pickled fish on +barrows, and spreading them to dry. They told me that a vessel had +lately come in from the Banks with forty-four thousand codfish. Timothy +Dwight says that, just before he arrived at Provincetown, "a schooner +come in from the Great Bank with fifty-six thousand fish, almost one +thousand five hundred quintals, taken in a single voyage; the main deck +being, on her return, eight inches under water in calm weather." The cod +in this fish-house, just out of the pickle, lay packed several feet +deep, and three or four men stood on them in cowhide boots, pitching +them on to the barrows with an instrument which had a single iron point. +One young man, who chewed tobacco, spat on the fish repeatedly. Well, +sir, thought I, when that older man sees you he will speak to you. But +presently I saw the older man do the same thing. It reminded me of the +figs of Smyrna. "How long does it take to cure these fish? I asked. + +"Two good drying days, sir," was the answer. + +I walked across the street again into the hotel to breakfast, and mine +host inquired if I would take "hashed fish or beans." I took beans, +though they never were a favorite dish of mine. I found next summer that +this was still the only alternative proposed here, and the landlord was +still ringing the changes on these two words. In the former dish there +was a remarkable proportion of fish. As you travel inland the potato +predominates. It chanced that I did not taste fresh fish of any kind on +the Cape, and I was assured that they were not so much used there as in +the country. That is where they are cured, and where, sometimes, +travellers are cured of eating them. No fresh meat was slaughtered in +Provincetown, but the little that was used at the public houses was +brought from Boston by the steamer. + +[Illustration: In Provincetown harbor] + +A great many of the houses here were surrounded by fish-flakes close up +to the sills on all sides, with only a narrow passage two or three feet +wide, to the front door; so that instead of looking out into a flower or +grass plot, you looked on to so many square rods of cod turned wrong +side outwards. These parterres were said to be least like a +flower-garden in a good drying day in mid-summer. There were flakes of +every age and pattern, and some so rusty and overgrown with lichens that +they looked as if they might have served the founders of the fishery +here. Some had broken down under the weight of successive harvests. The +principal employment of the inhabitants at this time seemed to be to +trundle out their fish and spread them in the morning, and bring them in +at night. I saw how many a loafer who chanced to be out early enough got +a job at wheeling out the fish of his neighbor who was anxious to +improve the whole of a fair day. Now, then, I knew where salt fish were +caught. They were everywhere lying on their backs, their collar-bones +standing out like the lapels of a man-o'-war-man's jacket, and inviting +all things to come and rest in their bosoms; and all things, with a few +exceptions, accepted the invitation. I think, by the way, that if you +should wrap a large salt fish round a small boy, he would have a coat of +such a fashion as I have seen many a one wear to muster. Salt fish were +stacked up on the wharves, looking like corded wood, maple and yellow +birch with the bark left on. I mistook them for this at first, and such +in one sense they were,--fuel to maintain our vital fires,--an eastern +wood which grew on the Grand Banks. Some were stacked in the form of +huge flower-pots, being laid in small circles with the tails outwards, +each circle successively larger than the preceding until the pile was +three or four feet high, when the circles rapidly diminished, so as to +form a conical roof. On the shores of New Brunswick this is covered with +birch-bark, and stones are placed upon it, and being thus rendered +impervious to the rain, it is left to season before being packed for +exportation. + +It is rumored that in the fall the cows here are sometimes fed on +cod's-heads! The godlike part of the cod, which, like the human head, is +curiously and wonderfully made, forsooth has but little less brain in +it,--coming; to such an end I to be craunched by cows I I felt my own +skull crack from sympathy. What if the heads of men were to be cut off +to feed the cows of a superior order of beings who inhabit the islands +in the ether? Away goes your fine brain, the house of thought and +instinct, to swell the cud of a ruminant animal!--However, an inhabitant +assured me that they did not make a practice of feeding cows on +cod's-heads; the cows merely would eat them sometimes; but I might live +there all my days and never see it done. A cow wanting salt would also +sometimes lick out all the soft part of a cod on the flakes. This he +would have me believe was the foundation of this fish-story. + +It has been a constant traveller's tale and perhaps slander, now for +thousands of years, the Latins and Greeks have repeated it, that this or +that nation feeds its cattle, or horses, or sheep, on fish, as may be +seen in OElian and Pliny, but in the Journal of Nearchus, who was +Alexander's admiral, and made a voyage from the Indus to the Euphrates +three hundred and twenty-six years before Christ, it is said that the +inhabitants of a portion of the intermediate coast, whom he called +Ichthyophagi or Fish-eaters, not only ate fishes raw and also dried and +pounded in a whale's vertebra for a mortar and made into a paste, but +gave them to their cattle, there being no grass on the coast; and +several modern travellers--Braybosa, Niebuhr, and others--make the same +report. Therefore in balancing the evidence I am still in doubt about +the Provincetown cows. As for other domestic animals. Captain King in +his continuation of Captain Cook's Journal in 1779, says of the dogs of +Kamtschatka, "Their food in the winter consists entirely of the heads, +entrail, and backbones of salmon, which are put aside and dried for that +purpose; and with this diet they are fed but sparingly." (Cook's +Journal, Vol. VII., p. 315.) + +As we are treating of fishy matters, let me insert what Pliny says, that +"the commanders of the fleets of Alexander the Great have related that +the Gedrosi, who dwell on the banks of the river Arabis, are in the +habit of making the doors of their houses with the jaw-bones of fishes, +and raftering the roofs with their bones." Strabo tells the same of the +Ichthyophagi. "Hardouin remarks that the Basques of his day were in the +habit of fencing their gardens with the ribs of the whale, which +sometimes exceeded twenty feet in length; and Cuvier says that at the +present time the jaw-bone of the whale is used in Norway for the purpose +of making beams or posts for buildings." (Bohn's ed., trans, of Pliny, +Vol. II., p. 361.) Herodotus says the inhabitants on Lake Prasias in +Thrace (living on piles) "give fish for fodder to their horses and +beasts of burden." + +Provincetown was apparently what is called a flourishing town. Some of +the inhabitants asked me if I did not think that they appeared to be +well off generally. I said that I did, and asked how many there were in +the almshouse. "O, only one or two, infirm or idiotic," answered they. +The outward aspect of the houses and shops frequently suggested a +poverty which their interior comfort and even richness disproved. You +might meet a lady daintily dressed in the Sabbath morning, wading in +among the sandhills, from church, where there appeared no house fit to +receive her, yet no doubt the interior of the house answered to the +exterior of the lady. As for the interior of the inhabitants I am still +in the dark about it. I had a little intercourse with some whom I met in +the street, and was often agreeably disappointed by discovering the +intelligence of rough, and what would be considered unpromising +specimens. Nay, I ventured to call on one citizen the next summer, by +special invitation. I found him sitting in his front doorway, that +Sabbath evening, prepared for me to come in unto him; but unfortunately +for his reputation for keeping open house, there was stretched across +his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This +looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way. + +This Monday morning was beautifully mild and calm, both on land and +water, promising us a smooth passage across the Bay, and the fishermen +feared that it would not be so good a drying day as the cold and windy +one which preceded it. There could hardly have been a greater contrast. +This was the first of the Indian summer days, though at a late hour in +the morning we found the wells in the sand behind the town still covered +with ice, which had formed in the night. What with wind and sun my most +prominent feature fairly cast its slough. But I assure you it will take +more than two good drying days to cure me of rambling. After making an +excursion among the hills in the neighborhood of the Shank-Painter +Swamp, and getting a little work done in its line, we took our seat upon +the highest sand-hill overlooking the town, in mid-air, on a long plank +stretched across between two hillocks of sand, where some boys were +endeavoring in vain to fly their kite; and there we remained the rest of +that forenoon looking out over the placid harbor, and watching for the +first appearance of the steamer from Wellfleet, that we might be in +readiness to go on board when we heard the whistle off Long Point. + +We got what we could out of the boys in the meanwhile. Provincetown boys +are of course all sailors and have sailors' eyes. When we were at the +Highland Light the last summer, seven or eight miles from Provincetown +Harbor, and wished to know one Sunday morning if the _Olata_, a well-known +yacht, had got in from Boston, so that we could return in her, a +Provincetown boy about ten years old, who chanced to be at the table, +remarked that she had. I asked him how he knew. "I just saw her come +in," said he. When I expressed surprise that he could distinguish her +from other vessels so far, he said that there were not so many of those +two-topsail schooners about but that he could tell her. Palfrey said, in +his oration at Barnstable, the duck does not take to the water with a +surer instinct than the Barnstable boy. [He might have said the Cape Cod +boy as well.] He leaps from his leading-strings into the shrouds, it is +but a bound from the mother's lap to the masthead. He boxes the compass +in his infant soliloquies. He can hand, reef, and steer by the time he +flies a kite. + +This was the very day one would have chosen to sit upon a hill +overlooking sea and land, and muse there. The mackerel fleet was rapidly +taking its departure, one schooner after another, and standing round the +Cape, like fowls leaving their roosts in the morning to disperse +themselves in distant fields. The turtle-like sheds of the salt-works +were crowded into every nook in the hills, immediately behind the town, +and their now idle windmills lined the shore. It was worth the while to +see by what coarse and simple chemistry this almost necessary of life is +obtained, with the sun for journeyman, and a single apprentice to do the +chores for a large establishment. It is a sort of tropical labor, +pursued too in the sunniest season; more interesting than gold or +diamond-washing, which, I fancy, it somewhat resembles at a distance. In +the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to +assist man. So at the potash works which I have seen at Hull, where they +burn the stems of the kelp and boil the ashes. Verily, chemistry is not +a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the +laboratory. It is said, that owing to the reflection of the sun from the +sand-hills, and there being absolutely no fresh water emptying into the +harbor, the same number of superficial feet yields more salt here than +in any other part of the county. A little rain is considered necessary +to clear the air, and make salt fast and good, for as paint does not +dry, so water does not evaporate in dog-day weather. But they were now, +as elsewhere on the Cape, breaking up their salt-works and selling them +for lumber. + +From that elevation we could overlook the operations of the inhabitants +almost as completely as if the roofs had been taken off. They were +busily covering the wicker-worked flakes about their houses with salted +fish, and we now saw that the back yards were improved for this purpose +as much as the front; where one man's fish ended another's began. In +almost every yard we detected some little building from which these +treasures were being trundled forth and systematically spread, and we +saw that there was an art as well as a knack even in spreading fish, and +that a division of labor was profitably practised. One man was +withdrawing his fishes a few inches beyond the nose of his neighbor's +cow which had stretched her neck over a paling to get at them. It seemed +a quite domestic employment, like drying clothes, and indeed in some +parts of the county the women take part in it. + +I noticed in several places on the Cape a sort of clothes-_flakes_. They +spread brush on the ground, and fence it round, and then lay their +clothes on it, to keep them from the sand. This is a Cape Cod +clothes-yard. + +The sand is the great enemy here. The tops of some of the hills were +enclosed and a board put up, forbidding all persons entering the +enclosure, lest their feet should disturb the sand, and set it a-blowing +or a-sliding. The inhabitants are obliged to get leave from the +authorities to cut wood behind the town for fish-flakes, bean-poles, +pea-brush, and the like, though, as we were told, they may transplant +trees from one part of the township to another without leave. The sand +drifts like snow, and sometimes the lower story of a house is concealed +by it, though it is kept off by a wall. The houses were formerly built +on piles, in order that the driving sand might pass under them. We saw a +few old ones here still standing on their piles, but they were boarded +up now, being protected by their younger neighbors. There was a +school-house, just under the hill on which we sat, filled with sand up +to the tops of the desks, and of course the master and scholars had +fled. Perhaps they had imprudently left the windows open one day, or +neglected to mend a broken pane. Yet in one place was advertised "Fine +sand for sale here,"--I could hardly believe my eyes,--probably some of +the street sifted,--a good instance of the fact that a man confers a +value on the most worthless thing by mixing himself with it, according +to which rule we must have conferred a value on the whole back-side of +Cape Cod;--but I thought that if they could have advertised "Fat Soil," +or perhaps "Fine sand got rid of," ay, and "Shoes emptied here," it +would have been more alluring. As we looked down on the town, I thought +that I saw one man, who probably lived beyond the extremity of the +planking, steering and tacking for it in a sort of snow-shoes, but I may +have been mistaken. In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the +inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be +buried in the sand. Nevertheless, natives of Provincetown assured me +that they could walk in the middle of the road without trouble even in +slippers, for they had learned how to put their feet down and lift them +up without taking in any sand. One man said that he should be surprised +if he found half a dozen grains of sand in his pumps at night, and +stated, moreover, that the young ladies had a dexterous way of emptying +their shoes at each step, which it would take a stranger a long time to +learn. The tires of the stage-wheels were about five inches wide; and +the wagon-tires generally on the Cape are an inch or two wider, as the +sand is an inch or two deeper than elsewhere. I saw a baby's wagon with +tires six inches wide to keep it near the surface. The more tired the +wheels, the less tired the horses. Yet all the time that we were in +Provincetown, which was two days and nights, we saw only one horse and +cart, and they were conveying a coffin. They did not try such +experiments there on common occasions. The next summer I saw only the +two-wheeled horse-cart which conveyed me thirty rods into the harbor on +my way to the steamer. Yet we read that there were two horses and two +yoke of oxen here in 1791, and we were told that there were several more +when we were there, beside the stage team. In Barber's Historical +Collections, it is said, "So rarely are wheel-carriages seen in the +place that they are a matter of some curiosity to the younger part of +the community. A lad who understood navigating the ocean much better +than land travel, on seeing a man driving a wagon in the street, +expressed his surprise at his being able to drive so straight without +the assistance of a rudder." There was no rattle of carts, and there +would have been no rattle if there had been any carts. Some +saddle-horses that passed the hotel in the evening merely made the sand +fly with a rustling sound like a writer sanding his paper copiously, but +there was no sound of their tread. No doubt there are more horses and +carts there at present, A sleigh is never seen, or at least is a great +novelty on the Cape, the snow being either absorbed by the sand or blown +into drifts. + +Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the Cape generally do not complain of +their "soil," but will tell you that it is good enough for them to dry +their fish on. + +Notwithstanding all this sand, we counted three meeting-houses, and four +school-houses nearly as large, on this street, though some had a tight +board fence about them to preserve the plot within level and hard. +Similar fences, even within a foot of many of the houses, gave the town +a less cheerful and hospitable appearance than it would otherwise have +had. They told us that, on the whole, the sand had made no progress for +the last ten years, the cows being no longer permitted to go at large, +and every means being taken to stop the sandy tide. + +In 1727 Provincetown was "invested with peculiar privileges." for its +encouragement. Once or twice it was nearly abandoned; but now lots on +the street fetch a high price, though titles to them were first obtained +by possession and improvement, and they are still transferred by +quitclaim deeds merely, the township being the property of the State. +But though lots were so valuable on the street, you might in many places +throw a stone over them to where a man could still obtain land, or sand, +by squatting on or improving it. + +[Illustration: Provincetown--A bit of the village from the wharf] + +Stones are very rare on the Cape. I saw a very few small stones used for +pavements and for bank walls, in one or two places in my walk, but they +are so scarce that, as I was informed, vessels have been forbidden to +take them from the beach for ballast, and therefore their crews used to +land at night and steal them. I did not hear of a rod of regular stone +wall below Orleans. Yet I saw one man underpinning a new house in +Eastham with some "rocks," as he called them, which he said a neighbor +had collected with great pains in the course of years, and finally made +over to him. This I thought was a gift worthy of being recorded,--equal +to a transfer of California "rocks," almost. Another man who was +assisting him, and who seemed to be a close observer of nature, hinted +to me the locality of a rock in that neighborhood which was "forty-two +paces in circumference and fifteen feet high," for he saw that I was a +stranger, and, probably, would not carry it off. Yet I suspect that the +locality of the few large rocks on the forearm of the Cape is well known +to the inhabitants generally. I even met with one man who had got a +smattering of mineralogy, but where he picked it up I could not guess. I +thought that he would meet with some interesting geological nuts for him +to crack, if he should ever visit the mainland, Cohasset, or Marblehead +for instance. + +The well stones at the Highland Light were brought from Hingham, but the +wells and cellars of the Cape are generally built of brick, which also +are imported. The cellars, as well as the wells, are made in a circular +form, to prevent the sand from pressing in the wall. The former are only +from nine to twelve feet in diameter, and are said to be very cheap, +since a single tier of brick will suffice for a cellar of even larger +dimensions. Of course, if you live in the sand, you will not require a +large cellar to hold your roots. In Provincetown, when formerly they +suffered the sand to drive under their houses, obliterating all +rudiments of a cellar, they did not raise a vegetable to put into one. +One farmer in Wellfleet, who raised fifty bushels of potatoes, showed me +his cellar under a corner of his house, not more than nine feet in +diameter, looking like a cistern: but he had another of the same size +under his barn. + +You need dig only a few feet almost anywhere near the shore of the Cape +to find fresh water. But that which we tasted was invariably poor. +though the inhabitants called it good, as if they were comparing it +with salt water. In the account of Truro, it is said. "Wells dug near +the shore are dry at low water, or rather at what is called young flood, +but are replenished with the flowing of the tide,"--- the salt water, +which is lowest in the sand, apparently forcing the fresh up. When you +express your surprise at the greenness of a Provincetown garden on the +beach, in a dry season, they will sometimes tell you that the tide +forces the moisture up to them. It is an interesting fact that low +sand-bars in the midst of the ocean, perhaps even those which are laid +bare only at low tide, are reservoirs of fresh water at which the +thirsty mariner can supply himself. They appear, like huge sponges, to +hold the rain and dew which fall on them, and which, by capillary +attraction, are prevented from mingling with the surrounding brine. + +The Harbor of Provincetown--which, as well as the greater part of the +Bay, and a wide expanse of ocean, we overlooked from our perch--is +deservedly famous. It opens to the south, is free from rocks, and is +never frozen over. It is said that the only ice seen in it drifts in +sometimes from Barnstable or Plymouth. Dwight remarks that "The storms +which prevail on the American coast generally come from the east; and +there is no other harbor on a windward shore within two hundred miles." +J. D. Graham, who has made a very minute and thorough survey of this +harbor and the adjacent waters, states that "its capacity, depth of +water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all +winds, combine to render it one of the most valuable ship harbors on our +coast." It is _the_ harbor of the Cape and of the fishermen of +Massachusetts generally. It was known to navigators several years at +least before the settlement of Plymouth. In Captain John Smith's map of +New England, dated 1614. it bears the name of Milford Haven, and +Massachusetts Bay that of Stuard's Bay. His Highness, Prince Charles, +changed the name of Cape Cod to Cape James; but even princes have not +always power to change a name for the worse, and as Cotton Mather said, +Cape Cod is "a name which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of +codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills." + +Many an early voyager was unexpectedly caught by this hook, and found +himself embayed. On successive maps, Cape Cod appears sprinkled over +with French, Dutch, and English names, as it made part of New France, +New Holland, and New England. On one map Provincetown Harbor is called +"Fuic (bownet?) Bay," Barnstable Bay "Staten Bay," and the sea north of +it "Mare del Noort," or the North Sea. On another, the extremity of the +Cape is called "Staten Hoeck," or the States Hook. On another, by Young, +this has Noord Zee, Staten hoeck or Hit hoeck, but the copy at Cambridge +has no date; the whole Cape is called "Niew Hollant," (after Hudson); +and on another still, the shore between Race Point and Wood End appears +to be called "Bevechier." In Champlain's admirable Map of New France, +including the oldest recognizable map of what is now the New England +coast with which I am acquainted, Cape Cod is called C. Blan (i.e. Cape +White), from the color of its sands, and Massachusetts Bay is Baye +Blanche. It was visited by De Monts and Champlain in 1605, and the next +year was further explored by Poitrincourt and Champlain. The latter has +given a particular account of these explorations in his "Voyages," +together with separate charts and soundings of two of its +harbors,--_Malle Barre_, the Bad Bar (Nauset Harbor?), a name now applied +to what the French called _Cap Baturier_; and _Port Fortune_, apparently +Chatham Harbor. Both these names are copied on the map of "Novi Belgii," +in Ogilvy's America. He also describes minutely the manners and customs +of the savages, and represents by a plate the savages surprising the +French and killing five or six of them. The French afterward killed some +of the natives, and wished, by way of revenge, to carry off some and +make them grind in their hand-mill at Port Royal. + +It is remarkable that there is not in English any adequate or correct +account of the French exploration of what is now the coast of New +England, between 1604 and 1608, though it is conceded that they then +made the first permanent European settlement on the continent of North +America north of St. Augustine. If the lions had been the painters it +would have been otherwise. This omission is probably to be accounted for +partly by the fact that the _early edition_ of Champlain's "Voyages" had +not been consulted for this purpose. This contains by far the most +particular, and, I think, the most interesting chapter of what we may +call the Ante-Pilgrim history of New England, extending to one hundred +and sixty pages quarto; but appears to be unknown equally to the +historian and the orator on Plymouth Rock. Bancroft does not mention +Champlain at all among the authorities for De Monts's expedition, nor +does he say that he ever visited the coast of New England. Though he +bore the title of pilot to De Monts, he was, in _another sense_, the +leading spirit, as well as the historian of the expedition. Holmes, +Hildreth, and Barry, and apparently all our historians who mention +Champlain, refer to the edition of 1632, in which all the separate +charts of our harbors, etc., and about one-half the narrative, are +omitted; for the author explored so many lands afterward that he could +afford to forget a part of what he had done. Hildreth, speaking of De +Monts's expedition, says that "he looked into the Penobscot [in 1605], +which Pring had discovered two years before," saying nothing about +Champlain's extensive exploration of it for De Monts in 1604 (Holmes +says 1608, and refers to Purchas); also that he followed in the track of +Pring along the coast "to Cape Cod, which he called Malabarre." +(Haliburton had made the same statement before him in 1829. He called it +Cap Blanc, and Malle Barre (the Bad Bar) was the name given to a harbor +on the east side of the Cape). Pring says nothing about a river there. +Belknap says that Weymouth discovered it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges, says, +in his narration (Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. 19), 1658, that Pring +in 1606 "made a perfect discovery of all the rivers and harbors." This +is the most I can find. Bancroft makes Champlain to have dis-covered +more western rivers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, however, +must have been the discoverer of distances on this river (see Belknap, +p. 147). Pring was absent from England only about six months, and sailed +by this part of Cape Cod (Malabarre) be-cause it yielded no sassafras, +while the French, who probably had not heard of Pring, were patiently +for years exploring the coast in search of a place of settlement, +sounding and surveying its harbors. + +John Smith's map, published in 1616, from observations in 1614-15, is by +many regarded as the oldest map of New England. It is the first that was +made after this country was called New England, for he so called it; but +in Champlain's "Voyages," edition 1613 (and Lescarbot, in 1612, quotes a +still earlier account of his voyage), there is a map of it made when it +was known to Christendom as New France, called _Carte Géographique de la +Nouvelle Franse faictte par le Sieur de Champlain Saint Tongois +Cappitaine ordinaire pour le roi en la Marine,--faict l'en 1612_, from +his observations between 1604 and 1607; a map extending from Labrador to +Cape Cod and westward _to the Great Lakes_, and crowded with information, +geographical, ethnographical, zoölogical, and botanical. He even gives +the variation of the compass as observed by himself at that date on many +parts of the coast. This, taken together with the many _separate charts_ +of harbors and their soundings on a large scale, which this volume +contains,--among the rest. _Qui ni be quy_ (Kennebec), _Chouacoit R._ (Saco +R.), _Le Beau port, Port St. Louis_ (near Cape Ann), and others on our +coast,--but _which are not in the edition of 1632_, makes this a completer +map of the New England and adjacent northern coast than was made for +half a century afterward, almost, we might be allowed to say, till +another Frenchman, Des Barres, made another for us, which only our late +Coast Survey has superseded. Most of the maps of this coast made for a +long time after betray their indebtedness to Champlain. He was a skilful +navigator, a man of science, and geographer to the King of France. He +crossed the Atlantic about twenty times, and made nothing of it; often +in a small vessel in which few would dare to go to sea today; and on one +occasion making the voyage from Tadoussac to St. Malo in eighteen days. +He was in this neighborhood, that is, between Annapolis, Nova Scotia, +and Cape Cod, observing the land and its inhabitants, and making a map +of the coast, from May, 1604, to September, 1607, _or about three and a +half years_, and he has described minutely his method of surveying +harbors. By his own account, a part of his map was engraved in 1604 (?). +When Pont-Grave and others returned to France in 1606, he remained at +Port Royal with Poitrincourt, "in order," says he, "by the aid of God, +to finish the chart of the coasts which I had begun"; and again in his +volume, printed before John Smith visited this part of America, he says: +"It seems to me that I have done my duty as far as I could, if I have +not forgotten to put in my said chart whatever I saw, and give a +particular knowledge to the public of what had never been described nor +discovered so particularly as I have done it, although some other may +have heretofore written of it; but it was a very small affair in +comparison with what we have discovered within the last ten years." + +It is not generally remembered, if known, by the descendants of the +Pilgrims, that when their forefathers were spending their first +memorable winter in the New World, they had for neighbors a colony of +French no further off than Port Royal (Annapolis, Nova Scotia), three +hundred miles distant (Prince seems to make it about five hundred +miles); where, in spite of many vicissitudes, they had been for fifteen +years. They built a grist-mill there as early as 1606; also made bricks +and turpentine on a stream, Williamson says, in 1606. De Monts, who was +a Protestant, brought his minister with him, who came to blows with the +Catholic priest on the subject of religion. Though these founders of +Acadie endured no less than the Pilgrims, and about the same proportion +of them--thirty-five out of seventy-nine (Williamson's Maine says +thirty-six out of seventy)--died the first winter at St. Croix, 1604-5, +sixteen years earlier, no orator, to my knowledge, has ever celebrated +their enterprise (Williamson's History of Maine does considerably), +while the trials which their successors and descendants endured at the +hands of the English have furnished a theme for both the historian and +poet. (See Bancroft's History and Longfellow's Evangeline.) The remains +at their fort at St. Croix were discovered at the end of the last +century, and helped decide where the true St. Croix, our boundary, was. + +The very gravestones of those Frenchmen are probably older than the +oldest English monument in New England north of the Elizabeth Islands, +or perhaps anywhere in New England, for if there are any traces of +Gosnold's storehouse left, his strong works are gone. Bancroft says, +advisedly, in 1834, "It requires a believing eye to discern the ruins of +the fort"; and that there were no ruins of a fort in 1837. Dr. Charles +T. Jackson tells me that, in the course of a geological survey in 1827, +he discovered a gravestone, a slab of trap rock, on Goat Island, +opposite Annapolis (Port Royal), in Nova Scotia, bearing a Masonic +coat-of-arms and the date 1606, which is fourteen years earlier than the +landing of the Pilgrims. This was left in the possession of Judge +Haliburton, of Nova Scotia. + +There were Jesuit priests in what has since been called New England, +converting the savages at Mount Desert, then St. Savior, in +1613,--having come over to Port Royal in 1611, though they were almost +immediately interrupted by the English, years before the Pilgrims came +hither to enjoy their own religion. This according to Champlain. +Charlevoix says the same; and after coming from France in 1611, went +west from Port Royal along the coast as far as the Kennebec in 1612, and +was often carried from Port Royal to Mount Desert. + +Indeed, the Englishman's history of _New_ England commences only when it +ceases to be _New_ France. Though Cabot was the first to discover the +continent of North America, Champlain, in the edition of his "Voyages" +printed in 1632, after the English had for a season got possession of +Quebec and Port Royal, complains with no little justice: "The common +consent of all Europe is to represent New France as extending at least +to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth degrees of latitude, as appears by +the maps of the world printed in Spain, Italy, Holland, Flanders, +Germany, and England, until they possessed themselves of the coasts of +New France, where are Acadie, the Etchemins (Maine and New Brunswick), +the Almouchicois (Massachusetts?), and the Great River St. Lawrence, +where they have imposed, according to their fancy, such names as New +England, Scotland, and others; but it is not easy to efface the memory +of a thing which is known to all Christendom." + +That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador, gave +the English no just title to New England, or to the United States, +generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) +is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States +as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw. Miller, in the New York +Hist. Coll., Vol. I., p. 28, says he does not appear to have landed +anywhere. Contrast with this Verrazzani's tarrying fifteen days at one +place on the New England coast, and making frequent excursions into the +interior thence. It chances that the latter's letter to Francis I., in +1524, contains "the earliest original account extant of the Atlantic +coast of the United States"; and even from that time the northern part +of it began to be called _La Terra Francese_, or French Land. A part of it +was called New Holland before it was called New England. The English +were very back-ward to explore and settle the continent which they had +stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to +colonize the continent of North America (Carolina and Florida, 1562-4), +and in their first permanent settlement (Port Royal, 1605); and the +right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly +respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of +France, from the time of Henry VII. + +The explorations of the French gave to the world the first valuable maps +of these coasts. Denys of Honfleur made a map of the Gulf of St. +Lawrence in 1506. No sooner had Cartier explored the St. Lawrence, in +1535, than there began to be published by his countrymen remarkably +accurate charts of that river as far up as Montreal. It is almost all of +the continent north of Florida that you recognize on charts for more +than a generation afterward,--though Verrazzani's rude plot (made under +French auspices) was regarded by Hackluyt, more than fifty years after +his voyage (in 1524), as the most accurate representation of our coast. +The French trail is distinct. They went measuring and sounding, and when +they got home had something to show for their voyages and explorations. +There was no danger of their charts being lost, as Cabot's have been. + +The most distinguished navigators of that day were Italians, or of +Italian descent, and Portuguese. The French and Spaniards, though less +advanced in the science of navigation than the former, possessed more +imagination and spirit of adventure than the English, and were better +fitted to be the explorers of a new continent even as late as 1751. + +This spirit it was which so early carried the French to the Great Lakes +and the Mississippi on the north, and the Spaniard to the same river on +the south. It was long before our frontiers reached their settlements in +the west, and a _voyageur_ or _coureur de bois_ is still our conductor +there. Prairie is a French word, as Sierra is a Spanish one. Augustine +in Florida, and Santa Fe in New Mexico [1582], both built by the +Spaniards, are considered the oldest towns in the United States. Within +the memory of the oldest man, the Anglo-Americans were confined between +the Appalachian Mountains and the sea, "a space not two hundred miles +broad," while the Mississippi was by treaty the eastern boundary of New +France. (See the pamphlet on settling the Ohio, London, 1763, bound up +with the travels of Sir John Bartram.) So far as inland discovery was +concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who +land but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of traders. +Cabot spoke like an Englishman, as he was, if he said, as one reports, +in reference to the discovery of the American Continent, when he found +it running toward the north, that it was a great disappointment to him, +being in his way to India; but we would rather add to than detract from +the fame of so great a discoverer. + +Samuel Penhallow, in his history (Boston, 1726), p. 51, speaking of +"Port Royal and Nova Scotia," says of the last that its "first seizure +was by Sir Sebastian Cobbet for the crown of Great Britain, in the reign +of King Henry VII.; but lay dormant till the year 1621," when Sir +William Alexander got a patent of it, and possessed it some years; and +afterward Sir David Kirk was proprietor of it, but erelong, "to the +surprise of all thinking men, it was given up unto the French." + +Even as late as 1633 we find Winthrop, the first Governor of the +Massachusetts Colony, who was not the most likely to be misinformed, +who, moreover, has the _fame_, at least, of having discovered Wachusett +Mountain (discerned it forty miles inland), talking about the "Great +Lake" and the "hideous swamps about it," near which the Connecticut and +the "Potomack" took their rise; and among the memorable events of the +year 1642 he chronicles Darby Field, an Irishman's expedition to the +"White hill," from whose top he saw eastward what he "judged to be the +Gulf of Canada," and westward what he "judged to be the great lake which +Canada River comes out of," and where he found much "Muscovy glass," and +"could rive out pieces of forty feet long and seven or eight broad." +While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the +country a hundred miles inland, which was a _terra incognita_ to them,--or +rather many years before the earliest date referred to,--Champlain, the +_first Governor of Canada_, not to mention the inland discoveries of +Cartier, [1] Roberval, and others, of the preceding century, and his own +earlier voyage, had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their +forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, +before a Pilgrim had heard of New England. + +In Champlain's "Voyages," printed in 1613, there is a plate representing +a fight in which he aided the Canada Indians against the Iroquois, near +the south end of Lake Champlain, in July, 1609, eleven years before the +settlement of Plymouth. Bancroft says he joined the Algonquins in an +expedition against the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in the northwest of +New York. This is that "Great Lake," which the English, hearing some +rumor of from the French, long after, locate in an "Imaginary Province +called Laconia, and spent several years about 1630 in the vain attempt +to discover." (Sir Ferdinand Gorges, in Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. +68.) Thomas Morton has a chapter on this "Great Lake." In the edition of +Champlain's map dated 1632, the Falls of Niagara appear; and in a great +lake northwest of _Mer Douce_ (Lake Huron) there is an island represented, +over which is written, "_Isle ou il y a une mine de cuivre_,"--"Island +where there is a mine of copper." This will do for an offset to our +Governor's "Muscovy Glass." Of all these adventures and discoveries we +have a minute and faithful account, giving facts and dates as well as +charts and soundings, all scientific and Frenchman-like, with scarcely +one fable or traveller's story. + +Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long before the seventeenth +century. It may be that Cabot himself beheld it. Verrazzani, in 1524, +according to his own account, spent fifteen days on our coast, in +latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes (some suppose in the harbor of Newport), +and often went five or six leagues into the interior there, and he says +that he sailed thence at once one hundred and fifty leagues +northeasterly, _always in sight of the coast_. There is a chart in +Hackluyt's "Divers Voyages," made according to Verrazzani's plot, which +last is praised for its accuracy by Hackluyt, but I cannot distinguish +Cape Cod on it, unless it is the "C. Arenas," which is in the right +latitude, though ten degrees west of "Claudia," which is thought to be +Block Island. + +The "Biographic Universelle" informs us that "An ancient manuscript +chart drawn in 1529 by Diego Ribeiro, a Spanish cosmographer, has +preserved the memory of the voyage of Gomez [a Portuguese sent out by +Charles the Fifth]. One reads in it under (_au dessous_) the place +occupied by the States of New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, _Terre +d'Etienne Gomez, qu'il découvrit en 1525_ (Land of Etienne Gomez, which +he discovered in 1525)." This chart, with a memoir, was published at +Weimar in the last century. + +Jean Alphonse, Roberval's pilot in Canada in 1642, one of the most +skilful navigators of his time, and who has given remarkably minute and +accurate direction for sailing up the St. Lawrence, showing that he +knows what he is talking about, says in his "_Routier_" (it is in +Hackluyt), "I have been at a bay as far as the forty-second degree, +between Norimbegue [the Penobscot?] and Florida, but I have not explored +the bottom of it, and I do not know whether it passes from one land to +the other," _i.e._ to Asia. (" J'ai été à une Baye jusques par les 42 +degres entre la Norimbegue et la Floride; mais je n'en ai pas cherché le +fond, et ne sçais pas si elle passe d'une terre à I'autre.") This may +refer to Massachusetts Bay, if not possibly to the western inclination +of the coast a little farther south. When he says, "I have no doubt that +the Norimbegue enters into the river of Canada," he is perhaps so +interpreting some account which the Indians had given respecting the +route from the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic by the St. John, or +Penobscot, or possibly even the Hudson River. + +We hear rumors of this country of "Norumbega" and its great city from +many quarters. In a discourse by a great French sea-captain in Ramusio's +third volume (1556-65), this is said to be the name given to the land by +its inhabitants, and Verrazzani is called the discoverer of it; another +in 1607 makes the natives call it, or the river, Aguncia. It is +represented as an island on an accompanying chart. It is frequently +spoken of by old writers as a country of indefinite extent, between +Canada and Florida, and it appears as a large island with Cape Breton at +its eastern extremity, on the map made according to Verrazzani's plot in +Hackluyt's "Divers Voyages." These maps and rumors may have been the +origin of the notion, common among the early settlers, that New England +was an island. The country and city of Norumbega appear about where +Maine now is on a map in Ortelius ("Theatrum Orbis Terrarum," Antwerp, +1570), and the "R. Grande" is drawn where the Penobscot or St. John +might be. + +In 1604, Champlain being sent by the Sieur de Monts to explore the coast +of Norumbegue, sailed up the Penobscot twenty-two or twenty-three +leagues from "Isle Haute," or till he was stopped by the falls. He says: +"I think that this river is that which many pilots and historians call +Norumbegue, and which the greater part have described as great and +spacious, with numerous islands; and its entrance in the forty-third or +forty-third and one half or, according to others, the forty-fourth +degree of latitude, more or less." He is convinced that "the greater +part" of those who speak of a great city there have never seen it, but +repeat a mere rumor, but he thinks that some have seen the mouth of the +river since it answers to their description. + +Under date of 1607 Champlain writes: "Three or four leagues north of the +Cap de Poitrincourt [near the head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia] +we found a cross, which was very old, covered with moss and almost all +decayed, which was an evident sign that there had formerly been +Christians there." + +Also the following passage from Lescarbot will show how much the +neighboring coasts were frequented by Europeans in the sixteenth +century. Speaking of his return from Port Royal to France in 1607, he +says: "At last, within four leagues of Campseau [the Gut of Canso], we +arrived at a harbor [in Nova Scotia], where a worthy old gentleman from +St. John de Lus, named Captain Savale, was fishing, who received us with +the utmost courtesy. And as this harbor, which is small, but very good, +has no name, I have given it on my geographical chart the name of +Savalet. [It is on Champlain's map also.] This worthy man told us that +this voyage was the forty-second which he had made to those parts, and +yet the Newfoundlanders [_Terre neuviers_] make only one a year. He was +wonderfully content with his fishery, and informed us that he made daily +fifty crowns' worth of cod, and that his voyage would be worth ten +thousand francs. He had sixteen men in his employ; and his vessel was of +eighty tons, which could carry a hundred thousand dry cod." (Histoire de +la Nouvelle France, 1612.) They dried their fish on the rocks on shore. + +The "Isola della Rena" (Sable Island?) appears on the chart of "Nuova +Francia" and Norumbega, accompanying the "Discourse" above referred to +in Ramusio's third volume, edition 1556-65. Champlain speaks of there +being at the Isle of Sable, in 1604, "grass pastured by oxen (_boeufs_) +and cows which the Portuguese carried there more than sixty years ago," +_i.e._ sixty years before 1613; in a later edition he says, which came +out of a Spanish vessel which was lost in endeavoring to settle on the +Isle of Sable; and he states that De la Roche's men, who were left on +this island seven years from 1598, lived on the flesh of these cattle +which they found "_en quantie)_," and built houses out of the wrecks of +vessels which came to the island ("perhaps Gilbert's"), there being no +wood or stone. Lescarbot says that they lived "on fish and the milk of +cows left there about eighty years before by Baron de Leri and Saint +Just." Charlevoix says they ate up the cattle and then lived on fish. +Haliburton speaks of cattle left there as a rumor. De Leri and Saint +Just had suggested plans of colonization on the Isle of Sable as early +as 1515 (1508?) according to Bancroft, referring to Charlevoix. These +are but a few of the instances which I might quote. + +Cape Cod is commonly said to have been discovered in 1602. We will +consider at length under what circumstances, and with what observation +and expectations, the first Englishmen whom history clearly discerns +approached the coast of New England. According to the accounts of Archer +and Brereton (both of whom accompanied Gosnold), on the 26th of March, +1602, old style. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold set sail from Falmouth, +England, for the North part of Virginia, in a small bark called the +_Concord_, they being in all, says one account, "thirty-two persons, +whereof eight mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery +to return with the ship for England, the rest remain there for +population." This is regarded as "the first attempt of the English to +make a settlement within the limits of New England." Pursuing a new and +a shorter course than the usual one by the Canaries, "the 14th of April +following" they had sight of Saint Mary's, an island of the Azores. As +their sailors were few and "none of the best" (I use their own +phrases), and they were "going upon an unknown coast," they were not +"overbold to stand in with the shore but in open weather"; so they made +their first discovery of land with the lead. The 23d of April the ocean +appeared yellow, but on taking up some of the water in a bucket, "it +altered not either in color or taste from the sea azure." The 7th of May +they saw divers birds whose names they knew, and many others in their +"English tongue of no name." The 8th of May "the water changed to a +yellowish green, where at seventy fathoms" they "had ground." The 9th, +they had upon their lead "many glittering stones,"--"which might promise +some mineral matter in the bottom." The 10th, they were over a bank +which they thought to be near the western end of St. John's Island, and +saw schools of fish. The 12th, they say, "continually passed fleeting by +us sea-oare, which seemed to have their movable course towards the +northeast." On the 13th, they observed "great beds of weeds, much wood, +and divers things else floating by," and "had smelling of the shore much +as from the southern Cape and Andalusia in Spain." On Friday, the 14th, +early in the morning they descried land on the north, in the latitude of +forty-three degrees, apparently some part of the coast of Maine. +Williamson (History of Maine) says it certainly could not have been +south of the central Isle of Shoals. Belknap inclines to think it the +south side of Cape Ann. Standing fair along by the shore, about twelve +o'clock the same day, they came to anchor and were visited by eight +savages, who came off to them "in a Biscay shallop, with sail and +oars,"--"an iron grapple, and a kettle of copper." These they at first +mistook for "Christians distressed." One of them was "apparelled with a +waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea-fashion, hoes +and shoes on his feet; all the rest (saving one that had a pair of +breeches of blue cloth) were naked." They appeared to have had dealings +with "some Basques of St. John de Luz, and to understand much more than +we," say the English, "for want of language, could comprehend." But they +soon "set sail westward, leaving them and their coast." (This was a +remarkable discovery for discoverers.) + +"The 15th day," writes Gabriel Archer, "we had again sight of the land, +which made ahead, being as we thought an island, by reason of a large +sound that appeared westward between it and the main, for coming to the +west end thereof, we did perceive a large opening, we called it Shoal +Hope. Near this cape we came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took +great store of cod-fish, for which we altered the name and called it +Cape Cod. Here we saw skulls of her-ring, mackerel, and other small +fish, in great abundance. This is a low sandy shoal, but without danger; +also we came to anchor again in sixteen fathoms, fair by the land in the +latitude of forty-two degrees. This Cape is well near a mile broad, and +lieth northeast by east. The captain went here ashore, and found the +ground to be full of peas, strawberries, whortleberries, etc., as then +unripe, the sand also by the shore somewhat deep; the firewood there by +us taken in was of cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beach. A young +Indian came here to the captain, armed with his bow and arrows, and had +certain plates of copper hanging at his ears; he showed a willingness +to help us in our occasions." + +"The 16th we trended the coast southerly, which was all champaign and +full of grass, but the islands somewhat woody." + +Or, according to the account of John Brereton, "riding here," that is, +where they first communicated with the natives, "in no very good harbor, +and withal doubting the weather, about three of the clock the same day +in the afternoon we weighed, and standing southerly off into sea the +rest of that day and the night following, with a fresh gale of wind, in +the morning we found ourselves embayed with a mighty headland; but +coming to an anchor about nine of the clock the same day, within a +league of the shore, we hoisted out the one half of our shallop, and +Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, myself and three others, went ashore, being +a white sandy and very bold shore; and marching all that afternoon with +our muskets on our necks, on the highest hills which we saw (the weather +very hot), at length we perceived this headland to be parcel of the +main, and sundry islands lying almost round about it; so returning +towards evening to our shallop (for by that time the other part was +brought ashore and set together), we espied an Indian, a young man of +proper stature, and of a pleasing countenance, and after some +familiarity with him, we left him at the sea side, and returned to our +ship, where in five or six hours' absence we had pestered our ship so +with codfish, that we threw numbers of them overboard again; and surely +I am persuaded that in the months of March, April, and May, there is +upon this coast better fishing, and in as great plenty, as in +Newfoundland; for the skulls of mackerel, herrings, cod, and other fish, +that we daily saw as we went and came from the shore, were wonderful," +etc. + +"From this place we sailed round about this headland, almost all the +points of the compass, the shore very bold; but as no coast is free from +dangers, so I am persuaded this is as free as any. The land somewhat +low, full of goodly woods, but in some places plain." + +It is not quite clear on which side of the Cape they landed. If it was +inside, as would appear from Brereton's words, "From this place we +sailed round about this headland almost all the points of the compass," +it must have been on the western shore either of Truro or Wellfleet. To +one sailing south into Barnstable Bay along the Cape, the only "white, +sandy, and very bold shore" that appears is in these towns, though the +bank is not so high there as on the eastern side. At a distance of four +or five miles the sandy cliffs there look like a long fort of yellow +sandstone, they are so level and regular, especially in Wellfleet,--the +fort of the land defending itself against the encroachments of the +Ocean. They are streaked here and there with a reddish sand as if +painted. Farther south the shore is more flat, and less _obviously_ and +abruptly sandy, and a little tinge of green here and there in the +marshes appears to the sailor like a rare and precious emerald. But in +the Journal of Pring's Voyage the next year (and Salterne, who was with +Pring, had accompanied Gosnold) it is said, "Departing hence [_i.e._ from +Savage Rocks] we bore unto that great gulf which Captain Gosnold +overshot the year before." [2] + +So they sailed round the Cape, calling the southeasterly extremity +"Point Cave," till they came to an island which they named Martha's +Vineyard (now called No Man's Land), and another on which they dwelt +awhile, which they named Elizabeth's Island, in honor of the Queen, one +of the group since so called, now known by its Indian name Cuttyhunk. +There they built a small storehouse, the first house built by the +English in New England, whose cellar could recently still be seen, made +partly of stones taken from the beach. Bancroft says (edition of 1837), +the ruins of the fort can no longer be discerned. They who were to have +remained becoming discontented, all together set sail for England with a +load of sassafras and other commodities, on the 18th of June following. + +The next year came Martin Pring, looking for sassafras, and thereafter +they began to come thick and fast, until long after sassafras had lost +its reputation. + +These are the oldest acounts which we have of Cape Cod, unless, +perchance. Cape Cod is, as some suppose, the same with that +"Kial-ar-nes" or Keel-Cape, on which, according to old Icelandic +manuscripts, Thorwald, son of Eric the Red, after sailing many days +southwest from Greenland, broke his keel in the year 1004; and where, +according to another, in some respects less trustworthy manuscript, +Thor-finn Karlsefue ("that is, one who promises or is destined to be an +able or great man"; he is said to have had a son born in New. England, +from whom Thorwaldsen the sculptor was descended), sailing past, in the +year 1007, with his wife Gudrida, Snorre Thorbrandson, Biarne +Grinolfson, and Thorhall Garnlason, distinguished Norsemen, in three +ships containing "one hundred and sixty men and all sorts of live stock" +(probably the first Norway rats among the rest), having the land "on the +right side" of them, "roved ashore," and found "_Or-oefi_ (trackless +deserts)," and "_Strand-ir lang-ar ok sand-ar_ (long narrow beaches and +sand-hills)," and "called the shores _Furdustrand-ir_ (Wonder-Strands), +because the sailing by them seemed long." + +According to the Icelandic manuscripts, _Thorwald_ was the first, +then,--unless possibly one Biarne Heriulfson (_i.e._ son of Heriulf) who +had been seized with a great desire to travel, sailing from Iceland to +Greenland in the year 986 to join his father who had migrated thither, +for he had resolved, says the manuscript, "to spend the following +winter, like all the preceding ones, with his father,"--being driven far +to the southwest by a storm, when it cleared up saw the low land of Cape +Cod looming faintly in the distance; but this not answering to the +description of Greenland, he put his vessel about, and, sailing +northward along the coast, at length reached Greenland and his father. +At any rate, he may put forth a strong claim to be regarded as the +discoverer of the American continent. + +These Northmen were a hardy race, whose younger sons inherited the +ocean, and traversed it without chart or compass, and they are said to +have been "the first who learned the art of sailing on a wind." +Moreover, they had a habit of casting their door-posts overboard and +settling wherever they went ashore. But as Biarne, and Thorwald, and +Thorfinn have not mentioned the latitude and longitude distinctly +enough, though we have great respect for them as skilful and adventurous +navigators, we must for the present remain in doubt as to what capes +they did see. We think that they were considerably further north. + +If time and space permitted, I could present the claims of other several +worthy persons. Lescarbot, in 1609, asserts that the French sailors had +been accustomed to frequent the Newfoundland Banks from time immemorial, +"for the codfish with which they feed almost all Europe and supply all +sea-going vessels," and accordingly "the language of the nearest lands +is half Basque"; and he quotes Postel, a learned but extravagant French +author, born in 1510, only six years after the Basques, Bretons, and +Normans are said to have discovered the Grand Bank and adjacent islands, +as saying, in his _Charte Géographique_, which we have not seen: "Terra +haec ob lucrosissimam piscationis utilitatem summa litterarum memoria a +Gallis adiri solita, et ante mille sexcentos annos frequentari solita +est; sed eo quod sit urbibus inculta et vasta, spreta est." "This land, +on account of its very lucrative fishery, was accustomed to be visited +by the Gauls from the very dawn of history, and more than sixteen +hundred years ago was accustomed to be frequented; but because it was +unadorned with cities, and waste, it was despised." + +It is the old story. Bob Smith discovered the mine, but I discovered it +to the world. And now Bob Smith is putting in his claim. + +But let us not laugh at Postel and his visions. He was perhaps better +posted up than we; and if he does seem to draw the long bow, it may be +because he had a long way to shoot,--quite across the Atlantic, If +America was found and lost again once, as most of us believe, then why +not twice? especially as there were likely to be so few records of an +earlier discovery. Consider what stuff history is made of,--that for the +most part it is merely a story agreed on by posterity. Who will tell us +even how many Russians were engaged in the battle of the Chernaya, the +other day? Yet no doubt, Mr. Scriblerus, the historian, will fix on a +definite number for the schoolboys to commit to their excellent +memories. What, then, of the number of Persians at Salamis? The +historian whom I read knew as much about the position of the parties and +their tactics in the last-mentioned affair, as they who describe a +recent battle in an article for the press now-a-days, before the +particulars have arrived. I believe that, if I were to live the life of +mankind over again myself (which I would not be hired to do), with the +Universal History in my hands, I should not be able to tell what was +what. + +Earlier than the date Postel refers to, at any rate. Cape Cod lay in +utter darkness to the civilized world, though even then the sun rose +from eastward out of the sea every day, and, rolling over the Cape, went +down westward into the Bay. It was even then Cape and Bay,--ay, the Cape +of _Codfish_, and the Bay of the _Massachusetts_, perchance. + +Quite recently, on the 11th of November, 1620, old style, as is well +known, the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_ came to anchor in Cape Cod harbor. +They had loosed from Plymouth, England, the 6th of September, and, in +the words of "Mourts' Relation," "after many difficulties in boisterous +storms, at length, by God's providence, upon the 9th of November, we +espied land, which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. +Upon the 11th of November we came to anchor in the bay, which is a good +harbor and pleasant bay, circled round except in the entrance, which is +about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the very sea +with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood. It is a +harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. There we +relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people, while +our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation." +There we put up at Fuller's Hotel, passing by the Pilgrim House as too +high for us (we learned afterward that we need not have been so +particular), and we refreshed ourselves with hashed fish and beans, +beside taking in a supply of liquids (which were not intoxicating), +while our legs were refitted to coast the back-side. Further say the +Pilgrims: "We could not come near the shore by three quarters of an +English mile, because of shallow water; which was a great prejudice to +us; for our people going on shore were forced to wade a bow-shot or two +in going aland, which caused many to get colds and coughs; for it was +many times freezing cold weather." They afterwards say: "It brought much +weakness amongst us"; and no doubt it led to the death of some at +Plymouth. + +The harbor of Provincetown is very shallow near the shore, especially +about the head, where the Pilgrims landed. When I left this place the +next summer, the steamer could not get up to the wharf, but we were +carried out to a large boat in a cart as much as thirty rods in shallow +water, while a troop of little boys kept us company, wading around, and +thence we pulled to the steamer by a rope. The harbor being thus shallow +and sandy about the shore, coasters are accustomed to run in here to +paint their vessels, which are left high and dry when the tide goes +down. + +It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were there, I had joined a +party of men who were smoking and lolling over a pile of boards on one +of the wharves (_nihil humanum a me, etc_.), when our landlord, who was a +sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors who were engaged in +painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from time to time by +other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had just got out +of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom there to +lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked that, +as I thought, they might as well let the men paint, for all us. It was +not noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in +the company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain +contradiction of the law of God, which he quoted, and if they did not +have some such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, +and paint, and they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good +argument enough, if he had not put it in the name of religion. The next +summer, as I sat on a hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon the +meeting-house windows being open, my meditations were interrupted by the +noise of a preacher who shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet +atmosphere, and who, I fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things +could have been more disgusting or disheartening. I wished the +tithing-man would stop him. + +[Illustration: The day of rest] + +The Pilgrims say: "There was the greatest store of fowl that ever we +saw." + +We saw no fowl there, except gulls of various kinds; but the greatest +store of them that ever we saw was on a flat but slightly covered with +water on the east side of the harbor, and we observed a man who had +landed there from a boat creeping along the shore in order to get a shot +at them, but they all rose and flew away in a great scattering flock, +too soon for him, having apparently got their dinners, though he did not +get his. + +It is remarkable that the Pilgrims (or their reporter) describe this +part of the Cape, not only as well wooded, but as having a deep and +excellent soil, and hardly mention the word _sand_. Now what strikes the +voyager is the barrenness and desolation of the land. _They_ found "the +ground or earth sand-hills, much like the downs in Holland, but much +better the crust of the earth, a spit's depth, excellent black earth." +_We_ found that the earth had lost its crust,--if, in-deed, it ever had +any,--and that there was no soil to speak of. We did not see enough +black earth in Provincetown to fill a flower-pot, unless in the swamps. +They found it "all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, birch, +holly, vines, some ash, walnut; the wood for the most part open and +without underwood, fit either to go or ride in." We saw scarcely +anything high enough to be called a tree, except a little low wood at +the east end of the town, and the few ornamental trees in its +yards,--only a few small specimens of some of the above kinds on the +sand-hills in the rear; but it was all thick shrubbery, without any +large wood above it, very unfit either to go or ride in. The greater +part of the land was a perfect desert of yellow sand, rippled like waves +by the wind, in which only a little Beach-grass grew here and there. +They say that, just after passing the head of East Harbor Creek, the +boughs and bushes "tore" their "very armor in pieces" (the same thing +happened to such armor as we wore, when out of curiosity we took to the +bushes); or they came to deep valleys, "full of brush, wood-gaile, and +long grass," and "found springs of fresh water." + +For the most part we saw neither bough nor bush, not so much as a shrub +to tear our clothes against if we would, and a sheep would lose none of +its fleece, even if it found herbage enough to make fleece grow there. +We saw rather beach and poverty-grass, and merely sorrel enough to color +the surface. I suppose, then, by Woodgaile they mean the Bay berry. + +All accounts agree in affirming that this part of the Cape was +_comparatively_ well wooded a century ago. But notwithstanding the great +changes which have taken place in these respects, I cannot but think +that we must make some allowance for the greenness of the Pilgrims in +these matters, which caused them to see green. We do not believe that +the trees were large or the soil was deep here. Their account may be +true particularly, but it is generally false. They saw literally, as +well as figuratively, but one side of the Cape. They naturally +exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness of the land, for they were +glad to get to any land at all after that anxious voyage. Everything +appeared to them of the color of the rose, and had the scent of juniper +and sassafras. Very different is the general and off-hand account given +by Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six years earlier, and +speaks like an old traveller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too +much of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it. +In his "Description of New England," printed in 1616, after speaking of +Accomack, since called Plymouth, he says: "Cape Cod is the next presents +itself, which is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with +shrubby pines, _hurts_ [i.e. whorts, or whortleberries], and such trash, +but an excellent harbor for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main +sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle." +Champlain had already written, "Which we named _Cap Blanc_ (Cape White), +because they were sands and downs (_sables et dunes_) which appeared +thus." + +When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter says again, "The land +for the crust of the earth is a spit's depth,"--that would seem to be +their recipe for an earth's crust,--"excellent black mould and fat in +some places." However, according to Bradford himself, whom some consider +the author of part of "Mourt's Relation," they who came over in the +_Fortune_ the next year were somewhat daunted when "they came into the +harbor of Cape Cod, and there saw nothing but a naked and barren place." +They soon found out their mistake with respect to the goodness of +Plymouth soil. Yet when at length, some years later, when they were +fully satisfied of the poorness of the place which they had chosen, "the +greater part," says Bradford, "consented to a removal to a place called +Nausett," they agreed to remove all together to Nauset, now Eastham, +which was jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of the +most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did actually remove +thither accordingly. + +It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but few of the +qualities of the modern pioneer. They were not the ancestors of the +American backwoodsmen. They did not go at once into the woods with their +axes. They were a family and church, and were more anxious to keep +together, though it were on the sand, than to explore and colonize a New +World. When the above-mentioned company removed to Eastham, the church +at Plymouth was left, to use Bradford's expression, "like an ancient +mother grown old, and forsaken of her children." Though they landed on +Clark's Island in Plymouth harbor, the 9th of December (O. S.), and the +16th all hands came to Plymouth, and the 18th they rambled about the +mainland, and the 19th decided to settle there, it was the 8th of +January before Francis Billington went with one of the master's mates to +look at the magnificent pond or lake now called "Billington Sea," about +two miles distant, which he had discovered from the top of a tree, and +mistook for a great sea. And the 7th of March "Master Carver with five +others went to the great ponds which seem to be excellent fishing," both +which points are within the compass of an ordinary afternoon's +ramble,--however wild the country. It is true they were busy at first +about their building, and were hindered in that by much foul weather; +but a party of emigrants to California or Oregon, with no less work on +their hands,--and more hostile Indians,--would do as much exploring the +first afternoon, and the Sieur de Champlain would have sought an +interview with the savages, and examined the country as far as the +Connecticut, and made a map of it, before Billington had climbed his +tree. Or contrast them only with the French searching for copper about +the Bay of Fundy in 1603, tracing up small streams with Indian guides. +Nevertheless, the Pilgrims were pioneers and the ancestors of pioneers, +in a far grander enterprise. + +By this time we saw the little steamer _Naushon_ entering the harbor, and +heard the sound of her whistle, and came down from the hills to meet her +at the wharf. So we took leave of Cape Cod and its inhabitants. We liked +the manners of the last, what little we saw of them, very much. They +were particularly downright and good-humored. The old people appeared +remarkably well preserved, as if by the saltness of the atmosphere, and +after having once mistaken, we could never be certain whether we were +talking to a coeval of our grandparents, or to one of our own age. They +are said to be more purely the descendants of the Pilgrims than the +inhabitants of any other part of the State. We were told that +"sometimes, when the court comes together at Barnstable, they have not a +single criminal to try, and the jail is shut up." It was "to let" when +we were there. Until quite recently there was no regular lawyer below +Orleans. Who then will complain of a few regular man-eating sharks along +the back-side? + +One of the ministers of Truro, when I asked what the fishermen did in +the winter, answered that they did nothing but go a-visiting, sit about +and tell stories,--though they worked hard in summer. Yet it is not a +long vacation they get. I am sorry that I have not been there in the +winter to hear their yarns. Almost every Cape man is Captain of some +craft or other,--every man at least who is at the head of his own +affairs, though it is not every one that is, for some heads have the +force of _Alpha privative_, negativing all the efforts which Nature would +fain make through them. The greater number of men are merely corporals. +It is worth the while to talk with one whom his neighbors address as +Captain, though his craft may have long been sunk, and he may be holding +by his teeth to the shattered mast of a pipe alone, and only gets +half-seas-over in a figurative sense, now. He is pretty sure to +vindicate his right to the title at last,--can tell one or two good +stories at least. + +For the most part we saw only the back-side of the towns, but our story +is true as far as it goes. We might have made more of the Bay side, but +we were inclined to open our eyes widest at the Atlantic. We did not +care to see those features of the Cape in which it is inferior or merely +equal to the mainland, but only those in which it is peculiar or +superior. We cannot say how its towns look in front to one who goes to +meet them; we went to see the ocean behind them. They were merely the +raft on which we stood, and we took notice of the barnacles which +adhered to it, and some carvings upon it. + +Before we left the wharf we made the acquaintance of a passenger whom we +had seen at the hotel. When we asked him which way he came to +Provincetown, he answered that he was cast ashore at Wood End, Saturday +night, in the same storm in which the _St. John_ was wrecked. He had been +at work as a carpenter in Maine, and took passage for Boston in a +schooner laden with lumber. When the storm came up, they endeavored to +get into Provincetown harbor. "It was dark and misty," said he, "and as +we were steering for Long Point Light we suddenly saw the land near +us,--for our compass was out of order,--varied several degrees [a +mariner always casts the blame on his compass],--but there being a mist +on shore, we thought it was farther off than it was, and so held on, and +we immediately struck on the bar. Says the Captain, 'We are all lost.' +Says I to the Captain, 'Now don't let her strike again this way; head +her right on.' The Captain thought a moment, and then headed her on. The +sea washed completely over us, and wellnigh took the breath out of my +body. I held on to the running rigging, but I have learned to hold on to +the standing rigging the next time." "Well, were there any drowned?" I +asked. "No; we all got safe to a house at Wood End, at midnight, wet to +our skins, and half frozen to death." He had apparently spent the time +since playing checkers at the hotel, and was congratulating himself on +having beaten a tall fellow-boarder at that game. "The vessel is to be +sold at auction to-day," he added. (We had heard the sound of the +crier's bell which advertised it.) "The Captain is rather down about it, +but I tell him to cheer up and he will soon get another vessel." + +At that moment the Captain called to him from the wharf. He looked like +a man just from the country, with a cap made of a woodchuck's skin, and +now that I had heard a part of his history, he appeared singularly +destitute,--a Captain without any vessel, only a great-coat! and that +perhaps a borrowed one! Not even a dog followed him; only his title +stuck to him. I also saw one of the crew. They all had caps of the same +pattern, and wore a subdued look, in addition to their naturally +aquiline features, as if a breaker--a "comber"--had washed over them. As +we passed Wood End, we noticed the pile of lumber on the shore which had +made the cargo of their vessel. + +About Long Point in the summer you commonly see them catching lobsters +for the New York market, from small boats just off the shore, or rather, +the lobsters catch themselves, for they cling to the netting on which +the bait is placed of their own accord, and thus are drawn up. They sell +them fresh for two cents apiece. Man needs to know but little more than +a lobster in order to catch him in his traps. The mackerel fleet had +been getting to sea, one after another, ever since midnight, and as we +were leaving the Cape we passed near to many of them under sail, and got +a nearer view than we had had;--half a dozen red-shirted men and boys, +leaning over the rail to look at us, the skipper shouting back the +number of barrels he had caught, in answer to our inquiry. All sailors +pause to watch a steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a +large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and stood up as high as +any of them, and looked as wise. But the skipper, who did not wish to be +seen no better employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent him +below. Such is human justice! I thought I could hear him making an +effective appeal down there from human to divine justice. He must have +had much the cleanest breast of the two. + +[Illustration: A Provincetown fishing-vessel] + +Still, many a mile behind us across the Bay, we saw the white sails of +the mackerel fishers hovering round Cape Cod, and when they were all +hull-down, and the low extremity of the Cape was also down, their white +sails still appeared on both sides of it, around where it had sunk, like +a city on the ocean, proclaiming the rare qualities of Cape Cod Harbor. +But before the extremity of the Cape had completely sunk, it appeared +like a filmy sliver of land lying flat on the ocean, and later still a +mere reflection of a sand-bar on the haze above. Its name suggests a +homely truth, but it would be more poetic if it described the impression +which it makes on the beholder. Some capes have peculiarly suggestive +names. There is Cape Wrath, the northwest point of Scotland, for +instance; what a good name for a cape lying far away dark over the water +under a lowering sky! + +Mild as it was on shore this morning, the wind was cold and piercing on +the water. Though it be the hottest day in July on land, and the voyage +is to last but four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for you +are about to float over melted icebergs. When I left Boston in the +steamboat on the 25th of June the next year, it was a quite warm day on +shore. The passengers were dressed in their thinnest clothes, and at +first sat under their umbrellas, but when we were fairly out on the Bay, +such as had only their coats were suffering with the cold, and sought +the shelter of the pilot's house and the warmth of the chimney. But when +we approached the harbor of Provincetown, I was surprised to perceive +what an influence that low and narrow strip of sand, only a mile or two +in width, had over the temperature of the air for many miles around. We +penetrated into a sultry atmosphere where our thin coats were once more +in fashion, and found the inhabitants sweltering. + +Leaving far on one side Manomet Point in Plymouth and the Scituate +shore, after being out of sight of land for an hour or two, for it was +rather hazy, we neared the Cohasset Rocks again at Minot's Ledge, and +saw the great Tupelo-tree on the edge of Scituate, which lifts its dome, +like an umbelliferous plant, high over the surrounding forest, and is +conspicuous for many miles over land and water. Here was the new iron +light-house, then unfinished, in the shape of an egg-shell painted red, +and placed high on iron pillars, like the ovum of a sea monster floating +on the waves,--destined to be phosphorescent. As we passed it at +half-tide we saw the spray tossed up nearly to the shell. A man was to +live in that egg-shell day and night, a mile from the shore. When I +passed it the next summer it was finished and two men lived in it, and a +light-house keeper said that they told him that in a recent gale it had +rocked so as to shake the plates off the table. Think of making your bed +thus in the crest of a breaker! To have the waves, like a pack of hungry +wolves, eying you always, night and day, and from time to time making a +spring at you, almost sure to have you at last. And not one of all those +voyagers can come to your relief,--but when your light goes out, it will +be a sign that the light of your life has gone out also. What a place to +compose a work on breakers! This light-house was the cynosure of all +eyes. Every passenger watched it for half an hour at least; yet a +colored cook belonging to the boat, whom I had seen come out of his +quarters several times to empty his dishes over the side with a +flourish, chancing to come out just as we were abreast of this light, +and not more than forty rods from it, and were all gazing at it, as he +drew back his arm, caught sight of it, and with surprise exclaimed, +"What's that?" He had been employed on this boat for a year, and passed +this light every weekday, but as he had never chanced to empty his +dishes just at that point, had never seen it before. To look at lights +was the pilot's business; he minded the kitchen fire. It suggested how +little some who voyaged round the world could manage to see. You would +almost as easily believe that there are men who never yet chanced to +come out at the right time to see the sun. What avails it though a light +be placed on the top of a hill, if you spend all your life directly +under the hill? It might as well be under a bushel. This light-house, as +is well known, was swept away in a storm in April, 1851, and the two men +in it, and the next morning not a vestige of it was to be seen from the +shore. + +A Hull man told me that he helped set up a white-oak pole on Minot's +Ledge some years before. It was fifteen inches in diameter, forty-one +feet high, sunk four feet in the rock, and was secured by four +guys,--but it stood only one year. Stone piled up cob-fashion near the +same place stood eight years. + +When I crossed the Bay in the _Melrose_ in July, we hugged the Scituate +shore as long as possible, in order to take advantage of the wind. Far +out on the Bay (off this shore) we scared up a brood of young ducks, +probably black ones, bred hereabouts, which the packet had frequently +disturbed in her trips. A townsman, who was making the voyage for the +first time, walked slowly round into the rear of the helmsman, when we +were in the middle of the Bay, and looking out over the sea, before he +sat down there, remarked with as much originality as was possible for +one who used a borrowed expression, "This is a great country." He had +been a timber merchant, and I afterwards saw him taking the diameter of +the mainmast with his stick, and estimating its height. I returned from +the same excursion in the _Olata_, a very handsome and swift-sailing +yacht, which left Provincetown at the same time with two other packets, +the _Melrose_ and _Frolic_. At first there was scarcely a breath of air +stirring, and we loitered about Long Point for an hour in company,--with +our heads over the rail watching the great sand-circles and the fishes +at the bottom in calm water fifteen feet deep. But after clearing the +Cape we rigged a flying-jib, and, as the Captain had prophesied, soon +showed our consorts our heels. There was a steamer six or eight miles +northward, near the Cape, towing a large ship toward Boston. Its smoke +stretched perfectly horizontal several miles over the sea, and by a +sudden change in its direction, warned us of a change in the wind before +we felt it. The steamer appeared very far from the ship, and some young +men who had frequently used the Captain's glass, but did not suspect +that the vessels were connected, expressed surprise that they kept about +the same distance apart for so many hours. At which the Captain dryly +remarked, that probably they would never get any nearer together. As +long as the wind held we kept pace with the steamer, but at length it +died away almost entirely, and the flying-jib did all the work. When we +passed the light-boat at Minot's Ledge, the _Melrose_ and _Frolic_ were +just visible ten miles astern. + +Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with +forts like chestnuts-burs, or _echinidoe_, yet the police will not let a +couple of Irishmen have a private sparring-match on one of them, as it +is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing +attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony +knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts. + +The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that +name which was wrecked on them, "which till then," says Sir John Smith, +"for six thousand years had been nameless." The English did not stumble +upon them in their first voyages to Virginia; and the first Englishman +who was ever there was wrecked on them in 1593. Smith says, "No place +known hath better walls nor a broader ditch." Yet at the very first +planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first Governor, +the same year, "built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts." +To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship's company that +should be next shipwrecked on to them. It would have been more sensible +to have built as many "Charity-houses." These are the vexed Bermoothees. + +Our great sails caught all the air there was, and our low and narrow +hull caused the least possible friction. Coming up the harbor against +the stream we swept by everything. Some young men returning from a +fishing excursion came to the side of their smack, while we were thus +steadily drawing by them, and, bowing, observed, with the best possible +grace, "We give it up." Yet sometimes we were nearly at a standstill. +The sailors watched (two) objects on the shore to ascertain whether we +advanced or receded. In the harbor it was like the evening of a holiday. +The Eastern steamboat passed us with music and a cheer, as if they were +going to a ball, when they might be going to--Davy's locker. + +I heard a boy telling the story of Nix's mate to some girls as we passed +that spot. That was the name of a sailor hung there, he said.--"If I am +guilty, this island will remain; but if I am innocent it will be washed +away," and now it is all washed away! + +Next (?) came the fort on George's Island. These are bungling +contrivances: not our _fortes_ but our _foibles_. Wolfe sailed by the +strongest fort in North America in the dark, and took it. + +I admired the skill with which the vessel was at last brought to her +place in the dock, near the end of Long Wharf. It was candle-light, and +my eyes could not distinguish the wharves jutting out towards us, but it +appeared like an even line of shore densely crowded with shipping. You +could not have guessed within a quarter of a mile of Long Wharf. +Nevertheless, we were to be blown to a crevice amid them,--steering +right into the maze. Down goes the mainsail, and only the jib draws us +along. Now we are within four rods of the shipping, having already +dodged several outsiders; but it is still only a maze of spars, and +rigging, and hulls,--not a crack can be seen. Down goes the jib, but +still we advance. The Captain stands aft with one hand on the tiller, +and the other holding his night-glass,--his son stands on the bowsprit +straining his eyes,--the passengers feel their hearts halfway to their +mouths, expecting a crash. "Do you see any room there?" asks the +Captain, quietly. He must make up his mind in five seconds, else he will +carry away that vessel's bowsprit, or lose his own. "Yes, sir, here is a +place for us"; and in three minutes more we are fast to the wharf in a +little gap between two bigger vessels. + +And now we were in Boston. Whoever has been down to the end of Long +Wharf, and walked through Quincy Market, has seen Boston. + +Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and the rest, +are the names of wharves projecting into the sea (surrounded by the +shops and dwellings of the merchants), good places to take in and to +discharge a cargo (to land the products of other climes and load the +exports of our own). I see a great many barrels and fig-drums,--piles of +wood for umbrella-sticks,--blocks of granite and ice,--great heaps of +goods, and the means of packing and conveying them,--much wrapping-paper +and twine,--many crates and hogsheads and trucks,--and that is Boston. +The more barrels, the more Boston. The museums and scientific societies +and libraries are accidental. They gather around the sands to save +carting. The wharf-rats and customhouse officers, and broken-down poets, +seeking a fortune amid the barrels. Their better or worse lyceums, and +preachings, and doctorings, these, too, are accidental, and the malls of +commons are always small potatoes. When I go to Boston, I naturally go +straight through the city (taking the Market in my way), down to the end +of Long Wharf, and look off, for I have no cousins in the back +alleys,--and there I see a great many countrymen in their shirt-sleeves +from Maine, and Pennsylvania, and all along shore and in shore, and some +foreigners beside, loading and unloading and steering their teams about, +as at a country fair. + +When we reached Boston that October, I had a gill of Provincetown sand +in my shoes, and at Concord there was still enough left to sand my pages +for many a day; and I seemed to hear the sea roar, as if I lived in a +shell, for a week afterward. + +The places which I have described may seem strange and remote to my +townsmen,--indeed, from Boston to Provincetown is twice as far as from +England to France; yet step into the cars, and in six hours you may +stand on those four planks, and see the Cape which Gosnold is said to +have discovered, and which I have so poorly described. If you had +started when I first advised you, you might have seen our tracks in the +sand, still fresh, and reaching all the way from the Nauset Lights to +Race Point, some thirty miles,--for at every step we made an impression +on the Cape, though we were not aware of it, and though our account may +have made no impression on your minds. But what is our account? In it +there is no roar, no beach-birds, no tow-cloth. + +We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in +midsummer, when the weather is serene; their sunny lives on the sand, +amid the beach-grass and the bayberries, their companion a cow, their +wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach-plums, and their music the surf +and the peep of the beach-bird. + +We went to see the Ocean, and that is probably the best place of all our +coast to go to. If you go by water, you may experience what it is to +leave and to approach these shores; you may see the Stormy Petrel by the +way, [Greek: thalassodroma,] running over the sea, and if the weather is +but a little thick, may lose sight of the land in mid-passage. I do not +know where there is another beach in the Atlantic States, attached to +the mainland, so long, and at the same time so straight, and completely +uninterrupted by creeks or coves or fresh-water rivers or marshes; for +though there may be clear places on the map, they would probably be +found by the foot traveller to be intersected by creeks and marshes; +certainly there is none where there is a double way, such as I have +described, a beach and a bank, which at the same time shows you the land +and the sea, and part of the time two seas. The Great South Beach of +Long Island, which I have since visited, is longer still without an +inlet, but it is literally a mere sand-bar, exposed, several miles from +the Island, and not the edge of a continent wasting before the assaults +of the Ocean. Though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank, it +possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the +imagination contented with its southern aspect. The only other beaches +of great length on our Atlantic coast, which I have heard sailors speak +of, are those of Barnegat on the Jersey shore, and Currituck between +Virginia and North Carolina; but these, like the last, are low and +narrow sandbars, lying off the coast, and separated from the mainland by +lagoons. Besides, as you go farther south, the tides are feebler, and +cease to add variety and grandeur to the shore. On the Pacific side of +our country also no doubt there is good walking to be found; a recent +writer and dweller there tells us that "the coast from Cape +Disappointment (or the Columbia River) to Cape Flattery (at the Strait +of Juan de Fuca) is nearly north and south, and can be travelled almost +its entire length on a beautiful sand-beach," with the exception of two +bays, four or five rivers, and a few points jutting into the sea. The +common shell-fish found there seem to be often of corresponding types, +if not identical species, with those of Cape Cod. The beach which I have +described, however, is not hard enough for carriages, but must be +explored on foot. When one carriage has passed along, a following one +sinks deeper still in its rut. It has at present no name any more than +fame. That portion south of Nauset Harbor is commonly called Chatham +Beach. The part in Eastham is called Nauset Beach, and off Wellfleet and +Truro the Back-side, or sometimes, perhaps, Cape Cod Beach. I think that +part which extends without interruption from Nauset Harbor to Race Point +should be called Cape Cod Beach, and do so speak of it. + +One of the most attractive points for visitors is in the northeast part +of Wellfleet, where accommodations (I mean for men and women of +tolerable health and habits) could probably be had within half a mile +of the sea-shore. It best combines the country and the seaside. Though +the Ocean is out of sight, its faintest murmur is audible, and you have +only to climb a hill to find yourself on its brink. It is but a step +from the glassy surface of the Herring Ponds to the big Atlantic Pond +where the waves never cease to break. Or perhaps the Highland Light in +Truro may compete with this locality, for there, there is a more +uninterrupted view of the Ocean and the Bay, and in the summer there is +always some air stirring on the edge of the bank there, so that the +inhabitants know not what hot weather is. As for the view, the keeper of +the light, with one or more of his family, walks out to the edge of the +bank after every meal to look off, just as if they had not lived there +all their days. In short, it will wear well. And what picture will you +substitute for that, upon your walls? But ladies cannot get down the +bank there at present without the aid of a block and tackle. + +Most persons visit the sea-side in warm weather, when fogs are frequent, +and the atmosphere is wont to be thick, and the charm of the sea is to +some extent lost. But I suspect that the fall is the best season, for +then the atmosphere is more transparent, and it is a greater pleasure to +look out over the sea. The clear and bracing air, and the storms of +autumn and winter even, are necessary in order that we may get the +impression which the sea is calculated to make. In October, when the +weather is not intolerably cold, and the landscape wears its autumnal +tints, such as, methinks, only a Cape Cod landscape ever wears, +especially if you have a storm during your stay,--that I am convinced is +the best time to visit this shore. In autumn, even in August, the +thoughtful days begin, and we can walk anywhere with profit. Beside, an +outward cold and dreariness, which make it necessary to seek shelter at +night, lend a spirit of adventure to a walk. + +The time must come when this coast will be a place of resort for those +New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is +wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be +agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular +railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search +of,--if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do +at Newport,--I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. +But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now. Such +beaches as are fashionable are here made and unmade in a day, I may +almost say, by the sea shifting its sands. Lynn and Nantasket! this bare +and bended arm it is that makes the bay in which they lie so snugly. +What are springs and waterfalls? Here is the spring of springs, the +waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the fall or winter is the time to +visit it; a light-house or a fisherman's hut the true hotel. A man may +stand there and put all America behind him. + +[1] It is remarkable that the first, if not the only, part of New +England which Cartier saw was Vermont (he also saw the mountains of New +York), from Montreal Mountain, in 1535, sixty-seven years before Gosnold +saw Cape Cod. _If seeing is discovering_,--and that is _all_ that it is +proved that Cabot knew of the coast of the United States,--then Cartier +(to omit Verrazani and Gomez) was the discoverer of New England rather +than Gosnold, who is commonly so styled. + +[2] "Savage Rock," which some have supposed to be, from the name, the +_Salvages_, a ledge about two miles off Rockland, Cape Ann, was probably +the _Nubble_, a large, high rock near the shore, on the east side of York +Harbor, Maine. The first land made by Gosnold is presumed by experienced +navigators to be Cape Elizabeth, on the same coast. (See Babson's +History of Gloucester, Massachusetts.) + + +The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. + +The End + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod, by Henry D. Thoreau + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD *** + +***** This file should be named 34392-8.txt or 34392-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/9/34392/ + +Produced by Steve Mattern + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/34392-8.zip b/old/34392-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..77684dd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/34392-8.zip diff --git a/old/34392.txt b/old/34392.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d101184 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/34392.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7529 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod, by Henry D. Thoreau + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cape Cod + +Author: Henry D. Thoreau + +Illustrator: Clifton Johnson + +Release Date: November 21, 2010 [EBook #34392] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD *** + + + + +Produced by Steve Mattern + + + + +[Frontispiece: The Clam-Digger (Rotogravure)] + +CAPE COD + +BY HENRY D. THOREAU + +Author of "A Week on the Concord," "Walden" "Excursions," "The Maine +Woods," etc. + +ILLUSTRATED BY CLIFTON JOHNSON + +NEW YORK +THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. +PUBLISHERS + +Copyright, 1908 By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. + +THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. + + + +INTRODUCTION + +Of the group of notables who in the middle of the last century made the +little Massachusetts town of Concord their home, and who thus conferred +on it a literary fame both unique and enduring, Thoreau is the only one +who was Concord born. His neighbor, Emerson, had sought the place in +mature life for rural retirement, and after it became his chosen +retreat, Hawthorne, Alcott, and the others followed; but Thoreau, the +most peculiar genius of them all, was native to the soil. + +In 1837, at the age of twenty, he graduated from Harvard, and for three +years taught school in his home town. Then he applied himself to the +business in which his father was engaged,--the manufacture of lead +pencils. He believed he could make a better pencil than any at that time +in use; but when he succeeded and his friends congratulated him that he +had now opened his way to fortune he responded that he would never make +another pencil. "Why should I?" said he. "I would not do again what I +have done once." + +So he turned his attention to miscellaneous studies and to nature. When +he wanted money he earned it by some piece of manual labor agreeable to +him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, or surveying. He never +married, very rarely went to church, did not vote, refused to pay a tax +to the State, ate no flesh, drank no wine, used no tobacco; and for a +long time he was simply an oddity in the estimation of his +fellow-townsmen. But when they at length came to understand him better +they recognized his genuineness and sincerity and his originality, and +they revered and admired him. He was entirely independent of the +conventional, and his courage to live as he saw fit and to defend and +uphold what he believed to be right never failed him. Indeed, so devoted +was he to principle and his own ideals that he seems never to have +allowed himself one indifferent or careless moment. + +He was a man of the strongest local attachments, and seldom wandered +beyond his native township. A trip abroad did not tempt him in the +least. It would mean in his estimation just so much time lost for +enjoying his own village, and he says: "At best, Paris could only be a +school in which to learn to live here--a stepping-stone to Concord." + +He had a very pronounced antipathy to the average prosperous city man, +and in speaking of persons of this class remarks: "They do a little +business commonly each day in order to pay their board, and then they +congregate in sitting-rooms, and feebly fabulate and paddle in the +social slush, and go unashamed to their beds and take on a new layer of +sloth." + +The men he loved were those of a more primitive sort, unartificial, with +the daring to cut loose from the trammels of fashion and inherited +custom. Especially he liked the companionship of men who were in close +contact with nature. A half-wild Irishman, or some rude farmer, or +fisherman, or hunter, gave him real delight; and for this reason, Cape +Cod appealed to him strongly. It was then a very isolated portion of the +State, and its dwellers were just the sort of independent, self-reliant +folk to attract him. In his account of his rambles there the human +element has large place, and he lingers fondly over the characteristics +of his chance acquaintances and notes every salient remark. They, in +turn, no doubt found him interesting, too, though the purposes of the +wanderer were a good deal of a mystery to them, and they were inclined +to think he was a pedler. + +His book was the result of several journeys, but the only trip of which +he tells us in detail was in October. That month, therefore, was the one +I chose for my own visit to the Cape when I went to secure the series of +pictures that illustrate this edition; for I wished to see the region as +nearly as possible in the same guise that Thoreau describes it. From +Sandwich, where his record of Cape experiences begins, and where the +inner shore first takes a decided turn eastward, I followed much the +same route he had travelled in 1849, clear to Provincetown, at the very +tip of the hook. + +Thoreau has a good deal to say of the sandy roads and toilsome walking. +In that respect there has been marked improvement, for latterly a large +proportion of the main highway has been macadamed. Yet one still +encounters plenty of the old yielding sand roads that make travel a +weariness either on foot or in teams. Another feature to which the +nature lover again and again refers is the windmills. The last of these +ceased grinding a score of years ago, though several continue to stand +in fairly perfect condition. There have been changes on the Cape, but +the landscape in the main presents the same appearance it did in +Thoreau's time. As to the people, if you see them in an unconventional +way, tramping as Thoreau did, their individuality retains much of the +interest that he discovered. + +Our author's report of his trip has a piquancy that is quite alluring. +This might be said of all his books, for no matter what he wrote about, +his comments were certain to be unusual; and it is as much or more for +the revelations of his own tastes, thoughts, and idiosyncrasies that we +read him as for the subject matter with which he deals. He had published +only two books when he died in 1862 at the age of forty-four, and his +"Cape Cod" did not appear until 1865. Nor did the public at first show +any marked interest in his books. During his life, therefore, the circle +of his admirers was very small, but his fame has steadily increased +since, and the stimulus of his lively descriptions and observations +seems certain of enduring appreciation. + +Clifton Johnson. +Hadley, Mass. + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + Introduction + I The Shipwreck + II Stage-coach Views + III The Plains Of Nauset + IV The Beach + V The Wellfleet Oysterman + VI The Beach Again + VII Across the Cape + VIII The Highland Light + IX The Sea and the Desert + X Provincetown + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + The Clam-Digger (Photogravure) + Cohasset--The little cove at Whitehead promontory + An old windmill + A street in Sandwich + The old Higgins tavern at Orleans + A Nauset lane + Nauset Bay + A scarecrow + Millennium Grove camp-meeting grounds + A Cape Cod citizen + Wreckage under the sand-bluff + Herring River at Wellfleet + A characteristic gable with many windows + A Wellfleet oysterman + Wellfleet + Hunting for a leak + Truro--Starting on a voyage + Unloading the day's catch + A Truro footpath + Truro meeting-house on the hill + A herd of cows + Pond Village + Dragging a dory up on the beach + An old wrecker at home + The Highland Light + Towing along shore + A cranberry meadow + The sand dunes drifting in upon the trees + The white breakers on the Atlantic side + In Provincetown harbor + Provincetown--A bit of the village from the wharf + The day of rest + A Provincetown fishing-vessel + + + +I + +THE SHIPWRECK + +Wishing to get a better view than I had yet had of the ocean, which, we +are told, covers more than two-thirds of the globe, but of which a man +who lives a few miles inland may never see any trace, more than of +another world, I made a visit to Cape Cod in October, 1849, another the +succeeding June, and another to Truro in July, 1855; the first and last +time with a single companion, the second time alone. I have spent, in +all, about three weeks on the Cape; walked from Eastham to Province-town +twice on the Atlantic side, and once on the Bay side also, excepting +four or five miles, and crossed the Cape half a dozen times on my way; +but having come so fresh to the sea, I have got but little salted. My +readers must expect only so much saltness as the land breeze acquires +from blowing over an arm of the sea, or is tasted on the windows and the +bark of trees twenty miles inland, after September gales. I have been +accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, +but latterly I have extended my excursions to the seashore. + +I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape Cod, as well as my +neighbor on "Human Culture." It is but another name for the same thing, +and hardly a sandier phase of it. As for my title, I suppose that the +word Cape is from the French _cap_; which is from the Latin _caput_, a +head; which is, perhaps, from the verb _capere_, to take,--that being +the part by which we take hold of a thing:--Take Time by the forelock. +It is also the safest part to take a serpent by. And as for Cod, that +was derived directly from that "great store of codfish" which Captain +Bartholomew Gosnold caught there in 1602; which fish appears to have +been so called from the Saxon word _codde_, "a case in which seeds are +lodged," either from the form of the fish, or the quantity of spawn it +contains; whence also, perhaps, _codling_ (_pomum coctile?_) and +coddle,--to cook green like peas. (V. Dic.) + +Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of Massachusetts: the shoulder is +at Buzzard's Bay; the elbow, or crazy-bone, at Cape Mallebarre; the +wrist at Truro; and the sandy fist at Provincetown,--behind which the +State stands on her guard, with her back to the Green Mountains, and her +feet planted on the floor of the ocean, like an athlete protecting her +Bay,--boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her +Atlantic adversary from the lap of earth,--ready to thrust forward her +other fist, which keeps guard the while upon her breast at Cape Ann. + +On studying the map, I saw that there must be an uninterrupted beach on +the east or outside of the forearm of the Cape, more than thirty miles +from the general line of the coast, which would afford a good sea view, +but that, on account of an opening in the beach, forming the entrance to +Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, I must strike it in Eastham, if I approached +it by land, and probably I could walk thence straight to Race Point, +about twenty-eight miles, and not meet with any obstruction. + +We left Concord, Massachusetts, on Tuesday, October 9th, 1849. On +reaching Boston, we found that the Provincetown steamer, which should +have got in the day before, had not yet arrived, on account of a violent +storm; and, as we noticed in the streets a handbill headed, "Death! one +hundred and forty-five lives lost at Cohasset," we decided to go by way +of Cohasset. We found many Irish in the cars, going to identify bodies +and to sympathize with the survivors, and also to attend the funeral +which was to take place in the afternoon;--and when we arrived at +Cohasset, it appeared that nearly all the passengers were bound for the +beach, which was about a mile distant, and many other persons were +flocking in from the neighboring country. There were several hundreds of +them streaming off over Cohasset common in that direction, some on foot +and some in wagons,--and among them were some sportsmen in their +hunting-jackets, with their guns, and game-bags, and dogs. As we passed +the graveyard we saw a large hole, like a cellar, freshly dug there, +and, just before reaching the shore, by a pleasantly winding and rocky +road, we met several hay-riggings and farm-wagons coming away toward the +meeting-house, each loaded with three large, rough deal boxes. We did +not need to ask what was in them. The owners of the wagons were made the +undertakers. Many horses in carriages were fastened to the fences near +the shore, and, for a mile or more, up and down, the beach was covered +with people looking out for bodies, and examining the fragments of the +wreck. There was a small island called Brook Island, with a hut on it, +lying just off the shore. This is said to be the rockiest shore in +Massachusetts, from Nantasket to Scituate,--hard sienitic rocks, which +the waves have laid bare, but have not been able to crumble. It has been +the scene of many a shipwreck. + +The brig _St. John_, from Galway, Ireland, laden with emigrants, was +wrecked on Sunday morning; it was now Tuesday morning, and the sea was +still breaking violently on the rocks. There were eighteen or twenty of +the same large boxes that I have mentioned, lying on a green hillside, a +few rods from the water, and surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had +been recovered, twenty-seven or eight in all, had been collected there. +Some were rapidly nailing down the lids, others were carting the boxes +away, and others were lifting the lids, which were yet loose, and +peeping under the cloths, for each body, with such rags as still adhered +to it, was covered loosely with a white sheet. I witnessed no signs of +grief, but there was a sober dispatch of business which was affecting. +One man was seeking to identify a particular body, and one undertaker or +carpenter was calling to another to know in what box a certain child was +put. I saw many marble feet and matted heads as the cloths were raised, +and one livid, swollen, and mangled body of a drowned girl,--who +probably had intended to go out to service in some American family,--to +which some rags still adhered, with a string, half concealed by the +flesh, about its swollen neck; the coiled-up wreck of a human hulk, +gashed by the rocks or fishes, so that the bone and muscle were exposed, +but quite bloodless,--merely red and white,--with wide-open and staring +eyes, yet lustreless, dead-lights; or like the cabin windows of a +stranded vessel, filled with sand. Sometimes there were two or more +children, or a parent and child, in the same box, and on the lid would +perhaps be written with red chalk, "Bridget such-a-one, and sister's +child." The surrounding sward was covered with bits of sails and +clothing. I have since heard, from one who lives by this beach, that a +woman who had come over before, but had left her infant behind for her +sister to bring, came and looked into these boxes and saw in +one,--probably the same whose superscription I have quoted,--her child +in her sister's arms, as if the sister had meant to be found thus; and +within three days after, the mother died from the effect of that sight. + +We turned from this and walked along the rocky shore. In the first cove +were strewn what seemed the fragments of a vessel, in small pieces mixed +with sand and sea-weed, and great quantities of feathers; but it looked +so old and rusty, that I at first took it to be some old wreck which had +lain there many years. I even thought of Captain Kidd, and that the +feathers were those which sea-fowl had cast there; and perhaps there +might be some tradition about it in the neighborhood. I asked a sailor +if that was the _St. John_. He said it was. I asked him where she struck. +He pointed to a rock in front of us, a mile from the shore, called the +Grampus Rock, and added: + +"You can see a part of her now sticking up; it looks like a small boat." + +I saw it. It was thought to be held by the chain-cables and the anchors. +I asked if the bodies which I saw were all that were drowned. + +"Not a quarter of them," said he. + +"Where are the rest?" + +"Most of them right underneath that piece you see." + +It appeared to us that there was enough rubbish to make the wreck of a +large vessel in this cove alone, and that it would take many days to +cart it off. It was several feet deep, and here and there was a bonnet +or a jacket on it. In the very midst of the crowd about this wreck, +there were men with carts busily collecting the sea-weed which the storm +had cast up, and conveying it beyond the reach of the tide, though they +were often obliged to separate fragments of clothing from it, and they +might at any moment have found a human body under it. Drown who might, +they did not forget that this weed was a valuable manure. This shipwreck +had not produced a visible vibration in the fabric of society. + +About a mile south we could see, rising above the rocks, the masts of +the British brig which the _St. John_ had endeavored to follow, which had +slipped her cables and, by good luck, run into the mouth of Cohasset +Harbor. A little further along the shore we saw a man's clothes on a +rock; further, a woman's scarf, a gown, a straw bonnet, the brig's +caboose, and one of her masts high and dry, broken into several pieces. +In another rocky cove, several rods from the water, and behind rocks +twenty feet high, lay a part of one side of the vessel, still hanging +together. It was, perhaps, forty feet long, by fourteen wide. I was even +more surprised at the power of the waves, exhibited on this shattered +fragment, than I had been at the sight of the smaller fragments before. +The largest timbers and iron braces were broken superfluously, and I saw +that no material could withstand the power of the waves; that iron must +go to pieces in such a case, and an iron vessel would be cracked up like +an egg-shell on the rocks. Some of these timbers, however, were so +rotten that I could almost thrust my umbrella through them. They told us +that some were saved on this piece, and also showed where the sea had +heaved it into this cove, which was now dry. When I saw where it had +come in, and in what condition, I wondered that any had been saved on +it. A little further on a crowd of men was collected around the mate of +the _St. John_, who was telling his story. He was a slim-looking youth, +who spoke of the captain as the master, and seemed a little excited. He +was saying that when they jumped into the boat, she filled, and, the +vessel lurching, the weight of the water in the boat caused the painter +to break, and so they were separated. Whereat one man came away, +saying:-- + +"Well, I don't see but he tells a straight story enough. You see, the +weight of the water in the boat broke the painter. A boat full of water +is very heavy,"--and so on, in a loud and impertinently earnest tone, as +if he had a bet depending on it, but had no humane interest in the +matter. + +Another, a large man, stood near by upon a rock, gazing into the sea, +and chewing large quids of tobacco, as if that habit were forever +confirmed with him. + +"Come," says another to his companion, "let's be off. We've seen the +whole of it. It's no use to stay to the funeral." + +Further, we saw one standing upon a rock, who, we were told, was one +that was saved. He was a sober-looking man, dressed in a jacket and gray +pantaloons, with his hands in the pockets. I asked him a few questions, +which he answered; but he seemed unwilling to talk about it, and soon +walked away. By his side stood one of the life-boatmen, in an oil-cloth +jacket, who told us how they went to the relief of the British brig, +thinking that the boat of the _St. John_, which they passed on the way, +held all her crew,--for the waves prevented their seeing those who were +on the vessel, though they might have saved some had they known there +were any there. A little further was the flag of the _St. John_ spread on +a rock to dry, and held down by stones at the corners. This frail, but +essential and significant portion of the vessel, which had so long been +the sport of the winds, was sure to reach the shore. There were one or +two houses visible from these rocks, in which were some of the survivors +recovering from the shock which their bodies and minds had sustained. +One was not expected to live. + +We kept on down the shore as far as a promontory called Whitehead, that +we might see more of the Cohasset Rocks. In a little cove, within half a +mile, there were an old man and his son collecting, with their team, the +sea-weed which that fatal storm had cast up, as serenely employed as if +there had never been a wreck in the world, though they were within sight +of the Grampus Rock, on which the _St. John_ had struck. The old man had +heard that there was a wreck, and knew most of the particulars, but he +said that he had not been up there since it happened. It was the wrecked +weed that concerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea-weed, as he named +them, which he carted to his barn-yard; and those bodies were to him but +other weeds which the tide cast up, but which were of no use to him. We +afterwards came to the life-boat in its harbor, waiting for another +emergency,--and in the afternoon we saw the funeral procession at a +distance, at the head of which walked the captain with the other +survivors. + +On the whole, it was not so impressive a scene as I might have expected. +If I had found one body cast upon the beach in some lonely place, it +would have affected me more. I sympathized rather with the winds and +waves, as if to toss and mangle these poor human bodies was the order of +the day. If this was the law of Nature, why waste any time in awe or +pity? If the last day were come, we should not think so much about the +separation of friends or the blighted prospects of individuals. I saw +that corpses might be multiplied, as on the field of battle, till they +no longer affected us in any degree, as exceptions to the common lot of +humanity. Take all the graveyards together, they are always the +majority. It is the individual and private that demands our sympathy. A +man can attend but one funeral in the course of his life, can behold but +one corpse. Yet I saw that the inhabitants of the shore would be not a +little affected by this event. They would watch there many days and +nights for the sea to give up its dead, and their imaginations and +sympathies would supply the place of mourners far away, who as yet knew +not of the wreck. Many days after this, something white was seen +floating on the water by one who was sauntering on the beach. It was +approached in a boat, and found to be the body of a woman, which had +risen in an upright position, whose white cap was blown back with the +wind. I saw that the beauty of the shore itself was wrecked for many a +lonely walker there, until he could perceive, at last, how its beauty +was enhanced by wrecks like this, and it acquired thus a rarer and +sublimer beauty still. + +[Illustration: Cohasset--The little cove at Whitehead promontory] + +Why care for these dead bodies? They really have no friends but the +worms or fishes. Their owners were coming to the New World, as Columbus +and the Pilgrims did,--they were within a mile of its shores; but, +before they could reach it, they emigrated to a newer world than ever +Columbus dreamed of, yet one of whose existence we believe that there is +far more universal and convincing evidence--though it has not yet been +discovered by science--than Columbus had of this; not merely mariners' +tales and some paltry drift-wood and sea-weed, but a continual drift and +instinct to all our shores. I saw their empty hulks that came to land; +but they themselves, meanwhile, were cast upon some shore yet further +west, toward which we are all tending, and which we shall reach at last, +it may be through storm and darkness, as they did. No doubt, we have +reason to thank God that they have not been "shipwrecked into life +again." The mariner who makes the safest port in Heaven, perchance, +seems to his friends on earth to be shipwrecked, for they deem Boston +Harbor the better place; though perhaps invisible to them, a skillful +pilot comes to meet him, and the fairest and balmiest gales blow off +that coast, his good ship makes the land in halcyon days, and he kisses +the shore in rapture there, while his old hulk tosses in the surf here. +It is hard to part with one's body, but, no doubt, it is easy enough to +do without it when once it is gone. All their plans and hopes burst like +a bubble! Infants by the score dashed on the rocks by the enraged +Atlantic Ocean! No, no! If the _St. John_ did not make her port here, she +has been telegraphed there. The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; +it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any +Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds. + +The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, with slight alterations, +be applied to the passengers of the _St. John:_-- + + "Soon with them will all be over, + Soon the voyage will be begun + That shall bear them to discover, + Far away, a land unknown. + + "Land that each, alone, must visit, + But no tidings bring to men; + For no sailor, once departed, + Ever hath returned again. + + "No carved wood, no broken branches, + Ever drift from that far wild; + He who on that ocean launches + Meets no corse of angel child. + + "Undismayed, my noble sailors, + Spread, then spread your canvas out; + Spirits! on a sea of ether + Soon shall ye serenely float! + + "Where the deep no plummet soundeth, + Fear no hidden breakers there, + And the fanning wing of angels + Shall your bark right onward bear. + + "Quit, now, full of heart and comfort, + These rude shores, they are of earth; + Where the rosy clouds are parting, + There the blessed isles loom forth." + +One summer day, since this, I came this way, on foot, along the shore +from Boston. It was so warm that some horses had climbed to the very top +of the ramparts of the old fort at Hull, where there was hardly room to +turn round, for the sake of the breeze. The _Datura stramonium_, or +thorn-apple, was in full bloom along the beach; and, at sight of this +cosmopolite,--this Captain Cook among plants,--carried in ballast all +over the world, I felt as if I were on the highway of nations. Say, +rather, this Viking, king of the Bays, for it is not an innocent plant; +it suggests not merely commerce, but its attend-ant vices, as if its +fibres were the stuff of which pirates spin their yarns. I heard the +voices of men shouting aboard a vessel, half a mile from the shore, +which sounded as if they were in a barn in the country, they being +between the sails. It was a purely rural sound. As I looked over the +water, I saw the isles rapidly wasting away, the sea nibbling +voraciously at the continent, the springing arch of a hill suddenly +interrupted, as at Point Alderton,--what botanists might call +premorse,--showing, by its curve against the sky, how much space it must +have occupied, where now was water only, On the other hand, these wrecks +of isles were being fancifully arranged into new shores, as at Hog +Island, inside of Hull, where everything seemed to be gently lapsing, +into futurity. This isle had got the very form of a ripple,--and I +thought that the inhabitants should bear a ripple for device on their +shields, a wave passing over them, with the _datura_, which is said to +produce mental alienation of long duration without affecting the bodily +health, [1] springing from its edge. The most interesting thing which I +heard of, in this township of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose +locality was pointed out to me, on the side of a distant hill, as I was +panting along the shore, though I did not visit it. Perhaps, if I should +go through Rome, it would be some spring on the Capitoline Hill I should +remember the longest. It is true, I was somewhat interested in the well +at the old French fort, which was said to be ninety feet deep, with a +cannon at the bottom of it. On Nantasket beach I counted a dozen chaises +from the public-house. From time to time the riders turned their horses +toward the sea, standing in the water for the coolness,--and I saw the +value of beaches to cities for the sea breeze and the bath. + +At Jerusalem village the inhabitants were collecting in haste, before a +thunder-shower now approaching, the Irish moss which they had spread to +dry. The shower passed on one side, and gave me a few drops only, which +did not cool the air. I merely felt a puff upon my cheek, though, within +sight, a vessel was capsized in the bay, and several others dragged +their anchors, and were near going ashore. The sea-bathing at Cohasset +Rocks was perfect. The water was purer and more transparent than any I +had ever seen. There was not a particle of mud or slime about it. The +bottom being sandy, I could see the sea-perch swimming about. The smooth +and fantastically worn rocks, and the perfectly clean and tress-like +rock-weeds falling over you, and attached so firmly to the rocks that +you could pull yourself up by them, greatly enhanced the luxury of the +bath. The stripe of barnacles just above the weeds reminded me of some +vegetable growth,--the buds, and petals, and seed-vessels of flowers. +They lay along the seams of the rock like buttons on a waistcoat. It was +one of the hottest days in the year, yet I found the water so icy cold +that I could swim but a stroke or two, and thought that, in case of +shipwreck, there would be more danger of being chilled to death than +simply drowned. One immersion was enough to make you forget the dog-days +utterly. Though you were sweltering before, it will take you half an +hour now to remember that it was ever warm. There were the tawny rocks, +like lions couchant, defying the ocean, whose waves incessantly dashed +against and scoured them with vast quantities of gravel. The water held +in their little hollows, on the receding of the tide, was so crystalline +that I could not believe it salt, but wished to drink it; and higher up +were basins of fresh water left by the rain,--all which, being also of +different depths and temperature, were convenient for different kinds of +baths. Also, the larger hollows in the smoothed rocks formed the most +convenient of seats and dressing-rooms. In these respects it was the +most perfect seashore that I had seen. + +I saw in Cohasset, separated from the sea only by a narrow beach, a +handsome but shallow lake of some four hundred acres, which, I was told, +the sea had tossed over the beach in a great storm in the spring, and, +after the alewives had passed into it, it had stopped up its outlet, and +now the alewives were dying: by thousands, and the inhabitants were +apprehending a pestilence as the water evaporated. It had live rocky +islets in it. + +This Rock shore is called Pleasant Cove, on some maps; on the map of +Cohasset, that name appears to be confined to the particular cove where +I saw the wreck of the St. J aim. The ocean did not look, now, as if any +were ever shipwrecked in it; it was not grand and sub-lime, but +beautiful as a lake. Not a vestige of a wreck was visible, nor could I +believe that the bones of many a shipwrecked man were buried in that +pure sand. But to go on with our first excursion. + +[1] The Jamestown weed (or thorn-apple). "This, being an early plant, +was gathered very young for a boiled salad, by some of the soldiers sent +thither [_i.e._ to Virginia] to quell the rebellion of Bacon; and some of +them ate plentifully of it, the effect of which was a very pleasant +comedy, for they turned natural fools upon it for several days: one +would blow up a feather in the air; another would dart straws at it with +much fury; and another, stark naked, was sitting up in a corner like a +monkey, grinning and making mows at them; a fourth would fondly kiss and +paw his companions, and sneer in their faces, with a countenance more +antic than any in a Dutch droll. In this frantic condition they were +confined, lest they should, in their folly, destroy themselves,--though +it was observed that all their actions were full of innocence and good +nature. Indeed, they were not very cleanly. A thousand such simple +tricks they played, and after eleven days returned to themselves again, +not remembering anything that had passed."--Beverly's _History of +Virginia_, p. 120. + + + +II + +STAGE-COACH VIEWS + +After spending the night in Bridgewater, and picking up a few +arrow-heads there in the morning, we took the cars for Sandwich, where +we arrived before noon. This was the terminus of the "Cape Cod +Railroad," though it is but the beginning of the Cape. As it rained +hard, with driving mists, and there was no sign of its holding up, we +here took that almost obsolete conveyance, the stage, for "as far as it +went that day," as we told the driver. We had for-gotten how far a stage +could go in a day, but we were told that the Cape roads were very +"heavy," though they added that, being of sand, the rain would improve +them. This coach was an exceedingly narrow one, but as there was a +slight spherical excess over two on a seat, the driver waited till nine +passengers had got in, without taking the measure of any of them, and +then shut the door after two or three ineffectual slams, as if the fault +were all in the hinges or the latch,--while we timed our inspirations +and expirations so as to assist him. + +We were now fairly on the Cape, which extends from Sandwich eastward +thirty-five miles, and thence north and northwest thirty more, in all +sixty-five, and has an average breadth of about five miles. In the +interior it rises to the height of two hundred, and sometimes perhaps +three hundred feet above the level of the sea. According to Hitchcock, +the geologist of the State, it is composed almost entirely of sand, even +to the depth of three hundred feet in some places, though there is +probably a concealed core of rock a little beneath the surface, and it +is of diluvian origin, excepting a small portion at the extremity and +elsewhere along the shores, which is alluvial. For the first half of the +Cape large blocks of stone are found, here and there, mixed with the +sand, but for the last thirty miles boulders, or even gravel, are rarely +met with. Hitchcock conjectures that the ocean has, in course of time, +eaten out Boston, Harbor and other bays in the mainland, and that the +minute fragments have been deposited by the currents at a distance from +the shore, and formed this sand-bank. Above the sand, if the surface is +subjected to agricultural tests, there is found to be a thin layer of +soil gradually diminishing from Barnstable to Truro, where it ceases; +but there are many holes and rents in this weather-beaten garment not +likely to be stitched in time, which reveal the naked flesh of the Cape, +and its extremity is completely bare. + +I at once got out my book, the eighth volume of the Collections of the +Massachusetts Historical Society, printed in 1802, which contains some +short notices of the Cape towns, and began to read up to where I was, +for in the cars I could not read as fast as I travelled. To those who +came from the side of Plymouth, it said: "After riding through a body of +woods, twelve miles in extent, interspersed with but few houses, the +settlement of Sandwich appears, with a more agreeable effect, to the eye +of the traveller." Another writer speaks of this as a _beautiful_ village. +But I think that our villages will bear to be contrasted only with one +another, not with Nature. I have no great respect for the writer's +taste, who talks easily about beautiful villages, embellished, +perchance, with a "fulling-mill," "a handsome academy," or +meeting-house, and "a number of shops for the different mechanic arts"; +where the green and white houses of the gentry, drawn up in rows, front +on a street of which it would be difficult to tell whether it is most +like a desert or a long stable-yard. Such spots can be beautiful only to +the weary traveller, or the returning native,--or, perchance, the +repentant misanthrope; not to him who, with unprejudiced senses, has +just come out of the woods, and approaches one of them, by a bare road, +through a succession of straggling homesteads where he cannot tell which +is the alms-house. However, as for Sandwich, I cannot speak +particularly. Ours was but half a Sandwich at most, and that must have +fallen on the buttered side some time. I only saw that it was a closely +built town for a small one, with glass-works to improve its sand, and +narrow streets in which we turned round and round till we could not tell +which way we were going, and the rain came in, first on this side, and +then on that, and I saw that they in the houses were more comfortable +than we in the coach. My book also said of this town, "The inhabitants, +in general, are substantial livers."--that is. I suppose, they do not +live like philosophers: but, as the stage did not stop long enough for +us to dine, we had no opportunity to test the truth of this statement. +It may have referred, however, to the quantity "of oil they would +yield." It further said, "The inhabitants of Sandwich generally manifest +a fond and steady adherence to the manners, employments, and modes of +living which characterized their fathers"; which made me think that they +were, after all, very much like all the rest of the world;--and it added +that this was "a resemblance, which, at this day, will constitute no +impeachment of either their virtue or taste": which remark proves to me +that the writer was one with the rest of them. No people ever lived by +cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers might have +been to them. But it must be confessed that ours was old authority, and +probably they have changed all that now. + +[Illustration: An old windmill] + +Our route was along the Bay side, through Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis, +and Brewster, to Orleans, with a range of low hills on our right, +running down the Cape. The weather was not favorable for wayside views, +but we made the most of such glimpses of land and water as we could get +through the rain. The country was, for the most part, bare, or with only +a little scrubby wood left on the hills. We noticed in Yarmouth--and, if +I do not mistake, in Dennis--large tracts where pitch-pines were planted +four or five years before. They were in rows, as they appeared when we +were abreast of them, and, excepting that there were extensive vacant +spaces, seemed to be doing remarkably well. This, we were told, was the +only use to which such tracts could be profitably put. Every higher +eminence had a pole set up on it, with an old storm-coat or sail tied to +it, for a signal, that those on the south side of the Cape, for +instance, might know when the Boston packets had arrived on the north. +It appeared as if this use must absorb the greater part of the old +clothes of the Cape, leaving but few rags for the pedlers. The +wind-mills on the hills,--large weather-stained octagonal +structures,--and the salt-works scattered all along the shore, with +their long rows of vats resting on piles driven into the marsh, their +low, turtle-like roofs, and their slighter wind-mills, were novel and +interesting objects to an inlander. The sand by the road-side was +partially covered with bunches of a moss-like plant, _Hudsonia tomentosa_, +which a woman in the stage told us was called "poverty-grass," because +it grew where nothing else would. + +I was struck by the pleasant equality which reigned among the stage +company, and their broad and invulnerable good-humor. They were what is +called free and easy, and met one another to advantage, as men who had +at length learned how to live. They appeared to know each other when +they were strangers, they were so simple and downright. They were well +met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as they could meet, +and did not seem to be troubled with any impediment. They were not +afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were contented to make just such +a company as the ingredients allowed. It was evident that the same +foolish respect was not here claimed for mere wealth and station that is +in many parts of New England; yet some of them were the "first people," +as they are called, of the various towns through which we passed. +Retired sea-captains, in easy circumstances, who talked of farming as +sea-captains are wont; an erect, respectable, and trustworthy-looking +man, in his wrapper, some of the salt of the earth, who had formerly +been the salt of the sea; or a more courtly gentleman, who, per-chance, +had been a representative to the General Court in his day; or a broad, +red-faced Cape Cod man, who had seen too many storms to be easily +irritated; or a fisherman's wife, who had been waiting a week for a +coaster to leave Boston, and had at length come by the cars. + +A strict regard for truth obliges us to say that the few women whom we +saw that day looked exceedingly pinched up. They had prominent chins and +noses, having lost all their teeth, and a sharp _W_ would represent their +profile. They were not so well preserved as their husbands; or perchance +they were well preserved as dried specimens. (Their husbands, however, +were pickled.) But we respect them not the less for all that; our own +dental system is far from perfect. + +Still we kept on in the rain, or, if we stopped, it was commonly at a +post-office, and we thought that writing letters, and sorting them +against our arrival, must be the principal employment of the inhabitants +of the Cape this rainy day. The post-office appeared a singularly +domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some +low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his +shirt sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding +up Uncle Sam's bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the +travellers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really +as indifferent to the presence of the former as if they were so much +baggage. In one instance we understood that a woman was the +postmistress, and they said that she made the best one on the road; but +we suspected that the letters must be subjected to a very close scrutiny +there. While we were stopping for this purpose at Dennis, we ventured to +put our heads out of the windows, to see where we were going, and saw +rising before us, through the mist, singular barren hills, all stricken +with poverty-grass, looming up as if they were in the horizon, though +they were close to us, and we seemed to have got to the end of the land +on that side, notwithstanding that the horses were still headed that +way. Indeed, that part of Dennis which we saw was an exceedingly barren +and desolate country, of a character which I can find no name for; such +a surface, perhaps, as the bottom of the sea made dry land day before +yesterday. It was covered with poverty-grass, and there was hardly a +tree in sight, but here and there a little weather-stained, one-storied +house, with a red roof,--for often the roof was painted, though the rest +of the house was not,--standing bleak and cheerless, yet with a broad +foundation to the land, where the comfort must have been all inside. Yet +we read in the Gazetteer--for we carried that too with us--that, in +1837, one hundred and fifty masters of vessels, belonging to this town, +sailed from the various ports of the Union. There must be many more +houses in the south part of the town, else we cannot imagine where they +all lodge when they are at home, if ever they are there; but the truth +is, their houses are floating ones, and their home is on the ocean. +There were almost no trees at all in this part of Dennis, nor could I +learn that they talked of setting out any. It is true, there was a +meeting-house, set round with Lombardy poplars, in a hollow square, the +rows fully as straight as the studs of a building, and the corners as +square; but, if I do not mistake, every one of them was dead. I could +not help thinking that they needed a revival here. Our book said that, +in 1795, there was erected in Dennis "an elegant meeting-house, with a +steeple." Perhaps this was the one; though whether it had a steeple, or +had died down so far from sympathy with the poplars, I do not remember. +Another meeting-house in this town was described as a "neat building"; +but of the meeting-house in Chatham, a neigh-boring town, for there was +then but one, nothing is said, except that it "is in good repair,"--both +which remarks, I trust, may be understood as applying to the churches +spiritual as well as material. However, "elegant meeting-houses," from +that Trinity one on Broadway, to this at Nobscusset, in my estimation, +belong to the same category with "beautiful villages." I was never in +season to see one. Handsome is that handsome does. What they did for +shade here, in warm weather, we did not know, though we read that "fogs +are more frequent in Chatham than in any other part of the country; and +they serve in summer, instead of trees, to shelter the houses against +the heat of the sun. To those who delight in extensive vision,"--is it +to be inferred that the inhabitants of Chatham do not?--"they are +unpleasant, but they are not found to be unhealthful." Probably, also, +the unobstructed sea-breeze answers the purpose of a fan. The historian +of Chatham says further, that "in many families there is no difference +between the breakfast and supper; cheese, cakes, and pies being as +common at the one as at the other." But that leaves us still uncertain +whether they were really common at either. + +[Illustration: A street in Sandwich] + +The road, which was quite hilly, here ran near the Bay-shore, having the +Bay on one side, and "the rough hill of Scargo," said to be the highest +land on the Cape, on the other. Of the wide prospect of the Bay afforded +by the summit of this hill, our guide says: "The view has not much of +the beautiful in it, but it communicates a strong emotion of the +sublime." That is the kind of communication which we love to have made +to us. We passed through the village of Suet, in Dennis, on Suet and +Quivet Necks, of which it is said, "when compared with Nobscusset,"--we +had a misty recollection of having passed through, or near to, the +latter,--"it may be denominated a pleasant village; but, in comparison +with the village of Sandwich, there is little or no beauty in it." +However, we liked Dennis well, better than any town we had seen on the +Cape, it was so novel, and, in that stormy day, so sublimely dreary. + +Captain John Sears, of Suet, was the first per-son in this country who +obtained pure marine salt by solar evaporation alone; though it had long +been made in a similar way on the coast of France, and elsewhere. This +was in the year 1776, at which time, on account of the war, salt was +scarce and dear. The Historical Collections contain an interesting +account of his experiments, which we read when we first saw the roofs of +the salt-works. Barnstable county is the most favorable locality for +these works on our northern coast,--there is so little fresh water here +emptying into ocean. Quite recently there were about two millions of +dollars invested in this business here. But now the Cape is unable to +compete with the importers of salt and the manufacturers of it at the +West, and, accordingly, her salt-works are fast going to decay. From +making salt, they turn to fishing more than ever. The Gazetteer will +uniformly tell you, under the head of each town, how many go a-fishing, +and the value of the fish and oil taken, how much salt is made and used, +how many are engaged in the coasting trade, how many in manufacturing +palm-leaf hats, leather, boots, shoes, and tinware, and then it has +done, and leaves you to imagine the more truly domestic manufactures +which are nearly the same all the world over. + +Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brewster, so named after Elder +Brewster, for fear he would be forgotten else. Who has not heard of +Elder Brewster? Who knows who he was? This appeared to be the +modern-built town of the Cape, the favorite residence of retired +sea-captains. It is said that "there are more masters and mates of +vessels which sail on foreign voyages belonging to this place than to +any other town in the country." There were many of the modern American +houses here, such as they turn out at Cambridgeport, standing on the +sand; you could almost swear that they had been floated down Charles +River, and drifted across the Bay. I call them American, because they +are paid for by Americans, and "put up" by American carpenters; but they +are little removed from lumber; only Eastern stuff disguised with white +paint, the least interesting kind of drift-wood to me. Perhaps we have +reason to be proud of our naval architecture, and need not go to the +Greeks, or the Goths, or the Italians, for the models of our vessels. +Sea-captains do not employ a Cambridgeport carpenter to build their +floating houses, and for their houses on shore, if they must copy any, +it would be more agreeable to the imagination to see one of their +vessels turned bottom upward, in the Numidian fashion. We read that, "at +certain seasons, the reflection of the sun upon the windows of the +houses in Well-fleet and Truro (across the inner side of the elbow of +the Cape) is discernible with the naked eye, at a distance of eighteen +miles and upward, on the county road." This we were pleased to imagine, +as we had not seen the sun for twenty-four hours. + +[Illustration: The old Higgins tavern at Orleans] + +The same author (the Rev. John Simpkins) said of the inhabitants, a good +while ago: "No persons appear to have a greater relish for the social +circle and domestic pleasures. They are not in the habit of frequenting +taverns, unless on public occasions. I know not of a proper idler or +tavern-haunter in the place." This is more than can be said of my +townsmen. + +At length we stopped for the night at Higgins's tavern, in Orleans, +feeling very much as if we were on a sand-bar in the ocean, and not +knowing whether we should see land or water ahead when the mist cleared +away. We here overtook two Italian boys, who had waded thus far down the +Cape through the sand, with their organs on their backs, and were going +on to Provincetown. What a hard lot, we thought, if the Provincetown +people should shut their doors against them! Whose yard would they go to +next? Yet we concluded that they had chosen wisely to come here, where +other music than that of the surf must be rare. Thus the great civilizer +sends out its emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and +light-house of the New World which the census-taker visits, and summons +the savage there to surrender. + + + +III + +THE PLAINS OF NAUSET + +The next morning, Thursday, October 11th, it rained, as hard as ever; +but we were determined to proceed on foot, nevertheless. We first made +some inquiries with regard to the practicability of walking up the shore +on the Atlantic side to Provincetown, whether we should meet with any +creeks or marshes to trouble us. Higgins said that there was no +obstruction, and that it was not much farther than by the road, but he +thought that we should find it very "heavy" walking in the sand; it was +bad enough in the road, a horse would sink in up to the fetlocks there. +But there was one man at the tavern who had walked it, and he said that +we could go very well, though it was sometimes inconvenient and even +dangerous walking under the bank, when there was a great tide, with an +easterly wind, which caused the sand to cave. For the first four or five +miles we followed the road, which here turns to the north on the elbow, +--the narrowest part of the Cape,--that we might clear an inlet from the +ocean, a part of Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, on our right. We found the +travelling good enough for walkers on the sides of the roads, though it +was "heavy" for horses in the middle. We walked with our umbrellas +behind us, since it blowed hard as well as rained, with driving mists, +as the day before, and the wind helped us over the sand at a rapid rate. +Everything indicated that we had reached a strange shore. The road was a +mere lane, winding over bare swells of bleak and barren-looking land. +The houses were few and far between, besides being small and rusty, +though they appeared to be kept in good repair, and their dooryards, +which were the unfenced Cape, were tidy; or, rather, they looked as if +the ground around them was blown clean by the wind. Perhaps the scarcity +of wood here, and the consequent absence of the wood-pile and other +wooden traps, had something to do with this appearance. They seemed, +like mariners ashore, to have sat right down to enjoy the firmness of +the land, without studying their postures or habiliments. To them it was +merely _terra firma_ and _cognita_, not yet _fertilis_ and _jucunda_. Every +landscape which is dreary enough has a certain beauty to my eyes, and in +this instance its permanent qualities were enhanced by the weather. +Everything told of the sea, even when we did not see its waste or hear +its roar. For birds there were gulls, and for carts in the fields, boats +turned bottom upward against the houses, and sometimes the rib of a +whale was woven into the fence by the road-side. The trees were, if +possible, rarer than the houses, excepting apple-trees, of which there +were a few small orchards in the hollows. These were either narrow and +high, with flat tops, having lost their side branches, like huge +plum-bushes growing in exposed situations, or else dwarfed and branching +immediately at the ground, like quince-bushes. They suggested that, +under like circumstances, all trees would at last acquire like habits of +growth. I afterward saw on the Cape many full-grown apple-trees not +higher than a man's head; one whole orchard, indeed, where all the fruit +could have been gathered by a man standing on the ground; but you could +hardly creep beneath the trees. Some, which the owners told me were +twenty years old, were only three and a half feet high, spreading at six +inches from the ground five feet each way, and being withal surrounded +with boxes of tar to catch the cankerworms, they looked like plants in +flower-pots, and as if they might be taken into the house in the winter. +In another place, I saw some not much larger than currant-bushes; yet +the owner told me that they had borne a barrel and a half of apples that +fall. If they had been placed close together, I could have cleared them +all at a jump. I measured some near the Highland Light in Truro, which +had been taken from the shrubby woods thereabouts when young, and +grafted. One, which had been set ten years, was on an average eighteen +inches high, and spread nine feet with a flat top. It had borne one +bushel of apples two years before. Another, probably twenty years old +from the seed, was five feet high, and spread eighteen feet, branching, +as usual, at the ground, so that you could not creep under it. This bore +a barrel of apples two years before. The owner of these trees invariably +used the personal pronoun in speaking of them; as, "I got _him_ out of the +woods, but _he_ doesn't bear." The largest that I saw in that neighborhood +was nine feet high to the topmost leaf, and spread thirty-three feet, +branching at the ground five ways. + +[Illustration: A Nauset lane] + +In one yard I observed a single, very healthy-looking tree, while all +the rest were dead or dying. The occupant said that his father had +manured all but that one with blackfish. + +This habit of growth should, no doubt, be encouraged; and they should +not be trimmed up, as some travelling practitioners have advised. In +1802 there was not a single fruit-tree in Chatham, the next town to +Orleans, on the south; and the old account of Orleans says: "Fruit-trees +cannot be made to grow within a mile of the ocean. Even those which are +placed at a greater distance are injured by the east winds; and, after +violent storms in the spring, a saltish taste is perceptible on their +bark." We noticed that they were often covered with a yellow lichen-like +rust, the _Parmelia parietina_. + +The most foreign and picturesque structures on the Cape, to an inlander, +not excepting the salt-works, are the wind-mills,--gray-looking +octagonal towers, with long timbers slanting to the ground in the rear, +and there resting on a cart-wheel, by which their fans are turned round +to face the wind. These appeared also to serve in some measure for props +against its force. A great circular rut was worn around the building by +the wheel. The neighbors who assemble to turn the mill to the wind are +likely to know which way it blows, without a weathercock. They looked +loose and slightly locomotive, like huge wounded birds, trailing a wing +or a leg, and re-minded one of pictures of the Netherlands. Being on +elevated ground, and high in themselves, they serve as landmarks,--for +there are no tall trees, or other objects commonly, which can be seen at +a distance in the horizon; though the outline of the land itself is so +firm and distinct that an insignificant cone, or even precipice of +sand, is visible at a great distance from over the sea. Sailors making +the land commonly steer either by the wind-mills or the meeting-houses. +In the country, we are obliged to steer by the meeting-houses alone. Yet +the meeting-house is a kind of wind-mill, which runs one day in seven, +turned either by the winds of doctrine or public opinion, or more rarely +by the winds of Heaven, where another sort of grist is ground, of which, +if it be not all bran or musty, if it be not _plaster_, we trust to make +bread of life. + +There were, here and there, heaps of shells in the fields, where clams +had been opened for bait; for Orleans is famous for its shell-fish, +especially clams, or, as our author says, "to speak more properly, +worms." The shores are more fertile than the dry land. The inhabitants +measure their crops, not only by bushels of corn, but by barrels of +clams. A thousand barrels of clam-bait are counted as equal in value to +six or eight thousand bushels of Indian corn, and once they were +procured without more labor or expense, and the supply was thought to be +inexhaustible. "For," runs the history, "after a portion of the shore +has been dug over, and almost all the clams taken up, at the end of two +years, it is said, they are as plenty there as ever. It is even affirmed +by many persons, that it is as necessary to stir the clam ground +frequently as it is to hoe a field of potatoes; because, if this labor +is omitted, the clams will be crowded too closely together, and will be +prevented from increasing in size." But we were told that the small +clam, _Mya arenaria_, was not so plenty here as formerly. Probably the +clam ground has been stirred too frequently, after all. Nevertheless, +one man, who complained that they fed pigs with them and so made them +scarce, told me that he dug and opened one hundred and twenty-six +dollars' worth in one winter, in Truro. + +[Illustration: Nauset Bay] + +We crossed a brook, not more than fourteen rods long, between Orleans +and Eastham, called Jeremiah's Gutter. The Atlantic is said sometimes to +meet the Bay here, and isolate the northern part of the Cape. The +streams of the Cape are necessarily formed on a minute scale, since +there is no room for them to run, without tumbling immediately into the +sea; and beside, we found it difficult to run ourselves in that sand, +when there was no want of room. Hence, the least channel where water +runs, or may run, is important, and is dignified with a name. We read +that there is no running water in Chatham, which is the next town. The +barren aspect of the land would hardly be believed if described. It was +such soil, or rather land, as, to judge from appearances, no farmer in +the interior would think of cultivating, or even fencing. Generally, the +ploughed fields of the Cape look white and yellow, like a mixture of +salt and Indian meal. This is called soil. All an inlander's notions of +soil and fertility will be confounded by a visit to these parts, and he +will not be able, for some time afterward, to distinguish soil from +sand. The historian of Chatham says of a part of that town, which has +been gained from the sea: "There is a doubtful appearance of a soil +beginning to be formed. It is styled _doubtful_, because it would not be +observed by every eye, and perhaps not acknowledged by many." We thought +that this would not be a bad description of the greater part of the +Cape. There is a "beach" on the west side of Eastham, which we crossed +the next summer, half a mile wide, and stretching across the township, +containing seventeen hundred acres, on which there is not now a particle +of vegetable mould, though it formerly produced wheat. All sands are +here called "beaches," whether they are waves of water or of air that +dash against them, since they commonly have their origin on the shore. +"The sand in some places," says the historian of Eastham, "lodging +against the beach-grass, has been raised into hills fifty feet high, +where twenty-five years ago no hills existed. In others it has filled up +small valleys, and swamps. Where a strong-rooted bush stood, the +appearance is singular: a mass of earth and sand adheres to it, +resembling a small tower. In several places, rocks, which were formerly +covered with soil, are disclosed, and being lashed by the sand, driven +against them by the wind, look as if they were recently dug from a +quarry." + +We were surprised to hear of the great crops of corn which are still +raised in Eastham, notwithstanding the real and apparent barrenness. Our +landlord in Orleans had told us that he raised three or four hundred +bushels of corn annually, and also of the great number of pigs which he +fattened. In Champlain's "Voyages," there is a plate representing the +Indian cornfields hereabouts, with their wigwams in the midst, as they +appeared in 1605, and it was here that the Pilgrims, to quote their own +words, "bought eight or ten hogsheads of corn and beans" of the Nauset +Indians, in 1622, to keep themselves from starving. [1] + +"In 1667 the town [of Eastham] voted that every housekeeper should kill +twelve blackbirds or three crows, which did great damage to the corn; +and this vote was repeated for many years." In 1695 an additional order +was passed, namely, that "every unmarried man in the township shall kill +six blackbirds, or three crows, while he remains single; as a penalty +for not doing it, shall not be married until he obey this order." The +blackbirds, however, still molest the corn. I saw them at it the next +summer, and there were many scarecrows, if not scare-blackbirds, in the +fields, which I often mistook for men. + +[Illustration: A scarecrow] + +From which I concluded that either many men were not married, or many +blackbirds were. Yet they put but three or four kernels in a hill, and +let fewer plants remain than we do. In the account of Eastham, in the +"Historical Collections," printed in 1802, it is said, that "more corn +is produced than the inhabitants consume, and about a thousand bushels +are annually sent to market. The soil being free from stones, a plough +passes through it speedily; and after the corn has come up, a small Cape +horse, somewhat larger than a goat, will, with the assistance of two +boys, easily hoe three or four acres in a day; several farmers are +accustomed to produce five hundred bushels of grain annually, and not +long since one raised eight hundred bushels on sixty acres." Similar +accounts are given to-day; indeed, the recent accounts are in some +instances suspectable repetitions of the old, and I have no doubt that +their statements are as often founded on the exception as the rule, and +that by far the greater number of acres are as barren as they appear to +be. It is sufficiently remarkable that any crops can be raised here, and +it may be owing, as others have suggested, to the amount of moisture in +the atmosphere, the warmth of the sand, and the rareness of frosts. A +miller, who was sharpening his stones, told me that, forty years ago, he +had been to a husking here, where five hundred bushels were husked in +one evening, and the corn was piled six feet high or more, in the midst, +but now, fifteen or eighteen bushels to an acre were an average yield. I +never saw fields of such puny and unpromising looking corn as in this +town. Probably the inhabitants are contented with small crops from a +great surface easily cultivated. It is not always the most fertile land +that is the most profitable, and this sand may repay cultivation, as +well as the fertile bottoms of the West. It is said, moreover, that the +vegetables raised in the sand, without manure, are remarkably sweet, the +pumpkins especially, though when their seed is planted in the interior +they soon degenerate. I can testify that the vegetables here, when they +succeed at all, look remarkably green and healthy, though perhaps it is +partly by contrast with the sand. Yet the inhabitants of the Cape towns, +generally, do not raise their own meal or pork. Their gardens are +commonly little patches, that have been redeemed from the edges of the +marshes and swamps. + +All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which +was several miles distant; for it still felt the effects of the storm in +which the _St. John_ was wrecked,--though a school-boy, whom we overtook, +hardly knew what we meant, his ears were so used to it. He would have +more plainly heard the same sound in a shell. It was a very inspiriting +sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against +the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl +before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape! +On the whole, we were glad of the storm, which would show us the ocean +in its angriest mood. Charles Darwin was assured that the roar of the +surf on the coast of Chiloe, after a heavy gale, could be heard at night +a distance of "21 sea miles across a hilly and wooded country." We +conversed with the boy we have mentioned, who might have been eight +years old, making him walk the while under the lee of our umbrella; for +we thought it as important to know what was life on the Cape to a boy as +to a man. We learned from him where the best grapes were to be found in +that neighborhood. He was carrying his dinner in a pail; and, without +any impertinent questions being put by us, it did at length appear of +what it consisted. The homeliest facts are always the most acceptable to +an inquiring mind. At length, before we got to Eastham meeting-house, we +left the road and struck across the country for the eastern shore at +Nauset Lights,--three lights close together, two or three miles distant +from us. They were so many that they might be distinguished from others; +but this seemed a shiftless and costly way of accomplishing that object. +We found ourselves at once on an apparently boundless plain, without a +tree or a fence, or, with one or two exceptions, a house in sight. +Instead of fences, the earth was sometimes thrown up into a slight +ridge. My companion compared it to the rolling prairies of Illinois. In +the storm of wind and rain which raged when we traversed it, it no doubt +appeared more vast and desolate than it really is. As there were no +hills, but only here and there a dry hollow in the midst of the waste, +and the distant horizon was concealed by mist, we did not know whether +it was high or low. A solitary traveller whom we saw perambulating in +the distance loomed like a giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as if +held up from above by straps under his shoulders, as much as supported +by the plain below. Men and boys would have appeared alike at a little +distance, there being no object by which to measure them. Indeed, to an +inlander, the Cape landscape is a constant mirage. This kind of country +extended a mile or two each way. These were the "Plains of Nauset," once +covered with wood, where in winter the winds howl and the snow blows +right merrily in the face of the traveller. I was glad to have got out +of the towns, where I am wont to feel unspeakably mean and +disgraced,--to have left behind me for a season the bar-rooms of +Massachusetts, where the full-grown are not weaned from savage and +filthy habits,--still sucking a cigar. My spirits rose in proportion to +the outward dreariness. The towns need to be ventilated. The gods would +be pleased to see some pure flames from their altars. They are not to be +appeased with cigar-smoke. + +As we thus skirted the back-side of the towns, for we did not enter any +village, till we got to Provincetown, we read their histories under our +umbrellas, rarely meeting anybody. The old accounts are the richest in +topography, which was what we wanted most; and, indeed, in most things +else, for I find that the readable parts of the modern accounts of these +towns consist, in a great measure, of quotations, acknowledged and +unacknowledged, from the older ones, without any additional information +of equal interest;--town histories, which at length run into a history +of the Church of that place, that being the only story they have to +tell, and conclude by quoting the Latin epitaphs of the old pastors, +having been written in the good old days of Latin and of Greek. They +will go back to the ordination of every minister and tell you faithfully +who made the introductory prayer, and who delivered the sermon; who made +the ordaining prayer, and who gave the charge; who extended the right +hand of fellowship, and who pronounced the benediction; also how many +ecclesiastical councils convened from time to time to inquire into the +orthodoxy of some minister, and the names of all who composed them. As +it will take us an hour to get over this plain, and there is no variety +in the prospect, peculiar as it is, I will read a little in the history +of Eastham the while. + +When the committee from Plymouth had purchased the territory of Eastham +of the Indians, "it was demanded, who laid claim to Billingsgate?" which +was understood to be all that part of the Cape north of what they had +purchased. "The answer was, there was not any who owned it. 'Then,' said +the committee, 'that land is ours.' The Indians answered, that it was." +This was a remarkable assertion and admission. The Pilgrims appear to +have regarded themselves as Not Any's representatives. Perhaps this was +the first instance of that quiet way of "speaking for" a place not yet +occupied, or at least not improved as much as it may be, which their +descendants have practised, and are still practising so extensively. Not +Any seems to have been the sole proprietor of all America before the +Yankees. But history says that, when the Pilgrims had held the lands of +Billingsgate many years, at length "appeared an Indian, who styled +himself Lieutenant Anthony," who laid claim to them, and of him they +bought them. Who knows but a Lieutenant Anthony may be knocking at the +door of the White House some day? At any rate, I know that if you hold a +thing unjustly, there will surely be the devil to pay at last. + +Thomas Prince, who was several times the governor of the Plymouth +colony, was the leader of the settlement of Eastham. There was recently +standing, on what was once his farm, in this town, a pear-tree which is +said to have been brought from England, and planted there by him, about +two hundred years ago. It was blown down a few months before we were +there. A late account says that it was recently in a vigorous state; the +fruit small, but excellent; and it yielded on an average fifteen +bushels. Some appropriate lines have been addressed to it, by a Mr. +Heman Doane, from which I will quote, partly because they are the only +specimen of Cape Cod verse which I remember to have seen, and partly +because they are not bad. + + "Two hundred years have, on the wings of Time, + Passed with their joys and woes, since thou, Old Tree! + Put forth thy first leaves in this foreign clime. + Transplanted from the soil beyond the sea." + + * * * * * + +[These stars represent the more clerical lines, and also those which +have deceased.] + + "That exiled band long since have passed away, + And still, Old Tree I thou standest in the place + Where Prince's hand did plant thee in his day,-- + An undesigned memorial of his race + And time; of those out honored fathers, + when They came from Plymouth o'er and settled here; + Doane, Higgins, Snow, and other worthy men. + Whose names their sons remember to revere. + + * * * * * + + "Old Time has thinned thy boughs. Old Pilgrim Tree! + And bowed thee with the weight of many years; + Yet 'mid the frosts of age, thy bloom we see, + And yearly still thy mellow fruit appears." + +There are some other lines which I might quote, if they were not tied to +unworthy companions by the rhyme. When one ox will lie down, the yoke +bears hard on him that stands up. + +One of the first settlers of Eastham was Deacon John Doane, who died in +1707, aged one hundred and ten. Tradition says that he was rocked in a +cradle several of his last years. That, certainly, was not an Achillean +life. His mother must have let him slip when she dipped him into the +liquor which was to make him invulnerable, and he went in, heels and +all. Some of the stone-bounds to his farm which he set up are standing +to-day, with his initials cut in them. + +The ecclesiastical history of this town interested us somewhat. It +appears that "they very early built a small meeting-house, twenty feet +square, with a thatched roof through which they might fire their +muskets,"--of course, at the Devil. "In 1662, the town agreed that a +part of every whale cast on shore be appropriated for the support of the +ministry." No doubt there seemed to be some propriety in thus leaving +the support of the ministers to Providence, whose servants they are, and +who alone rules the storms; for, when few whales were cast up, they +might suspect that their worship was not acceptable. The ministers must +have sat upon the cliffs in every storm, and watched the shore with +anxiety. And, for my part, if I were a minister I would rather trust to +the bowels of the billows, on the back-side of Cape Cod, to cast up a +whale for me, than to the generosity of many a country parish that I +know. You cannot say of a country minister's salary, commonly, that it +is "very like a whale." Nevertheless, the minister who depended on +whales cast up must have had a trying time of it. I would rather have +gone to the Falkland Isles with a harpoon, and done with it. Think of a +w hale having the breath of life beaten out of him by a storm, and +dragging in over the bars and guzzles, for the support of the ministry! +What a consolation it must have been to him! I have heard of a minister, +who had been a fisherman, being settled in Bridgewater for as long a +time as he could tell a cod from a haddock. Generous as it seems, this +condition would empty most country pulpits forthwith, for it is long +since the fishers of men were fishermen. Also, a duty was put on +mackerel here to support a free-school; in other words, the +mackerel-school was taxed in order that the children's school might be +free. "In 1665 the Court passed a law to inflict corporal punishment on +all persons, who resided in the towns of this government, who denied the +Scriptures." Think of a man being whipped on a spring morning till he +was constrained to confess that the Scriptures were true! "It was also +voted by the town that all persons who should stand out of the +meeting-house during the time of divine service should be set in the +stocks." It behooved such a town to see that sitting in the +meeting-house was nothing akin to sitting in the stocks, lest the +penalty of obedience to the law might be greater than that of +disobedience. This was the Eastham famous of late years for its +camp-meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from +all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps +unusual, if not unhealthful, development of the religious sentiment here +was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose +husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and +there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind. The old account +says that "hysteric fits are very common in Orleans, Eastham, and the +towns below, particularly on Sunday, in the times of divine service. +When one woman is affected, five or six others generally sympathize with +her; and the congregation is thrown into the utmost confusion. Several +old men suppose, unphilosophically and uncharitably, perhaps, that the +will is partly concerned, and that ridicule and threats would have a +tendency to prevent the evil." How this is now we did not learn. We saw +one singularly masculine woman, however, in a house on this very plain, +who did not look as if she was ever troubled with hysterics, or +sympathized with those that were; or, perchance, life itself was to her +a hysteric fit,--a Nauset woman, of a hardness and coarseness such as no +man ever possesses or suggests. It was enough to see the vertebrae and +sinews of her neck, and her set jaws of iron, which would have bitten a +board-nail in two in their ordinary action,--braced against the world, +talking like a man-of-war's-man in petticoats, or as if shouting to you +through a breaker; who looked as if it made her head ache to live; hard +enough for any enormity. I looked upon her as one who had committed +infanticide; who never had a brother, unless it were some wee thins: +that died in infancy,--for what need of him?--and whose father must have +died before she was born. This woman told us that the camp-meetings were +not held the previous summer for fear of introducing the cholera, and +that they would have been held earlier this summer, but the rye was so +backward that straw would not have been re adv for them; for they He in +straw. There are sometimes one hundred and fifty ministers (!) and five +thousand hearers assembled. The ground, which is called Millennium +Grove, is owned by a company in Boston, and is the most suitable, or +rather unsuitable, for this purpose of any that I saw on the Cape. It is +fenced, and the frames of the tents are at all times to be seen +interspersed among the oaks. They have an oven and a pump, and keep all +their kitchen utensils and tent coverings and furniture in a permanent +building on the spot. They select a time for their meetings when the +moon is full. A man is appointed to clear out the pump a week +beforehand, while the ministers are clearing their throats; but, +probably, the latter do not always deliver as pure a stream as the +former. I saw the heaps of clam-shells left under the tables, where they +had feasted in previous summers, and supposed, of course, that that was +the work of the unconverted, or the backsliders and scoffers. It looked +as if a camp-meeting must be a singular combination of a prayer-meeting +and a picnic. + +[Illustration: Millennium Grove camp-meeting grounds] + +The first minister settled here was the Rev. Samuel Treat, in 1672, a +gentleman who is said to be "entitled to a distinguished rank among the +evangelists of New England." He converted many Indians, as well as white +men, in his day, and translated the Confession of Faith into the Nauset +language. These were the Indians concerning whom their first teacher, +Richard Bourne, wrote to Gookin, in 1674, that he had been to see one +who was sick, "and there came from him very savory and heavenly +expressions," but, with regard to the mass of them, he says, "the truth +is, that many of them are very loose in their course, to my +heartbreaking sorrow." Mr. Treat is described as a Calvinist of the +strictest kind, not one of those who, by giving up or explaining away, +become like a porcupine disarmed of its quills, but a consistent +Calvinist, who can dart his quills to a distance and courageously defend +himself. There exists a volume of his sermons in manuscript, "which," +says a commentator, "appear to have been designed for publication." I +quote the following sentences at second hand, from a Discourse on Luke +xvi. 23, addressed to sinners:-- + +"Thou must erelong go to the bottomless pit. Hell hath enlarged herself, +and is ready to receive thee. There is room enough for thy +entertainment.... + +"Consider, thou art going to a place prepared by God on purpose to exalt +his justice in,--a place made for no other employment but torments. Hell +is God's house of correction; and, remember, God doth all things like +himself. When God would show his justice, and what is the weight of his +wrath, he makes a hell where it shall, indeed, appear to purpose.... Woe +to thy soul when thou shalt be set up as a butt for the arrows of the +Almighty.... + +"Consider, God himself shall be the principal agent in thy misery,--his +breath is the bellows which blows up the flame of hell forever;--and if +he punish thee, if he meet thee in his fury, he will not meet thee as a +man; he will give thee an omnipotent blow." + +"Some think sinning ends with this life; but it is a mistake. The +creature is held under an everlasting law; the damned increase in sin in +hell. Possibly, the mention of this may please thee. But, remember, +there shall be no pleasant sins there; no eating, drinking, singing, +dancing, wanton dalliance, and drinking stolen waters, but damned sins, +bitter, hellish sins; sins exasperated by torments, cursing God, spite, +rage, and blasphemy.--The guilt of all thy sins shall be laid upon thy +soul, and be made so many heaps of fuel.... + +"Sinner, I beseech thee, realize the truth of these things. Do not go +about to dream that this is derogatory to God's mercy, and nothing but a +vain fable to scare children out of their wits withal. God can be +merciful, though he make thee miserable. He shall have monuments enough +of that precious attribute, shining like stars in the place of glory, +and singing eternal hallelujahs to the praise of Him that redeemed them, +though, to exalt the power of his justice, he damn sinners heaps upon +heaps." + +"But," continues the same writer, "with the advantage of proclaiming the +doctrine of terror, which is naturally productive of a sublime and +impressive style of eloquence ('Triumphat ventoso gloriae curru orator, +qui pectus angit, irritat, et implet terroribus.' Vid. Burnet, De Stat. +Mort., p. 309), he could not attain the character of a popular preacher. +His voice was so loud that it could be heard at a great distance from +the meeting-house, even amidst the shrieks of hysterical women, and the +winds that howled over the plains of Nauset; but there was no more music +in it than in the discordant sounds with which it was mingled." + +"The effect of such preaching," it is said, "was that his hearers were +several times, in the course of his ministry, awakened and alarmed; and +on one occasion a comparatively innocent young man was frightened nearly +out of his wits, and Mr. Treat had to exert himself to make hell seem +somewhat cooler to him"; yet we are assured that "Treat's manners were +cheerful, his conversation pleasant, and sometimes facetious, but always +decent. He was fond of a stroke of humor, and a practical joke, and +manifested his relish for them by long and loud fits of laughter." + +This was the man of whom a well-known anecdote is told, which doubtless +many of my readers have heard, but which, nevertheless, I will venture +to quote:-- + +"After his marriage with the daughter of Mr. Willard (pastor of the +South Church in Boston), he was sometimes invited by that gentleman to +preach in his pulpit. Mr. Willard possessed a graceful delivery, a +masculine and harmonious voice; and, though he did not gain much +reputation by his 'Body of Divinity,' which is frequently sneered at, +particularly by those who have read it, yet in his sermons are strength +of thought and energy of language. The natural consequence was that he +was generally admired. Mr. Treat having preached one of his best +discourses to the congregation of his father-in-law, in his usual +unhappy manner, excited universal disgust; and several nice judges +waited on Mr. Willard, and begged that Mr. Treat, who was a worthy, +pious man, it was true, but a wretched preacher, might never be invited +into his pulpit again. To this request Mr. Willard made no reply; but he +desired his son-in-law to lend him the discourse; which being left with +him, he delivered it without alteration to his people a few weeks after. +They ran to Mr. Willard and requested a copy for the press. 'See the +difference,' they cried, 'between yourself and your son-in-law; you have +preached a sermon on the same text as Mr. Treat's, but whilst his was +contemptible, yours is excellent.' As is observed in a note, 'Mr. +Willard, after producing the sermon in the handwriting of Mr. Treat, +might have addressed these sage critics in the words of Phaedrus, + + "'En hie declarat, quales sitis judices.'" [2] + +Mr. Treat died of a stroke of the palsy, just after the memorable storm +known as the Great Snow, which left the ground around his house entirely +bare, but heaped up the snow in the road to an uncommon height. Through +this an arched way was dug, by which the Indians bore his bod to the +grave. + +The reader will imagine us, all the while, steadily traversing that +extensive plain in a direction a little north of east toward Nauset +Beach, and reading under our umbrellas as we sailed, while it blowed +hard with mingled mist and rain, as if we were approaching a fit +anniversary of Mr. Treat's funeral. We fancied that it was such a moor +as that on which somebody perished in the snow, as is related in the +"Lights and Shadows of Scottish Life." + +The next minister settled here was the "Rev. Samuel Osborn, who was born +in Ireland, and educated at the University of Dublin." He is said to +have been "A man of wisdom and virtue," and taught his people the use of +peat, and the art of drying and preparing it, which as they had scarcely +any other fuel, was a great blessing to them. He also introduced +improvements in agriculture. But, notwithstanding his many services, as +he embraced the religion of Arminius, some of his flock became +dissatisfied. At length, an ecclesiastical council, consisting of ten +ministers, with their churches, sat upon him, and they, naturally +enough, spoiled his usefulness. The council convened at the desire of +two divine philosophers,--Joseph Doane and Nathaniel Freeman. + +In their report they say, "It appears to the council that the Rev. Mr. +Osborn hath, in his preaching to this people, said, that what Christ did +and suffered doth nothing abate or diminish our obligation to obey the +law of God, and that Christ's suffering and obedience were for himself; +both parts of which, we think, contain dangerous error." + +"Also: 'It hath been said, and doth appear to this council, that the +Rev. Mr. Osborn, both in public and in private, asserted that there are +no promises in the Bible but what are conditional, which we think, also, +to be an error, and do say that there are promises which are absolute +and without any condition,--such as the promise of a new heart, and that +he will write his law in our hearts.'" + +"Also, they say, 'it hath been alleged, and doth appear to us, that Mr. +Osborn hath declared, that _obedience_ is a considerable _cause_ of a +person's justification, which, we think, contains very dangerous +error.'" + +And many the like distinctions they made, such as some of my readers, +probably, are more familiar with than I am. So, far in the East, among +the Yezidis, or Worshippers of the Devil, so-called, the Chaldaeans, and +others, according to the testimony of travellers, you may still hear +these remarkable disputations on doctrinal points going on. Osborn was, +accordingly, dismissed, and he removed to Boston, where he kept school +for many years. But he was fully justified, methinks, by his works in +the peat-meadow; one proof of which is, that he lived to be between +ninety and one hundred years old. + +The next minister was the Rev. Benjamin Webb, of whom, though a +neighboring clergy-man pronounced him "the best man and the best +minister whom he ever knew," yet the historian says that, + +"As he spent his days in the uniform discharge of his duty (it reminds +one of a country muster) and there were no shades to give relief to his +character, not much can be said of him. (Pity the Devil did not plant a +few shade-trees along his avenues.) His heart was as pure as the +new-fallen snow, which completely covers every dark spot in a field; his +mind was as serene as the sky in a mild evening in June, when the moon +shines without a cloud. Name any virtue, and that virtue he practised; +name any vice, and that vice he shunned. But if peculiar qualities +marked his character, they were his humility, his gentleness, and his +love of God. The people had long been taught by a son of thunder (Mr. +Treat): in him they were instructed by a son of consolation, who sweetly +allured them to virtue by soft persuasion, and by exhibiting the mercy +of the Supreme Being; for his thoughts were so much in heaven that they +seldom descended to the dismal regions below; and though of the same +religious sentiments as Mr. Treat, yet his attention was turned to those +glad tidings of great joy which a Saviour came to publish." + +We were interested to hear that such a man had trodden the plains of +Nauset. + +Turning over further in our book, our eyes fell on the name of the Rev. +Jonathan Bascom, of Orleans; "Senex emunctae naris, doctus, et auctor +elegantium verborum, facetus, et dulcis festique sermonis." And, again, +on that of the Rev. Nathan Stone, of Dennis: "Vir humilis, mitis, +blandus, advenarum hospes; (there was need of him there;) suis commodis +in terra non studens, reconditis thesauris in coelo." An easy virtue +that, there, for methinks no inhabitant of Dennis could be very studious +about his earthly commodity, but must regard the bulk of his treasures +as in heaven. But probably the most just and pertinent character of all +is that which appears to be given to the Rev. Ephraim Briggs, of +Chatham, in the language of the later Romans, "_Seip, sepoese, sepoemese, +wechekum_,"--which not being interpreted, we know not what it means, +though we have no doubt it occurs somewhere in the Scriptures, probably +in the Apostle Eliot's Epistle to the Nipmucks. + +Let no one think that I do not love the old ministers. They were, +probably, the best men of their generation, and they deserve that their +biographies should fill the pages of the town histories. If I could but +hear the "glad tidings" of which they tell, and which, perchance, they +heard, I might write in a worthier strain than this. + +There was no better way to make the reader realize how wide and peculiar +that plain was, and how long it took to traverse it, than by inserting +these extracts in the midst of my narrative. + +[1] They touched after this at a place called Mattachiest, where they +got more corn; but their shallop being cast away in a storm, the +Governor was obliged to return to Plymouth on foot, fifty miles through +the woods. According to Mourt's Relation, "he came safely home, though +weary and _surbated_," that is, foot-sore. (Ital. _sobattere_, Lat. +_sub_ or _solea battere_, to bruise the soles of the feet; v. Dic. Not +"from _acerbatus_, embittered or aggrieved," as one commentator on this +passage supposes.) This word is of very rare occurrence, being applied +only to governors and persons of like description, who are in that +predicament; though such generally have considerable mileage allowed +them, and might save their soles if they cared. + +[2] Lib.v.Fab. 5. + + + + +IV + +THE BEACH + +At length we reached the seemingly retreating boundary of the plain, and +entered what had appeared at a distance an upland marsh, but proved to +be dry sand covered with Beach-grass, the Bearberry, Bayberry, +Shrub-oaks, and Beach-plum, slightly ascending as we approached the +shore; then, crossing over a belt of sand on which nothing grew, though +the roar of the sea sounded scarcely louder than before, and we were +prepared to go half a mile farther, we suddenly stood on the edge of a +bluff overlooking the Atlantic. Far below us was the beach, from half a +dozen to a dozen rods in width, with a long line of breakers rushing to +the strand. The sea was exceedingly dark and stormy, the sky completely +overcast, the clouds still dropping rain, and the wind seemed to blow +not so much as the exciting cause, as from sympathy with the already +agitated ocean. The waves broke on the bars at some distance from the +shore, and curving green or yellow as if over so many unseen dams, ten +or twelve feet high, like a thousand waterfalls, rolled in foam to the +sand. There was nothing but that savage ocean between us and Europe. + +Having got down the bank, and as close to the water as we could, where +the sand was the hardest, leaving the Nauset Lights behind us, we began +to walk leisurely up the beach, in a northwest direction, towards +Provincetown, which was about twenty-five miles distant, still sailing +under our umbrellas with a strong aft wind, admiring in silence, as we +walked, the great force of the ocean stream,-- + + [Greek: potamoio mega sthenos Hoeanoio.] + +The white breakers were rushing to the shore; the foam ran up the sand, +and then ran back as far as we could see (and we imagined how much +farther along the Atlantic coast, before and behind us), as regularly, +to compare great things with small, as the master of a choir beats time +with his white wand; and ever and anon a higher wave caused us hastily +to deviate from our path, and we looked back on our tracks filled with +water and foam. The breakers looked like droves of a thousand wild +horses of Neptune, rushing to the shore, with their white manes +streaming far behind; and when at length the sun shone for a moment, +their manes were rainbow-tinted. Also, the long kelp-weed was tossed up +from time to time, like the tails of sea-cows sporting in the brine. + +[Illustration: A Cape Cod citizen] + +There was not a sail in sight, and we saw none that day,--for they had +all sought harbors in the late storm, and had not been able to get out +again; and the only human beings whom we saw on the beach for several +days were one or two wreckers looking for drift-wood, and fragments of +wrecked vessels. After an easterly storm in the spring, this beach is +sometimes strewn with eastern wood from one end to the other, which, as +it belongs to him who saves it, and the Cape is nearly destitute of +wood, is a Godsend to the inhabitants. We soon met one of these +wreckers,--a regular Cape Cod man, with whom we parleyed, with a +bleached and weather-beaten face, within whose wrinkles I distinguished +no particular feature. It was like an old sail endowed with life,--a +hanging cliff of weather-beaten flesh,--like one of the clay boulders +which occurred in that sand-bank. He had on a hat which had seen salt +water, and a coat of many pieces and colors, though it was mainly the +color of the beach, as if it had been sanded. His variegated back--for +his coat had many patches, even between the shoulders--was a rich study +to us, when we had passed him and looked round. It might have been +dishonorable for him to have so many scars behind, it is true, if he had +not had many more and more serious ones in front. He looked as if he +sometimes saw a doughnut, but never descended to comfort; too grave to +laugh, too tough to cry; as indifferent as a clam,--like a sea-clam with +hat on and legs, that was out walking the strand. He may have been one +of the Pilgrims,--Peregrine White, at least,--who has kept on the +back-side of the Cape, and let the centuries go by. He was looking for +wrecks, old logs, water-logged and covered with barnacles, or bits of +boards and joists, even chips, which he drew out of the reach of the +tide, and stacked up to dry. When the log was too large to carry far, he +cut it up where the last wave had left it, or rolling it a few feet +appropriated it by sticking two sticks into the ground crosswise above +it. Some rotten trunk, which in Maine cumbers the ground, and is, +perchance, thrown into the water on purpose, is here thus carefully +picked up, split and dried, and husbanded. Before winter the wrecker +painfully carries these things up the bank on his shoulders by a long +diagonal slanting path made with a hoe in the sand, if there is no +hollow at hand. You may see his hooked pike-staff always lying on the +bank ready for use. He is the true monarch of the beach, whose "right +there is none to dispute," and he is as much identified with it as a +beach-bird. + +Crantz, in his account of Greenland, quotes Dalagen's relation of the +ways and usages of the Greenlanders, and says, "Whoever finds driftwood, +or the spoils of a shipwreck on the strand, enjoys it as his own, +though, he does not live there. But he must haul it ashore and lay a +stone upon it, as a token that some one has taken possession of it, and +this stone is the deed of security, for no other Greenlander will offer +to meddle with it afterwards." Such is the instinctive law of nations. +We have also this account of drift-wood in Crantz: "As he (the Founder of +Nature) has denied this frigid rocky region the growth of trees, he has +bid the streams of the Ocean to convey to its shores a great deal of +wood, which accordingly comes floating thither, part without ice, but +the most part along with it, and lodges itself between the islands. Were +it not for this, we Europeans should have no wood to burn there, and the +poor Greenlanders (who, it is true, do not use wood, but train, for +burning) would, however, have no wood to roof their houses, to erect +their tents, as also to build their boats, and to shaft their arrows +(yet there grew some small but crooked alders, &c.), by which they must +procure their maintenance, clothing and train for warmth, light, and +cooking. Among this wood are great trees torn up by the roots, which by +driving up and down for many years and rubbing on the ice, are quite +bare of branches and bark, and corroded with great wood-worms. A small +part of this drift-wood are willows, alder and birch trees, which come +out of the bays in the south of (_i.e._ Greenland); also large trunks of +aspen-trees, which must come from a greater distance; but the greatest +part is pine and fir. We find also a good deal of a sort of wood finely +veined, with few branches; this I fancy is larch-wood, which likes to +decorate the sides of lofty, stony mountains. There is also a solid, +reddish wood, of a more agreeable fragrance than the common fir, with +visible cross-veins; which I take to be the same species as the +beautiful silver-firs, or _zirbel_, that have the smell of cedar, and grow +on the high Grison hills, and the Switzers wainscot their rooms with +them." The wrecker directed us to a slight depression, called Snow's +Hollow, by which we ascended the bank,--for elsewhere, if not difficult, +it was inconvenient to climb it on ac-count of the sliding sand, which +filled our shoes. + +This sand-bank--the backbone of the Cape--rose directly from the beach +to the height of a hundred feet or more above the ocean. It was with +singular emotions that we first stood upon it and discovered what a +place we had chosen to walk on. On our right, beneath us, was the beach +of smooth and gently sloping sand, a dozen rods in width; next, the +endless series of white breakers; further still, the light green water +over the bar, which runs the whole length of the forearm of the Cape, +and beyond this stretched the unwearied and illimitable ocean. On our +left, extending back from the very edge of the bank, was a perfect +desert of shining sand, from thirty to eighty rods in width, skirted in +the distance by small sand-hills fifteen or twenty feet high; between +which, however, in some places, the sand penetrated as much farther. +Next commenced the region of vegetation--a succession of small hills and +valleys covered with shrubbery, now glowing with the brightest +imaginable autumnal tints; and beyond this were seen, here and there, +the waters of the bay. Here, in Wellfleet, this pure sand plateau, known +to sailors as the Table Lands of Eastham, on account of its appearance, +as seen from the ocean, and because it once made a part of that +town,--full fifty rods in width, and in many places much more, and +sometimes full one hundred and fifty feet above the ocean,--stretched +away northward from the southern boundary of the town, without a +particle of vegetation,--as level almost as a table,--for two and a half +or three miles, or as far as the eye could reach; slightly rising +towards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, by as steep a slope as +sand could lie on, and as regular as a military engineer could desire. +It was like the escarped rampart of a stupendous fortress, whose glacis +was the beach, and whose champaign the ocean.--From its surface we +overlooked the greater part of the Cape. In short, we were traversing a +desert, with the view of an autumnal landscape of extraordinary +brilliancy, a sort of Promised Land, on the one hand, and the ocean on +the other. Yet, though the prospect was so extensive, and the country +for the most part destitute of trees, a house was rarely visible,--we +never saw one from the beach,--and the solitude was that of the ocean +and the desert combined. A thousand men could not have seriously +interrupted it, but would have been lost in the vastness of the scenery +as their footsteps in the sand. + +The whole coast is so free from rocks, that we saw but one or two for +more than twenty miles. The sand was soft like the beach, and trying to +the eyes when the sun shone. A few piles of drift-wood, which some +wreckers had painfully brought up the bank and stacked up there to dry, +being the only objects in the desert, looked indefinitely large and +distant, even like wigwams, though, when we stood near them, they proved +to be insignificant little "jags" of wood. + +For sixteen miles, commencing at the Nauset Lights, the bank held its +height, though farther north it was not so level as here, but +interrupted by slight hollows, and the patches of Beach-grass and +Bayberry frequently crept into the sand to its edge. There are some +pages entitled "A description of the Eastern Coast of the County of +Barnstable," printed in 1802, pointing out the spots on which the +Trustees of the Humane Society have erected huts called Charity or +Humane Houses, "and other places where shipwrecked seamen may look for +shelter." Two thousand copies of this were dispersed, that every vessel +which frequented this coast might be provided with one. I have read this +Shipwrecked Seaman's Manual with a melancholy kind of interest,--for the +sound of the surf, or, you might say, the moaning of the sea, is heard +all through it, as if its author were the sole survivor of a shipwreck +himself. Of this part of the coast he says: "This highland approaches +the ocean with steep and lofty banks, which it is extremely difficult to +climb, especially in a storm. In violent tempests, during very high +tides, the sea breaks against the foot of them, rendering it then unsafe +to walk on the strand which lies between them and the ocean. Should the +seaman succeed in his attempt to ascend them, he must forbear to +penetrate into the country, as houses are generally so remote that they +would escape his research during the night; he must pass on to the +valleys by which the banks are intersected. These valleys, which the +inhabitants call Hollows, run at right angles with the shore, and in the +middle or lowest part of them a road leads from the dwelling-houses to +the sea." By the _word_ road must not always be understood a visible +cart-track. + +There were these two roads for us,--an upper and a lower one,--the bank +and the beach; both stretching twenty-eight miles northwest, from Nauset +Harbor to Race Point, without a single opening into the beach, and with +hardly a serious interruption of the desert. If you were to ford the +narrow and shallow inlet at Nauset Harbor, where there is not more than +eight feet of water on the bar at full sea, you might walk ten or twelve +miles farther, which would make a beach forty miles long,--and the bank +and beach, on the east side of Nantucket, are but a continuation of +these. I was comparatively satisfied. There I had got the Cape under me, +as much as if I were riding it bare-backed. It was not as on the map, or +seen from the stagecoach; but there I found it all out of doors, huge +and real, Cape Cod! as it cannot be represented on a map, color it as +you will; the thing itself, than which there is nothing more like it, no +truer picture or account; which you cannot go farther and see. I cannot +remember what I thought before that it was. They commonly celebrate +those beaches only which have a hotel on them, not those which have a +Humane house alone. But I wished to see that seashore where man's works +are wrecks; to put up at the true Atlantic House, where the ocean is +land-lord as well as sea-lord, and comes ashore without a wharf for the +landing; where the crumbling land is the only invalid, or at best is but +dry land, and that is all you can say of it. + +We walked on quite at our leisure, now on the beach, now on the +bank,--sitting from time to time on some damp log, maple or yellow +birch, which had long followed the seas, but had now at last settled on +land; or under the lee of a sandhill, on the bank, that we might gaze +steadily on the ocean. The bank was so steep that, where there was no +danger of its caving, we sat on its edge, as on a bench. It was +difficult for us landsmen to look out over the ocean without imagining +land in the horizon; yet the clouds appeared to hang low over it, and +rest on the water as they never do on the land, perhaps on account of +the great distance to which we saw. The sand was not without advantage, +for, though it was "heavy" walking in it, it was soft to the feet; and, +notwithstanding that it had been raining nearly two days, when it held +up for half an hour, the sides of the sand-hills, which were porous and +sliding, afforded a dry seat. All the aspects of this desert are +beautiful, whether you behold it in fair weather or foul, or when the +sun is just breaking out after a storm, and shining on its moist surface +in the distance, it is so white, and pure, and level, and each slight +inequality and track is so distinctly revealed; and when your eyes slide +off this, they fall on the ocean. In summer the mackerel gulls--which +here have their nests among the neighboring sand-hills--pursue the +traveller anxiously, now and then diving close to his head with a +squeak, and he may see them, like swallows, chase some crow which has +been feeding on the beach, almost across the Cape. + +Though for some time I have not spoken of the roaring of the breakers, +and the ceaseless flux and reflux of the waves, yet they did not for a +moment cease to dash and roar, with such a tumult that if you had been +there, you could scarcely have heard my voice the while; and they are +dashing and roaring this very moment, though it may be with less din and +violence, for there the sea never rests. We were wholly absorbed by this +spectacle and tumult, and like Chryses, though in a different mood from +him, we walked silent along the shore of the resounding sea, + + [Greek: Be d akeoy para thina polnphloisboio thalassest.] [1] + +I put in a little Greek now and then, partly because it sounds so much +like the ocean,--though I doubt if Homer's _Mediterranean_ Sea ever +sounded so loud as this. + +The attention of those who frequent the camp-meetings at Eastham is said +to be divided between the preaching of the Methodists and the preaching +of the billows on the back-side of the Cape, for they all stream over +here in the course of their stay. I trust that in this case the loudest +voice carries it. With what effect may we suppose the ocean to say, "My +hearers!" to the multitude on the bank! On that side some John N. +Maffit; on this, the Reverend Poluphloisboios Thalassa. + +There was but little weed cast up here, and that kelp chiefly, there +being scarcely a rock for rockweed to adhere to. Who has not had a +vision from some vessel's deck, when he had still his land-legs on, of +this great brown apron, drifting half upright, and quite submerged +through the green water, clasping a stone or a deep-sea mussel in its +unearthly fingers? I have seen it carrying a stone half as large as my +head. We sometimes watched a mass of this cable-like weed, as it was +tossed up on the crest of a breaker, waiting with interest to see it +come in, as if there were some treasure buoyed up by it; but we were +always surprised and disappointed at the insignificance of the mass +which had attracted us. As we looked out over the water, the smallest +objects floating on it appeared indefinitely large, we were so impressed +by the vastness of the ocean, and each one bore so large a proportion to +the whole ocean, which we saw. We were so often disappointed in the size +of such things as came ashore, the ridiculous bits of wood or weed, with +which the ocean labored, that we began to doubt whether the Atlantic +itself would bear a still closer inspection, and wold not turn out to be +a but small pond, if it should come ashore to us. This kelp, oar-weed, +tangle, devils-apron, sole-leather, or ribbon-weed,--as various species +are called,--appeared to us a singularly marine and fabulous product, a +lit invention for Neptune to adorn his car with, or a freak of Proteus. +All that is told of the sea has a fabulous sound to an inhabitant of the +land, and all its products have a certain fabulous quality, as if they +belonged to another planet, from sea-weed to a sailor's yarn, or a +fish-story. In this element the animal and vegetable kingdoms meet and +are strangely mingled. One species of kelp, according to Bory St. +Vincent, has a stem fifteen hundred feet long, and hence is the longest +vegetable known, and a brig's crew spent two days to no purpose +collecting the trunks of another kind cast ashore on the Falkland +Islands, mistaking it for drift-wood. (See Harvey on _Algae_) This species +looked almost edible; at least, I thought that if I were starving I +would try it. One sailor told me that the cows ate it. It cut like +cheese: for I took the earliest opportunity to sit down and deliberately +whittle up a fathom or two of it, that I might become more intimately +acquainted with it, see how it cut, and if it were hollow all the way +through. The blade looked like a broad belt, whose edges had been +quilled, or as if stretched by hammering, and it was also twisted +spirally. The extremity was generally worn and ragged from the lashing +of the waves. A piece of the stem which I carried home shrunk to one +quarter of its size a week afterward, and was completely covered with +crystals of salt like frost. The reader will excuse my +greenness,--though it is not sea-greenness, like his, perchance,--for I +live by a river-shore, where this weed does not wash up. When we +consider in what meadows it grew. and how it was raked, and in what kind +of hay weather got in or out, we may well be curious about it. One who +is weatherwise has given the following account of the matter. + + "When descends on the Atlantic + The gigantic + Storm-wind of the equinox, + Landward in his wrath he scourges + The toiling surges, + Laden with sea-weed from the rocks. + + "From Bermuda's reefs, from edges + Of sunken ledges, + On some far-off bright Azore; + From Bahama and the dashing, + Silver-flashing + Surges of San Salvador; + + "From the trembling surf that buries + The Orkneyan Skerries. + Answering the hoarse Hebrides; + And from wrecks and ships and drifting + Spars, uplifting + On the desolate rainy seas; + + "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting + On the shifting + Currents of the restless main." + +But he was not thinking of this shore, when he added:-- + + "Till, in sheltered coves and reaches + Of sandy beaches, + All have found repose again." + +_These_ weeds were the symbols of those grotesque and fabulous thoughts +which have not yet got into the sheltered coves of literature. + + "Ever drifting, drifting, drifting + On the shifting + Currents of the restless heart," + _And not yet_ "in books recorded + They, like hoarded + Household words, no more depart." + +The beach was also strewn with beautiful sea-jellies, which the wreckers +called Sun-squall, one of the lowest forms of animal life, some white, +some wine-colored, and a foot in diameter. I at first thought that they +were a tender part of some marine monster, which the storm or some other +foe had mangled. What right has the sea to bear in its bosom such tender +things as sea-jellies and mosses, when it has such a boisterous shore +that the stoutest fabrics are wrecked against it? Strange that it should +undertake to dandle such delicate children in its arm. I did not at +first recognize these for the same which I had formerly seen in myriads +in Boston Harbor, rising, with a waving motion, to the surface, as if to +meet the sun, and discoloring the waters far and wide, so that I seemed +to be sailing through a mere sunfish soup. They say that when you +endeavor to take one up, it will spill out the other side of your hand +like quicksilver. Before the land rose out of the ocean, and became _dry_ +land, chaos reigned; and between high and low water mark, where she is +partially disrobed and rising, a sort of chaos reigns still, which only +anomalous creatures can inhabit. Mackerel-gulls were all the while +flying over our heads and amid the breakers, sometimes two white ones +pursuing a black one; quite at home in the storm, though they are as +delicate organizations as sea-jellies and mosses; and we saw that they +were adapted to their circumstances rather by their spirits than their +bodies. Theirs must be an essentially wilder, that is, less human, +nature than that of larks and robins. Their note was like the sound of +some vibrating metal, and harmonized well with the scenery and the roar +of the surf, as if one had rudely touched the strings of the lyre, which +ever lies on the shore; a ragged shred of ocean music tossed aloft on +the spray. But if I were required to name a sound the remembrance of +which most perfectly revives the impression which the beach has made, it +would be the dreary peep of the piping plover (_Charadrius melodus_) which +haunts there. Their voices, too, are heard as a fugacious part in the +dirge which is ever played along the shore for those mariners who have +been lost in the deep since first it was created. But through all this +dreariness we seemed to have a pure and unqualified strain of eternal +melody, for always the same strain which is a dirge to one household is +a morning song of rejoicing to another. + +A remarkable method of catching gulls, derived from the Indians, was +practised in Wellfleet in 1794. "The Gull House," it is said, "is built +with crotchets, fixed in the ground on the beach," poles being stretched +across for the top, and the sides made close with stakes and seaweed. +"The poles on the top are covered with lean whale. The man being placed +within, is not discovered by the fowls, and while they are contending +for and eating the flesh, he draws them in, one by one, between the +poles, until he has collected forty or fifty." Hence, perchance, a man +is said to be _gulled_, when he is _taken in_. We read that one "sort of +gulls is called by the Dutch _mallemucke, i.e._ the foolish fly, because +they fall upon a whale as eagerly as a fly, and, indeed, all gulls are +foolishly bold and easy to be shot. The Norwegians call this bird +_havhest_, sea-horse (and the English translator says, it is probably what +we call boobies). If they have eaten too much, they throw it up, and eat +it again till they are tired. It is this habit in the gulls of parting +with their property [disgorging the contents of their stomachs to the +skuas], which has given rise to the terms gull, guller, and gulling, +among men." We also read that they used to kill small birds which +roosted on the beach at night, by making a fire with hog's lard in a +frying-pan. The Indians probably used pine torches; the birds flocked to +the light, and were knocked down with a stick. We noticed holes dug near +the edge of the bank, where gunners conceal themselves to shoot the +large gulls which coast up and down a-fishing, for these are considered +good to eat. + +We found some large clams of the species _Mactra solidissima_, which the +storm had torn up from the bottom, and cast ashore. I selected one of +the largest, about six inches in length, and carried it along, thinking +to try an experiment on it. We soon after met a wrecker, with a grapple +and a rope, who said that he was looking for tow cloth, which had made +part of the cargo of the ship _Franklin_, which was wrecked here in the +spring, at which time nine or ten lives were lost. The reader may +remember this wreck, from the circumstance that a letter was found in +the captain's valise, which washed ashore, directing him to wreck the +vessel before he got to America, and from the trial which took place in +consequence. The wrecker said that tow cloth was still cast up in such +storms as this. He also told us that the clam which I had was the +sea-clam, or hen, and was good to eat. We took our nooning under a +sand-hill, covered with beach-grass, in a dreary little hollow, on the +top of the bank, while it alternately rained and shined. There, having +reduced some damp drift-wood, which I had picked up on the shore, to +shavings with my knife, I kindled a fire with a match and some paper and +cooked my clam on the embers for my dinner; for breakfast was commonly +the only meal which I took in a house on this excursion. When the clam +was done, one valve held the meat and the other the liquor. Though it +was very tough, I found it sweet and savory, and ate _the whole_ with a +relish. Indeed, with the addition of a cracker or two, it would have +been a bountiful dinner. I noticed that the shells were such as I had +seen in the sugar-kit at home. Tied to a stick, they formerly made the +Indian's hoe hereabouts. + +At length, by mid-afternoon, after we had had two or three rainbows over +the sea, the showers ceased, and the heavens gradually cleared up, +though the wind still blowed as hard and the breakers ran as high as +before. Keeping on, we soon after came to a Charity-house, which we +looked into to see how the shipwrecked mariner might fare. Far away in +some desolate hollow by the sea-side, just within the bank, stands a +lonely building on piles driven into the sand, with a slight nail put +through the staple, which a freezing man can bend, with some straw, +perchance, on the floor on which he may lie, or which he may burn in the +fireplace to keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never been required to +shelter a ship-wrecked man, and the benevolent person who promised to +inspect it annually, to see that the straw and matches are here, and +that the boards will keep off the wind, has grown remiss and thinks that +storms and shipwrecks are over; and this very night a perishing crew may +pry open its door with their numbed fingers and leave half their number +dead here by morning. When I thought what must be the condition of the +families which alone would ever occupy or had occupied them, what must +have been the tragedy of the winter evenings spent by human beings +around their hearths, these houses, though they were meant for human +dwellings, did not look cheerful to me. They appeared but a stage to the +grave. The gulls flew around and screamed over them; the roar of the +ocean in storms, and the lapse of its waves in calms, alone resounds +through them, all dark and empty within, year in, year out, except, +perchance, on one memorable night. Houses of entertainment for +shipwrecked men! What kind of sailors' homes were they? + +[Illustration: Wreckage under the sand-bluff] + +"Each hut," says the author of the "Description of the Eastern Coast of +the County of Barnstable," "stands on piles, is eight feet long, eight +feet wide, and seven feet high; a sliding door is on the south, a +sliding shutter on the west, and a pole, rising fifteen feet above the +top of the building, on the east. Within it is supplied either with +straw or hay, and is further accommodated with a bench." They have +varied little from this model now. There are similar huts at the Isle of +Sable and Anticosti, on the north, and how far south along the coast I +know not. It is pathetic to read the minute and faithful directions +which he gives to seamen who may be wrecked on this coast, to guide them +to the nearest Charity-house, or other shelter, for, as is said of +Eastham, though there are a few houses within a mile of the shore, yet +"in a snow-storm, which rages here with excessive fury, it would be +almost impossible to discover them either by night or by day." You hear +their imaginary guide thus marshalling, cheering, directing the +dripping, shivering, freezing troop along; "at the entrance of this +valley the sand has gathered, so that at present a little climbing is +necessary. Passing over several fences and taking heed not to enter the +wood on the right hand, at the distance of three-quarters of a mile a +house is to be found. This house stands on the south side of the road, +and not far from it on the south is Pamet River, which runs from east to +west through body of salt marsh." To him cast ashore in Eastham, he +says, "The meeting-house is without a steeple, but it may be +distinguished from the dwelling-houses near it by its situation, which +is between two small groves of locusts, one on the south and one on the +north,--that on the south being three times as long as the other. About +a mile and a quarter from the hut, west by north, appear the top and +arms of a windmill." And so on for many pages. + +We did not learn whether these houses had been the means of saving any +lives, though this writer says, of one erected at the head of Stout's +Creek in Truro, that "it was built in an improper manner, having a +chimney in it; and was placed on a spot where no beach-grass grew. The +strong winds blew the sand from its foundation and the weight of the +chimney brought it to the ground; so that in January of the present year +[1802] it was entirely demolished. This event took place about six weeks +before the _Brutus_ was cast away. If it had remained, it is probable that +the whole of the unfortunate crew of that ship would have been saved, as +they gained the shore a few rods only from the spot where the hut had +stood." + +This "Charity-house," as the wrecker called it, this "Humane-house," as +some call it, that is, the one to which we first came, had neither +window nor sliding shutter, nor clapboards, nor paint. As we have said, +there was a rusty nail put through the staple. However, as we wished to +get an idea of a Humane house, and we hoped that we should never have a +better opportunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot-hole in the +door, and after long looking, without seeing, into the dark,--not +knowing how many shipwrecked men's bones we might see at last, looking +with the eye of faith, knowing that, though to him that knocketh it may +not always be opened, yet to him that looketh long enough through a +knot-hole the inside shall be visible,--for we had had some practice at +looking inward,--by steadily keeping our other ball covered from the +light meanwhile, putting the outward world behind us, ocean and land, +and the beach,--till the pupil became enlarged and collected the rays +of light that were wandering in that dark (for the pupil shall be +enlarged by looking; there never was so dark a night but a faithful and +patient eye, however small, might at last prevail over it),--after all +this, I say, things began to take shape to our vision,--if we may use +this expression where there was nothing but emptiness,--and we obtained +the long-wished-for insight. Though we thought at first that it was a +hopeless case, after several minutes' steady exercise of the divine +faculty, our prospects began decidedly to brighten, and we were ready +to exclaim with the blind bard of "Paradise Lost and Regained,"-- + + "Hail, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first born, + Or of the Eternal co-eternal beam. + May I express thee unblamed?" + +A little longer, and a chimney rushed red on our sight. In short, when +our vision had grown familiar with the darkness, we discovered that +there were some stones and some loose wads of wool on the floor, and an +empty fireplace at the further end; but it _was not_ supplied with +matches, or straw, or hay, that we could see, nor "accommodated with a +bench." Indeed, it was the wreck of all cosmical beauty there within. + +Turning our backs on the outward world, we thus looked through the +knot-hole into the Humane house, into the very bowels of mercy; and for +bread we found a stone. It was literally a great cry (of sea-mews +outside), and a little wool. However, we were glad to sit outside, under +the lee of the Humane house, to escape the piercing wind; and there we +thought how cold is charity! how inhumane humanity! This, then, is what +charity hides! Virtues antique and far away with ever a rusty nail over +the latch; and very difficult to keep in repair, withal, it is so +uncertain whether any will ever gain the beach near you. So we shivered +round about, not being able to get into it, ever and anon looking +through the knot-hole into that night without a star, until we concluded +that it was not a _humane_ house at all, but a sea-side box, now shut up. +belonging to some of the family of Night or Chaos, where they spent +their summers by the sea, for the sake of the sea breeze, and that it +was not proper for us to be prying into their concerns. + +My companion had declared before this that I had not a particle of +sentiment, in rather absolute terms, to my astonishment; but I suspect +he meant that my legs did not ache just then, though I am not wholly a +stranger to that sentiment. But I did not intend this for a +sentimental journey. + +[Illustration: Herring River at Wellfleet] + +[1] We have no word in English to express the sound of many waves, +dashing at once, whether gently or violently, [Greek: polnphloioboios] +to the ear, and, in the ocean's gentle moods, an [Greek: anarithmon +gelasma] to the eye. + + + +V + +THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN + +Having walked about eight miles since we struck the beach, and passed +the boundary between Wellfleet and Truro, a stone post in the sand,--for +even this sand comes under the jurisdiction of one town or another,--we +turned inland over barren hills and valleys, whither the sea, for some +reason, did not follow us, and, tracing up a Hollow, discovered two or +three sober-looking houses within half a mile, uncommonly near the +eastern coast. Their garrets were apparently so full of chambers, that +their roofs could hardly lie down straight, and we did not doubt that +there was room for us there. Houses near the sea are generally low and +broad. These were a story and a half high; but if you merely counted the +windows in their gable-ends, you would think that there were many +stories more, or, at any rate, that the half-story was the only one +thought worthy of being illustrated. The great number of windows in the +ends of the houses, and their irregularity in size and position, here +and elsewhere on the Cape, struck us agreeably,--as if each of the +various occupants who had their _cunabula_ behind had punched a hole where +his necessities required it, and, according to his size and stature, +without regard to outside effect. There were windows for the grown +folks, and windows for the children,--three or four apiece; as a certain +man had a large hole cut in his barn-door for the cat, and another +smaller one for the kitten. Sometimes they were so low under the eaves +that I thought they must have perforated the plate beam for another +apartment, and I noticed some which were triangular, to fit that part +more exactly. The ends of the houses had thus as many muzzles as a +revolver, and, if the inhabitants have the same habit of staring out the +windows that some of our neighbors have, a traveller must stand a small +chance with them. + +Generally, the old-fashioned and unpainted houses on the Cape looked +more comfortable, as well as picturesque, than the modern and more +pretending ones, which were less in harmony with the scenery, and less +firmly planted. + +[Illustration: A characteristic gable with many windows] + +These houses were on the shores of a chain of ponds, seven in number, +the source of a small stream called Herring River, which empties into +the Bay. There are many Herring Rivers on the Cape; they will, perhaps, +be more numerous than herrings soon. We knocked at the door of the first +house, but its inhabitants were all gone away. In the meanwhile, we saw +the occupants of the next one looking out the window at us, and before +we reached it an old woman came out and fastened the door of her +bulkhead, and went in again. Nevertheless, we did not hesitate to knock +at her door, when a grizzly-looking man appeared, whom we took to be +sixty or seventy years old. He asked us, at first, suspiciously, where +we were from, and what our business was; to which we returned plain +answers. + +"How far is Concord from Boston?" he inquired. + +"Twenty miles by railroad." + +"Twenty miles by railroad," he repeated. + +"Didn't you ever hear of Concord of Revolutionary fame?" + +"Didn't I ever hear of Concord? Why, I heard the guns fire at the battle +of Bunker Hill. [They hear the sound of heavy cannon across the Bay.] I +am almost ninety; I am eighty-eight year old. I was fourteen year old at +the time of Concord Fight,--and where were you then?" + +We were obliged to confess that we were not in the fight. + +"Well, walk in, we'll leave it to the women," said he. + +So we walked in, surprised, and sat down, an old woman taking our hats +and bundles, and the old man continued, drawing up to the large, +old-fashioned fireplace,-- + +"I am a poor good-for-nothing crittur, as Isaiah says; I am all broken +down this year. I am under petticoat government here." + +The family consisted of the old man, his wife, and his daughter, who +appeared nearly as old as her mother, a fool, her son (a +brutish-looking, middle-aged man, with a prominent lower face, who was +standing by the hearth when we entered, but immediately went out), and a +little boy of ten. + +While my companion talked with the women, I talked with the old man. +They said that he was old and foolish, but he was evidently too knowing +for them. + +"These women," said he to me, "are both of them poor good-for-nothing +critturs. This one is my wife. I married her sixty-four years ago. She +is eighty-four years old, and as deaf as an adder, and the other is not +much better." + +He thought well of the Bible, or at least he _spoke_ well, and did not +_think_ ill, of it, for that would not have been prudent for a man of his +age. He said that he had read it attentively for many years, and he had +much of it at his tongue's end. He seemed deeply impressed with a sense +of his own nothingness, and would repeatedly exclaim,-- + +"I am a nothing. What I gather from my Bible is just this: that man is a +poor good-for-nothing crittur, and everything is just as God sees fit +and disposes." + +"May I ask your name?" I said. + +"Yes," he answered, "I am not ashamed to tell my name. My name is----. +My great-grandfather came over from England and settled here." + +He was an old Wellfleet oysterman, who had acquired a competency in that +business, and had sons still engaged in it. + +Nearly all the oyster shops and stands in Massachusetts, I am told, are +supplied and kept by natives of Wellfleet, and a part of this town is +still called Billingsgate from the oysters having been formerly planted +there; but the native oysters are said to have died in 1770. Various +causes are assigned for this, such as a ground frost, the carcasses of +blackfish kept to rot in the harbor, and the like, but the most common +account of the matter is,--and I find that a similar superstition with +regard to the disappearance of fishes exists almost everywhere,--that +when Wellfleet began to quarrel with the neighboring towns about the +right to gather them, yellow specks appeared in them, and Providence +caused them to disappear. A few years ago sixty thousand bushels were +annually brought from the South and planted in the harbor of Wellfleet +till they attained "the proper relish of Billingsgate"; but now they are +imported commonly full-grown, and laid down near their markets, at +Boston and elsewhere, where the water, being a mixture of salt and +fresh, suits them better. The business was said to be still good and +improving. + +The old man said that the oysters were liable to freeze in the winter, +if planted too high; but if it were not "so cold as to strain their +eyes" they were not injured. The inhabitants of New Brunswick have +noticed that "ice will not form over an oyster-bed, unless the cold is +very intense indeed, and when the bays are frozen over the oyster-beds +are easily discovered by the water above them remaining unfrozen, or as +the French residents say, _degele_." Our host said that they kept them in +cellars all winter. + +"Without anything to eat or drink?" I asked. + +"Without anything to eat or drink," he answered. + +"Can the oysters move?" + +"Just as much as my shoe." + +[Illustration: A Welfleet oysterman] + +But when I caught him saying that they "bedded themselves down in the +sand, flat side up, round side down," I told him that my shoe could not +do that, without the aid of my foot in it; at which he said that they +merely settled down as they grew; if put down in a square they would be +found so; but the clam could move quite fast. I have since been told by +oystermen of Long Island, where the oyster is still indigenous and +abundant, that they are found in large masses attached to the parent in +their midst, and are so taken up with their tongs; in which case, they +say, the age of the young proves that there could have been no motion +for five or six years at least. And Buckland in his Curiosities of +Natural History (page 50) says: "An oyster who has once taken up his +position and fixed himself when quite young can never make a change. +Oysters, nevertheless, that have not fixed themselves, but remain loose +at the bottom of the sea, have the power of locomotion; they open their +shells to their fullest extent, and then suddenly contracting them, the +expulsion of the water forwards gives a motion backwards. A fisherman at +Guernsey told me that he had frequently seen oysters moving in this +way." + +Some still entertain the question "whether the oyster was indigenous in +Massachusetts Bay," and whether Wellfleet harbor was a "natural habitat" +of this fish; but, to say nothing of the testimony of old oystermen, +which, I think, is quite conclusive, though the native oyster may now be +extinct there, I saw that their shells, opened by the Indians, were +strewn all over the Cape. Indeed, the Cape was at first thickly settled +by Indians on account of the abundance of these and other fish. We saw +many traces of their occupancy after this, in Truro, near Great Hollow, +and at High-Head, near East Harbor River,--oysters, clams, cockles, and +other shells, mingled with ashes and the bones of deer and other +quadrupeds. I picked up half a dozen arrow-heads, and in an hour or two +could have filled my pockets with them. The Indians lived about the +edges of the swamps, then probably in some instances ponds, for shelter +and water. Moreover, Champlain in the edition of his "Voyages" printed +in 1613, says that in the year 1606 he and Poitrincourt explored a +harbor (Barnstable Harbor?) in the southerly part of what is now called +Massachusetts Bay, in latitude 42 degrees, about five leagues south, one +point west of _Cap Blanc_ (Cape Cod), and there they found many good +oysters, and they named it "_le Port aux Huistres_" (Oyster Harbor). In +one edition of his map (1632), the _"R. aux Escailles_" is drawn emptying +into the same part of the bay, and on the map "_Novi Belgii_," in Ogilby's +"America" (1670), the words "_Port aux Huistres_" are placed against the +same place. Also William Wood, who left New England in 1633, speaks, in +his "New England's Prospect," published in 1634, of "a great +oyster-bank" in Charles River, and of another in the Mistick, each of +which obstructed the navigation of its river. "The oysters," says he, +"be great ones in form of a shoehorn; some be a foot long; these breed +on certain banks that are bare every spring tide. This fish without the +shell is so big, that it must admit of a division before you can well +get it into your mouth." Oysters are still found there. (Also, see +Thomas Morton's "New English Canaan," page 90.) + +Our host told us that the sea-clam, or hen, was not easily obtained; it +was raked up, but never on the Atlantic side, only cast ashore there in +small quantities in storms. The fisherman sometimes wades in water +several feet deep, and thrusts a pointed stick into the sand before him. +When this enters between the valves of a clam, he closes them on it, and +is drawn out. It has been known to catch and hold coot and teal which +were preying on it. I chanced to be on the bank of the Acushnet at New +Bedford one day since this, watching some ducks, when a man informed me +that, having let out his young ducks to seek their food amid the +samphire (_Salicornia_) and other weeds along the river-side at low tide +that morning, at length he noticed that one remained stationary, amid +the weeds, something preventing it from following the others, and going +to it he found its foot tightly shut in a quahog's shell. He took up +both together, carried them to his home, and his wife opening the shell +with a knife released the duck and cooked the quahog. The old man said +that the great clams were good to eat, but that they always took out a +certain part which was poisonous, before they cooked them. "People said +it would kill a cat." I did not tell him that I had eaten a large one +entire that afternoon, but began to think that I was tougher than a cat. +He stated that pedlers came round there, and sometimes tried to sell the +women folks a skimmer, but he told them that their women had got a +better skimmer than _they_ could make, in the shell of their clams; it was +shaped just right for this purpose.--They call them "skim-alls" in some +places. He also said that the sun-squall was poisonous to handle, and +when the sailors came across it, they did not meddle with it, but heaved +it out of their way. I told him that I had handled it that afternoon, +and had felt no ill effects as yet. But he said it made the hands itch, +especially if they had previously been scratched, or if I put it into my +bosom I should find out what it was. + +He informed us that no ice ever formed on the back side of the Cape, or +not more than once in a century, and but little snow lay there, it being +either absorbed or blown or washed away. Sometimes in winter, when the +tide was down, the beach was frozen, and afforded a hard road up the +back side for some thirty miles, as smooth as a floor. One winter when +he was a boy, he and his father "took right out into the back side +before daylight, and walked to Provincetown and back to dinner." + +When I asked what they did with all that barren-looking land, where I +saw so few cultivated fields,--"Nothing," he said. + +"Then why fence your fields?" + +"To keep the sand from blowing and covering up the whole." + +"The yellow sand," said he, "has some life in it, but the white little +or none." + +When, in answer to his questions, I told him that I was a surveyor, he +said that they who surveyed his farm were accustomed, where the ground +was uneven, to loop up each chain as high as their elbows; that was the +allowance they made, and he wished to know if I could tell him why they +did not come out according to his deed, or twice alike. He seemed to +have more respect for surveyors of the old school, which I did not +wonder at. "King George the Third," said he, "laid out a road four rods +wide and straight the whole length of the Cape," but where it was now he +could not tell. + +This story of the surveyors reminded me of a Long-Islander, who once, +when I had made ready to jump from the bow of his boat to the shore, and +he thought that I underrated the distance and would fall short,--though +I found afterward that he judged of the elasticity of my joints by his +own,--told me that when he came to a brook which he wanted to get over, +he held up one leg, and then, if his foot appeared to cover any part of +the opposite bank, he knew that he could jump it. "Why," I told him, "to +say nothing of the Mississippi, and other small watery streams, I could +blot out a star with my foot, but I would not engage to jump that +distance," and asked how he knew when he had got his leg at the right +elevation. But he regarded his legs as no less accurate than a pair of +screw dividers or an ordinary quadrant, and appeared to have a painful +recollection of every degree and minute in the arc which they described; +and he would have had me believe that there was a kind of hitch in his +hip-joint which answered the purpose. I suggested that he should connect +his two ankles by a string of the proper length, which should be the +chord of an arc, measuring his jumping ability on horizontal +surfaces,--assuming one leg to be a perpendicular to the plane of the +horizon, which, however, may have been too bold an assumption in this +case. Nevertheless, this was a kind of geometry in the legs which it +interested me to hear of. + +Our host took pleasure in telling us the names of the ponds, most of +which we could see from his windows, and making us repeat them after +him, to see if we had got them right. They were Gull Pond, the largest +and a very handsome one, clear and deep, and more than a mile in +circumference, Newcomb's, Swett's, Slough, Horse-Leech, Round, and +Herring Ponds, all connected at high water, if I do not mistake. The +coast-surveyors had come to him for their names, and he told them of one +which they had not detected. He said that they were not so high as +formerly. There was an earthquake about four years before he was born, +which cracked the pans of the ponds, which were of iron, and caused them +to settle. I did not remember to have read of this. Innumerable gulls +used to resort to them; but the large gulls were now very scarce, for, +as he said, the English robbed their nests far in the north, where they +breed. He remembered well when gulls were taken in the gull-house, and +when small birds were killed by means of a frying-pan and fire at night. +His father once lost a valuable horse from this cause. A party from +Wellfleet having lighted their fire for this purpose, one dark night, on +Billingsgate Island, twenty horses which were pastured there, and this +colt among them, being frightened by it, and endeavoring in the dark to +cross the passage which separated them from the neighboring beach, and +which was then fordable at low tide, were all swept out to sea and +drowned. I ob-served that many horses were still turned out to pasture +all summer on the islands and beaches in Wellfleet, Eastham, and +Orleans, as a kind of common. He also described the killing of what he +called "wild hens" here, after they had gone to roost in the woods, when +he was a boy. Perhaps they were "Prairie hens" (pinnated grouse). + +He liked the Beach-pea (_Lathyrus maritimus_), cooked green, as well as +the cultivated. He had seen it growing very abundantly in Newfoundland, +where also the inhabitants ate them, but he had never been able to +obtain any ripe for seed. We read, under the head of Chatham, that "in +1555, during a time of great scarcity, the people about Orford, in +Sussex (England) were preserved from perishing by eating the seeds of +this plant, which grew there in great abundance on the sea-coast. Cows, +horses, sheep, and goats eat it." But the writer who quoted this could +not learn that they had ever been used in Barnstable County. + +He had been a voyager, then? O, he had been about the world in his day. +He once considered himself a pilot for all our coast; but now they had +changed the names so he might be bothered. + +He gave us to taste what he called the Summer Sweeting, a pleasant apple +which he raised, and frequently grafted from, but had never seen growing +elsewhere, except once,--three trees on Newfoundland, or at the Bay of +Chaleur, I forget which, as he was sailing by. He was sure that he could +tell the tree at a distance. + +At length the fool, whom my companion called the wizard, came in, +muttering between his teeth, "Damn book-pedlers,--all the time talking +about books. Better do something. Damn 'em. I'll shoot 'em. Got a doctor +down here. Damn him, I'll get a gun and shoot him"; never once holding +up his head. Whereat the old man stood up and said in a loud voice, as +if he was accustomed to command, and this was not the first time he had +been obliged to exert his authority there: "John, go sit down, mind your +business,--we've heard you talk before,--precious little you'll +do,--your bark is worse than your bite." But, without minding, John +muttered the same gibberish over again, and then sat down at the table +which the old folks had left. He ate all there was on it, and then +turned to the apples, which his aged mother was paring, that she might +give her guests some apple-sauce for breakfast, but she drew them away +and sent him off. + +[Illustration: Welfleet] + +When I approached this house the next summer, over the desolate hills +between it and the shore, which are worthy to have been the birthplace +of Ossian, I saw the wizard in the midst of a cornfield on the hillside, +but, as usual, he loomed so strangely, that I mistook him for a +scarecrow. + +This was the merriest old man that we had ever seen, and one of the best +preserved. His style of conversation was coarse and plain enough to have +suited Rabelais. He would have made a good Panurge. Or rather he was a +sober Silenus, and we were the boys Chromis and Mnasilus, who listened +to his story. + + "Not by Haemonian hills the Thracian bard. + Nor awful Phoebus was on Pindus heard + With deeper silence or with more regard." + +There was a strange mingling of past and present in his conversation, +for he had lived under King George, and might have remembered when +Napoleon and the moderns generally were born. He said that one day, when +the troubles between the Colonies and the mother country first broke +out, as he, a boy of fifteen, was pitching hay out of a cart, one Doane, +an old Tory, who was talking with his father, a good Whig, said to him, +"Why, Uncle Bill, you might as well undertake to pitch that pond into +the ocean with a pitchfork, as for the Colonies to undertake to gain +their independence." He remembered well General Washington, and how he +rode his horse along the streets of Boston, and he stood up to show us +how he looked. + +"He was a r--a--ther large and portly-looking man, a manly and +resolute-looking officer, with a pretty good leg as he sat on his +horse."--"There, I'll tell you, this was the way with Washington." Then +he jumped up again, and bowed gracefully to right and left, making show +as if he were waving his hat. Said he, _"That_ was Washington." + +He told us many anecdotes of the Revolution, and was much pleased when +we told him that we had read the same in history, and that his account +agreed with the written. + +"O," he said, "I know, I know! I was a young fellow of sixteen, with my +ears wide open; and a fellow of that age, you know, is pretty wide +awake, and likes to know everything that's going on. O, I know!" + +He told us the story of the wreck of the _Franklin_, which took place +there the previous spring: how a boy came to his house early in the +morning to know whose boat that was by the shore, for there was a vessel +in distress, and he, being an old man, first ate his breakfast, and then +walked over to the top of the hill by the shore, and sat down there, +having found a comfortable seat, to see the ship wrecked. She was on the +bar, only a quarter of a mile from him, and still nearer to the men on +the beach, who had got a boat ready, but could render no assistance on +account of the breakers, for there was a pretty high sea running. There +were the passengers all crowded together in the forward part of the +ship, and some were getting out of the cabin windows and were drawn on +deck by the others. + +"I saw the captain get out his boat," said he; "he had one little one; +and then they jumped into it one after another, down as straight as an +arrow. I counted them. There were nine. One was a woman, and she jumped +as straight as any of them. Then they shoved off. The sea took them +back, one wave went over them, and when they came up there were six +still clinging to the boat; I counted them. The next wave turned the +boat bottom upward, and emptied them all out. None of them ever came +ashore alive. There were the rest of them all crowded together on the +forecastle, the other parts of the ship being under water. They had seen +all that happened to the boat. At length a heavy sea separated the +forecastle from the rest of the wreck, and set it inside of the worst +breaker, and the boat was able to reach them, and it saved all that were +left, but one woman." + +He also told us of the steamer _Cambria's_ getting aground on his shore a +few months before we were there, and of her English passengers who +roamed over his grounds, and who, he said, thought the prospect from the +high hill by the shore "the most delightsome they had ever seen," and +also of the pranks which the ladies played with his scoop-net in the +ponds. He spoke of these travellers with their purses full of guineas, +just as our provincial fathers used to speak of British bloods in the +time of King George the Third. + +_Quid loquar?_ Why repeat what he told us? + + "Aut Scyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est, + Candida succinctam latrantibus inguina monstris, + Dulichias vexasse rates, et gurgite in alto + Ah timidos nautas canibus lacerasse marinis?" + +In the course of the evening I began to feel the potency of the clam +which I had eaten, and I was obliged to confess to our host that I was +no tougher than the cat he told of; but he answered, that he was a +plain-spoken man, and he could tell me that it was all imagination. At +any rate, it proved an emetic in my case, and I was made quite sick by +it for a short time, while he laughed at my expense. I was pleased to +read afterward, in Mourt's Relation of the landing of the Pilgrims in +Provincetown Harbor, these words: "We found great muscles (the old +editor says that they were undoubtedly sea-clams) and very fat and full +of sea-pearl; but we could not eat them, for they made us all sick that +did eat, as well sailors as passengers, ... but they were soon well +again." It brought me nearer to the Pilgrims to be thus reminded by a +similar experience that I was so like them. Moreover, it was a valuable +confirmation of their story, and I am prepared now to believe every word +of Mourt's Relation. I was also pleased to find that man and the clam +lay still at the same angle to one another. But I did not notice +sea-pearl. Like Cleopatra, I must have swallowed it. I have since dug +these clams on a flat in the Bay and observed them. They could squirt +full ten feet before the wind, as appeared by the marks of the drops on +the sand. + +"Now I'm going to ask you a question," said the old man, "and I don't +know as you can tell me; but you are a learned man, and I never had any +learning, only what I got by natur."--It was in vain that we reminded +him that he could quote Josephus to our confusion.--"I've thought, if I +ever met a learned man I should like to ask him this question. Can you +tell me how _Axy_ is spelt, and what it means? _Axy_," says he; "there's a +girl over here is named _Axy_. Now what is it? What does it mean? Is it +Scripture? I've read my Bible twenty-five years over and over, and I +never came across it." + +"Did you read it twenty-five years for this object.''" I asked. + +"Well, _how_ is it spelt? Wife, how is it spelt?" She said: "It is in the +Bible; I've seen it." + +"Well, how do you spell it?" + +"I don't know. A c h, ach, s e h, seh,--Achseh." + +"Does that spell Axy? Well, do _you_ know what it means?" asked he, +turning to me. + +"No," I replied, "I never heard the sound before." + +"There was a schoolmaster down here once, and they asked him what it +meant, and he said it had no more meaning than a bean-pole." + +I told him that I held the same opinion with the schoolmaster. I had +been a schoolmaster myself, and had had strange names to deal with. I +also heard of such names as Zoleth, Beriah, Amaziah, Bethuel, and +Shearjashub, hereabouts. + +At length the little boy, who had a seat quite in the chimney-corner, +took off his stockings and shoes, warmed his feet, and having had his +sore leg freshly salved, went off to bed; then the fool made bare his +knotty-looking feet and legs, and followed him; and finally the old man +exposed his calves also to our gaze. We had never had the good fortune +to see an old man's legs before, and were surprised to find them fair +and plump as an infant's, and we thought that he took a pride in +exhibiting them. He then proceeded to make preparations for retiring, +discoursing meanwhile with Panurgic plainness of speech on the ills to +which old humanity is subject. We were a rare haul for him. He could +commonly get none but ministers to talk to, though sometimes ten of them +at once, and he was glad to meet some of the laity at leisure. The +evening was not long enough for him. As I had been sick, the old lady +asked if I would not go to bed,--it was getting late for old people; but +the old man, who had not yet done his stories, said, "You ain't +particular, are you?" + +"O, no," said I, "I am in no hurry. I believe I have weathered the Clam +cape." + +"They are good," said he; "I wish I had some of them now." + +"They never hurt me," said the old lady. + +"But then you took out the part that killed a cat," said I. + +At last we cut him short in the midst of his stories, which he promised +to resume in the morning. Yet, after all, one of the old ladies who came +into our room in the night to fasten the fire-board, which rattled, as +she went out took the precaution to fasten us in. Old women are by +nature more suspicious than old men. However, the winds howled around +the house, and made the fire-boards as well as the casements rattle well +that night. It was probably a windy night for any locality, but we could +not distinguish the roar which was proper to the ocean from that which +was due to the wind alone. + +The sounds which the ocean makes must be very significant and +interesting to those who live near it. When I was leaving the shore at +this place the next summer, and had got a quarter of a mile distant, +ascending a hill, I was startled by a sudden, loud sound from the sea, +as if a large steamer were letting off steam by the shore, so that I +caught my breath and felt my blood run cold for an instant, and I turned +about, expecting to see one of the Atlantic steamers thus far out of her +course, but there was nothing unusual to be seen. There was a low bank +at the entrance of the Hollow, between me and the ocean, and suspecting +that I might have risen into another stratum of air in ascending the +hill,--which had wafted to me only the ordinary roar of the sea,--I +immediately descended again, to see if I lost _hearing_ of it; but, +without regard to my ascending or descending, it died away in a minute +or two, and yet there was scarcely any wind all the while. The old man +said that this was what they called the "rut," a peculiar roar of the +sea before the wind changes, which, however, he could not account for. +He thought that he could tell all about the weather from the sounds +which the sea made. + +Old Josselyn, who came to New England in 1638, has it among his +weather-signs, that "the resounding of the sea from the shore, and +murmuring of the winds in the woods, without apparent wind, sheweth wind +to follow." + +Being on another part of the coast one night since this, I heard the +roar of the surf a mile distant, and the inhabitants said it was a sign +that the wind would work round east, and we should have rainy weather. +The ocean was heaped up somewhere at the eastward, and this roar was +occasioned by its effort to preserve its equilibrium, the wave reaching +the shore before the wind. Also the captain of a packet between this +country and England told me that he sometimes met with a wave on the +Atlantic coming against the wind, perhaps in a calm sea, which indicated +that at a distance the wind was blowing from an opposite quarter, but +the undulation had travelled faster than it. Sailors tell of "tide-rips" +and "ground-swells," which they suppose to have been occasioned by +hurricanes and earthquakes, and to have travelled many hundred, and +sometimes even two or three thousand miles. + +[Illustration: Hunting for a Leak] + +Before sunrise the next morning they let us out again, and I ran over to +the beach to see the sun come out of the ocean. The old woman of +eighty-four winters was already out in the cold morning wind, +bareheaded, tripping about like a young girl, and driving up the cow to +milk. She got the breakfast with despatch, and without noise or bustle; +and meanwhile the old man resumed his stories, standing before us, who +were sitting, with his back to the chimney, and ejecting his tobacco +juice right and left into the fire behind him, without regard to the +various dishes which were there preparing. At breakfast we had eels, +buttermilk cake, cold bread, green beans, doughnuts, and tea. The old +man talked a steady stream; and when his wife told him he had better eat +his breakfast, he said: "Don't hurry me; I have lived too long to be +hurried." I ate of the apple-sauce and the doughnuts, which I thought +had sustained the least detriment from the old man's shots, but my +companion refused the apple-sauce, and ate of the hot cake and green +beans, which had appeared to him to occupy the safest part of the +hearth. But on comparing notes afterward, I told him that the buttermilk +cake was particularly exposed, and I saw how it suffered repeatedly, and +therefore I avoided it; but he declared that, however that might be, he +witnessed that the apple-sauce was seriously injured, and had therefore +declined that. After breakfast we looked at his clock, which was out of +order, and oiled it with some "hen's grease," for want of sweet oil, for +he scarcely could believe that we were not tinkers or pedlers; meanwhile +he told a story about visions, which had reference to a crack in the +clock-case made by frost one night. He was curious to know to what +religious sect we belonged. He said that he had been to hear thirteen +kinds of preaching in one month, when he was young, but he did not join +any of them,--he stuck to his Bible. There was nothing like any of them +in his Bible. While I was shaving in the next room, I heard him ask my +companion to what sect he belonged, to which he answered:-- + +"O, I belong to the Universal Brotherhood." + +"What's that?" he asked, "Sons o' Temperance?" + +Finally, filling our pockets with doughnuts, which he was pleased to +find that we called by the same name that he did, and paying for our +entertainment, we took our departure; but he followed us out of doors, +and made us tell him the names of the vegetables which he had raised +from seeds that came out of the _Franklin_. They were cabbage, broccoli, +and parsley. As I had asked him the names of so many things, he tried me +in turn with all the plants which grew in his garden, both wild and +cultivated. It was about half an acre, which he cultivated wholly +himself. Besides the common garden vegetables, there were Yellow-Dock, +Lemon Balm, Hyssop, Gill-go-over-the-ground. Mouse-ear, Chick-weed, +Roman Wormwood, Elecampane, and other plants. As we stood there, I saw a +fish-hawk stoop to pick a fish out of his pond. + +"There," said I, "he has got a fish." + +"Well," said the old man, who was looking all the while, but could see +nothing, "he didn't dive, he just wet his claws." + +And, sure enough, he did not this time, though it is said that they +often do, but he merely stooped low enough to pick him out with his +talons; but as he bore his shining prey over the bushes, it fell to the +ground, and we did not see that he recovered it. That is not their +practice. + +Thus, having had another crack with the old man, he standing bareheaded +under the eaves, he directed us "athwart the fields," and we took to the +beach again for another day, it being now late in the morning. + +It was but a day or two after this that the safe of the Provincetown +Bank was broken open and robbed by two men from the interior, and we +learned that our hospitable entertainers did at least transiently harbor +the suspicion that we were the men. + + + + +VI + +THE BEACH AGAIN + +Our way to the high sand-bank, which I have described as extending all +along the coast, led, as usual, through patches of Bayberry bushes which +straggled into the sand. This, next to the Shrub-oak, was perhaps the +most common shrub thereabouts. I was much attracted by its odoriferous +leaves and small gray berries which are clustered about the short twigs, +just below the last year's growth. I know of but two bushes in Concord, +and they, being staminate plants, do not bear fruit. The berries gave it +a venerable appearance, and they smelled quite spicy, like small +confectionery. Robert Beverley, in his "History of Virginia," published +in 1705, states that "at the mouth of their rivers, and all along upon +the sea and bay, and near many of their creeks and swamps, grows the +myrtle, bearing a berry, of which they make a hard brittle wax, of a +curious green color, which by refining becomes almost transparent. Of +this they make candles, which are never greasy to the touch nor melt +with lying in the hottest weather; neither does the snuff of these ever +offend the smell, like that of a tallow candle; but, instead of being +disagreeable, if an accident puts a candle out, it yields a pleasant +fragrancy to all that are in the room; insomuch that nice people often +put them out on purpose to have the incense of the expiring snuff. The +melting of these berries is said to have been first found out by a +surgeon in New England, who performed wonderful things with a salve made +of them." From the abundance of berries still hanging on the bushes, we +judged that the inhabitants did not generally collect them for tallow, +though we had seen a piece in the house we had just left. I have since +made some tallow myself. Holding a basket beneath the bare twigs in +April, I rubbed them together between my hands and thus gathered about a +quart in twenty minutes, to which were added enough to make three pints, +and I might have gathered them much faster with a suitable rake and a +large shallow basket. They have little prominences like those of an +orange all creased in tallow, which also fills the interstices down to +the stone. The oily part rose to the top, making it look like a savory +black broth, which smelled much like balm or other herb tea. You let it +cool, then skim off the tallow from the surface, melt this again and +strain it. I got about a quarter of a pound weight from my three pints, +and more yet remained within the berries. A small portion cooled in the +form of small flattish hemispheres, like crystallizations, the size of a +kernel of corn (nuggets I called them as I picked them out from amid the +berries), Loudon says, that "cultivated trees are said to yield more wax +than those that are found wild." (See Duplessy, Vegetaux Resineux, Vol. +II. p. 60.) If you get any pitch on your hands in the pine-woods you have +only to rub some of these berries between your hands to start it off. +But the ocean was the grand fact there, which made us forget both bay +berries and men. + +To-day the air was beautifully clear, and the sea no longer dark and +stormy, though the waves still broke with foam along the beach, but +sparkling and full of life. Already that morning I had seen the day +break over the sea as if it came out of its bosom:-- + + "The saffron-robed Dawn rose in haste from the streams + Of Ocean, that she might bring light to immortals and to mortals." + +The sun rose visibly at such a distance over the sea that the cloud-bank +in the horizon, which at first concealed him, was not perceptible until +he had risen high behind it, and plainly broke and dispersed it, like an +arrow. But as yet I looked at him as rising over land, and could not, +without an effort, realize that he was rising over the sea. Already I +saw some vessels on the horizon, which had rounded the Cape in the +night, and were now well on their watery way to other lands. + +We struck the beach again in the south part of Truro. In the early part +of the day, while it was flood tide and the beach was narrow and soft, +we walked on the bank, which was very high here, but not so level as the +day before, being more interrupted by slight hollows. The author of the +Description of the Eastern Coast says of this part, that "the bank is +very high and steep. From the edge of it west, there is a strip of sand +a hundred yards in breadth. Then succeeds low brushwood, a quarter of a +mile wide, and almost impassable. After which comes a thick, perplexing +forest, in which not a house is to be discovered. Seamen, therefore, +though the distance between these two hollows (Newcomb's and Brush +Hollows) is great, must not attempt to enter the wood, as in a snowstorm +they must undoubtedly perish." This is still a true description of the +country, except that there is not much high wood left. + +[Illustration: Truro--Starting on a voyage] + +There were many vessels, like gulls, skimming over the surface of the +sea, now half concealed in its troughs, their dolphin-strikers ploughing +the water, now tossed on the top of the billows. One, a bark standing +down parallel with the coast, suddenly furled her sails, came to anchor, +and swung round in the wind, near us, only half a mile from the shore. +At first we thought that her captain wished to communicate with us, and +perhaps we did not regard the signal of distress, which a mariner would +have understood, and he cursed us for cold-hearted wreckers who turned +our backs on him. For hours we could still see her anchored there behind +us, and we wondered how she could afford to loiter so long in her +course. Or was she a smuggler who had chosen that wild beach to land her +cargo on? Or did they wish to catch fish, or paint their vessel? Erelong +other barks, and brigs, and schooners, which had in the mean while +doubled the Cape, sailed by her in the smacking breeze, and our +consciences were relieved. Some of these vessels lagged behind, while +others steadily went ahead. We narrowly watched their rig, and the cut +of their jibs, and how they walked the water, for there was all the +difference between them that there is between living creatures. But we +wondered that they should be remembering Boston and New York and +Liverpool, steering for them, out there; as if the sailor might forget +his peddling business on such a grand highway. They had perchance +brought oranges from the Western Isles; and were they carrying back the +peel? We might as well transport our old traps across the ocean of +eternity. Is _that_ but another "trading-flood," with its blessed isles? +Is Heaven such a harbor as the Liverpool docks? + +Still held on without a break, the inland barrens and shrubbery, the +desert and the high sand bank with its even slope, the broad white +beach, the breakers, the green water on the bar, and the Atlantic Ocean; +and we traversed with delight new reaches of the shore; we took another +lesson in sea-horses' manes and sea-cows' tails, in sea-jellies and +sea-clams, with our new-gained experience. The sea ran hardly less than +the day before. It seemed with every wave to be subsiding, because such +was our expectation, and yet when hours had elapsed we could see no +difference. But there it was, balancing itself, the restless ocean by +our side, lurching in its gait. Each wave left the sand all braided or +woven, as it were, with a coarse woof and warp, and a distinct raised +edge to its rapid work. We made no haste, since we wished to see the +ocean at our leisure; and indeed that soft sand was no place in which to +be in a hurry, for one mile there was as good as two elsewhere. Besides, +we were obliged frequently to empty our shoes of the sand which one took +in in climbing or descending the bank. + +As we were walking close to the water's edge this morning we turned +round, by chance, and saw a large black object which the waves had just +cast up on the beach behind us, yet too far off for us to distinguish +what it was; and when we were about to return to it, two men came +running from the bank, where no human beings had appeared before, as if +they had come out of the sand, in order to save it before another wave +took it. As we approached, it took successively the form of a huge fish, +a drowned man, a sail or a net, and finally of a mass of tow-cloth, part +of the cargo of the _Franklin_, which the men loaded into a cart. + +Objects on the beach, whether men or inanimate things, look not only +exceedingly grotesque, but much larger and more wonderful than they +actually are. Lately, when approaching the seashore several degrees +south of this, I saw before me, seemingly half a mile distant, what +appeared like bold and rugged cliffs on the beach, fifteen feet high, +and whitened by the sun and waves; but after a few steps it proved to be +low heaps of rags,--part of the cargo of a wrecked vessel,--scarcely +more than a foot in height. Once also it was my business to go in search +of the relics of a human body, mangled by sharks, which had just been +cast up, a week after a wreck, having got the direction from a +light-house: I should find it a mile or two distant over the sand, a +dozen rods from the water, covered with a cloth, by a stick stuck up. I +expected that I must look very narrowly to find so small an object, but +the sandy beach, half a mile wide, and stretching farther than the eye +could reach, was so perfectly smooth and bare, and the mirage toward the +sea so magnifying, that when I was half a mile distant the insignificant +sliver which marked the spot looked like a bleached spar, and the relics +were as conspicuous as if they lay in state on that sandy plain, or a +generation had labored to pile up their cairn there. Close at hand they +were simply some bones with a little flesh adhering to them, in fact, +only a slight inequality in the sweep of the shore. There was nothing at +all remarkable about them, and they were singularly inoffensive both to +the senses and the imagination. But as I stood there they grew more and +more imposing. They were alone with the beach and the sea, whose hollow +roar seemed addressed to them, and I was impressed as if there was an +understanding between them and the ocean which necessarily left me out, +with my snivelling sympathies. That dead body had taken possession of +the shore, and reigned over it as no living one, could, in the name of a +certain majesty which belonged to it. + +We afterward saw many small pieces of tow-cloth washed up, and I learn +that it continued to be found in good condition, even as late as +November in that year, half a dozen bolts at a time. + +We eagerly filled our pockets with the smooth round pebbles which in +some places, even here, were thinly sprinkled over the sand, together +with flat circular shells (_Scutelloe?_); but, as we had read, when they +were dry they had lost their beauty, and at each sitting we emptied our +pockets again of the least remarkable, until our collection was well +culled. Every material was rolled into the pebble form by. the waves; +not only stones of various kinds, but the hard coal which some vessel +had dropped, bits of glass, and in one instance a mass of peat three +feet long, where there was nothing like it to be seen for many miles. +All the great rivers of the globe are annually, if not constantly, +discharging great quantities of lumber, which drifts to distant shores. +I have also seen very perfect pebbles of brick, and bars of Castile soap +from a wreck rolled into perfect cylinders, and still spirally streaked +with red, like a barber's pole. When a cargo of rags is washed ashore, +every old pocket and bag-like recess will be filled to bursting with +sand by being rolled on the beach; and on one occasion, the pockets in +the clothing of the wrecked being thus puffed up, even after they had +been ripped open by wreckers, deluded me into the hope of identifying +them by the contents. A pair of gloves looked exactly as if filled by a +hand. The water in such clothing is soon wrung out and evaporated, but +the sand, which works itself into every seam, is not so easily got rid +of. Sponges, which are picked up on the shore, as is well known, retain +some of the sand of the beach to the latest day, in spite of every +effort to extract it. + +I found one stone on the top of the bank, of a dark gray color, shaped +exactly like a giant clam (_Mactra solidissima_), and of the same size; +and, what was more remarkable, one-half of the outside had shelled off +and lay near it, of the same form and depth with one of the valves of +this clam, while the other half was loose, leaving a solid core of a +darker color within it. I afterward saw a stone resembling a razor clam, +but it was a solid one. It appeared as if the stone, in the process of +formation, had filled the mould which a clam-shell furnished; or the +same law that shaped the clam had made a clam of stone. Dead clams, with +shells full of sand, are called sand clams. There were many of the large +clamshells filled with sand; and sometimes one valve was separately +filled exactly even, as if it had been heaped and then scraped. Even, +among the many small stones on the top of the bank, I found one +arrow-head. + +Beside the giant clam and barnacles, we found on the shore a small clam +(_Mesodesma arctata_), which I dug with my hands in numbers on the bars, +and which is sometimes eaten by the inhabitants, in the absence of the +_Mya arenaria_, on this side. Most of their empty shells had been +perforated by some foe.--Also, the + +_Astarte castanea_. + +The Edible Mussel (_Mytilus edulis_) on the few rocks, and washed up in +curious bunches of forty or fifty, held together by its rope-like +_byssus_. + +The Scollop Shell (_Pecten concentricus_), used for card-racks and +pin-cushions. + +Cockles, or Cuckoos (_Natica heros_), and their remarkable _nidus_, called +"sand-circle," looking like the top of a stone jug without the stopple, +and broken on one side, or like a flaring dickey made of sand-paper. +Also, + +_Cancellaria Couthouyi_ (?), and + +Periwinkles (?) (_Fusus decemcostatus_). + +We afterward saw some other kinds on the Bay-side. Gould states that +this Cape "has Hitler proved a barrier to the migrations of many +species of Mollusca."--"Of the one hundred and ninety-seven species +[which he described in 1840 as belonging to Massachusetts], eighty-three +do not pass to the South shore, and fifty are not found on the North +shore of the Cape." + +Among Crustacea, there were the shells of Crabs and Lobsters, often +bleached quite white high up the beach; Sea or Beach Fleas (_Amphipoda_); +and the cases of the Horse-shoe Crab, or Saucepan Fish (_Limulus +Polyphoemus_), of which we saw many alive on the Bay side, where they +feed pigs on them. Their tails were used as arrow-heads by the Indians. + +Of Radiata, there were the Sea Chestnut or Egg (_Echinus granulatus_), +commonly divested of its spines; flat circular shells (_Scutella parma?_) +covered with chocolate-colored spines, but becoming smooth and white, +with five petal-like figures; a few Star-fishes or Five-fingers +(_Asterias rubens_); and Sun-fishes or Sea-jellies (_Aurelioe_). + +There was also at least one species of Sponge. + +The plants which I noticed here and there on the pure sandy shelf, +between the ordinary high-water mark and the foot of the bank, were Sea +Rocket (_Cakile Americana_), Saltwort (_Salsola kali_), Sea Sandwort +(_Honkenya peploides_), Sea Burdock (_Xanthium echinatum_), Sea-side Spurge +(_Euphorbia poylgonifolia_); also, Beach Grass (_Arundo, Psamma_, or +_Calamagrostis arenaria_), Sea-side Golden-rod (_Solidago sempervirens_), +and the Beach Pea (_Lathyrus maritimus_). + +Sometimes we helped a wrecker turn over a larger log than usual, or we +amused ourselves with rolling stones down the bank, but we rarely could +make one reach the water, the beach was so soft and wide; or we bathed +in some shallow within a bar, where the sea covered us with sand at +every flux, though it was quite cold and windy. The ocean there is +commonly but a tantalizing prospect in hot weather, for with all that +water before you, there is, as we were afterward told, no bathing on the +Atlantic side, on account of the undertow and the rumor of sharks. At +the lighthouse both in Eastham and Truro, the only houses quite on the +shore, they declared, the next year, that they would not bathe there +"for any sum," for they sometimes saw the sharks tossed up and quiver +for a moment on the sand. Others laughed at these stories, but perhaps +they could afford to because they never bathed anywhere. One old wrecker +told us that he killed a regular man-eating shark fourteen feet long, +and hauled him out with his oxen, where we had bathed; and another, that +his father caught a smaller one of the same kind that was stranded +there, by standing him up on his snout so that the waves could not take +him. They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which +I do not presume to doubt utterly,--how they will sometimes upset a +boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily +believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen +years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles +long. I should add, however, that in July we walked on the bank here a +quarter of a mile parallel with a fish about six feet in length, +possibly a shark, which was prowling slowly along within two rods of the +shore. It was of a pale brown color, singularly film-like and indistinct +in the water, as if all nature abetted this child of ocean, and showed +many darker transverse bars or rings whenever it came to the surface. It +is well known that different fishes even of the same species are colored +by the water they inhabit. We saw it go into a little cove or +bathing-tub, where we had just been bathing, where the water was only +four or five feet deep at that time, and after exploring it go slowly +out again; but we continued to bathe there, only observing first from +the bank if the cove was preoccupied. We thought that the water was +fuller of life, more aerated perhaps than that of the Bay, like +soda-water, for we were as particular as young salmon, and the +expectation of encountering a shark did not subtract anything from its +life-giving qualities. + +Sometimes we sat on the wet beach and watched the beach birds, +sand-pipers, and others, trotting along close to each wave, and waiting +for the sea to cast up their breakfast. The former (_Charadrius melodus_) +ran with great rapidity and then stood stock still remarkably erect and +hardly to be distinguished from the beach. The wet sand was covered with +small skipping Sea Fleas, which apparently make a part of their food. +These last are the little scavengers of the beach, and are so numerous +that they will devour large fishes, which have been cast up, in a very +short time. One little bird not larger than a sparrow,--it may have been +a Phalarope.--would alight on the turbulent surface where the breakers +were five or six feet high, and float buoyantly there like a duck, +cunningly taking to its wings and lifting itself a few feet through the +air over the foaming crest of each breaker, but sometimes outriding +safely a considerable billow which hid it some seconds, when its +instinct told it that it would not break. It was a little creature thus +to sport with the ocean, but it was as perfect a success in its way as +the breakers in theirs. There was also an almost uninterrupted line of +coots rising and falling with the waves, a few rods from the shore, the +whole length of the Cape. They made as constant a part of the ocean's +border as the pads or pickerel-weed do of that of a pond. We read the +following as to the Storm Petrel (_Thalassidroma Wilsonii_), which is seen +in the Bay as well as on the outside. "The feathers on the breast of the +Storm Petrel are, like those of all swimming birds, water-proof; but +substances not susceptible of being wetted with water are, for that very +reason, the best fitted for collecting oil from its surface. That +function is performed by the feathers on the breast of the Storm Petrels +as they touch on the surface; and though that may not be the only way in +which they procure their food, it is certainly that in which they obtain +great part of it. They dash along till they have loaded their feathers +and then they pause upon the wave and remove the oil with their bills." + +Thus we kept on along the gently curving shore, seeing two or three +miles ahead at once,--along this ocean side-walk, where there was none +to turn out for, with the middle of the road the highway of nations on +our right, and the sand cliffs of the Cape on our left. We saw this +forenoon a part of the wreck of a vessel, probably the _Franklin_, a large +piece fifteen feet square, and still freshly painted. With a grapple and +a line we could have saved it, for the waves repeatedly washed it within +cast, but they as often took it back. It would have been a lucky haul +for some poor wrecker, for I have been told that one man who paid three +or four dollars for a part of the wreck of that vessel, sold fifty or +sixty dollars' worth of iron out of it. Another, the same who picked up +the Captain's valise with the memorable letter in it, showed me, growing +in his garden, many pear and plum trees which washed ashore from her, +all nicely tied up and labelled, and he said that he might have got five +hundred dollars' worth; for a Mr. Bell was importing the nucleus of a +nursery to be established near Boston. His turnip-seed came from the +same source. Also valuable spars from the same vessel and from the +_Cactus_ lay in his yard. In short the inhabitants visit the beach to see +what they have caught as regularly as a fisherman his weir or a lumberer +his boom; the Cape is their boom. I heard of one who had recently picked +up twenty barrels of apples in good condition, probably a part of a deck +load thrown over in a storm. + +Though there are wreck-masters appointed to look after valuable property +which must be advertised, yet undoubtedly a great deal of value is +secretly carried off. But are we not all wreckers contriving that some +treasure may be washed up on our beach, that we may secure it, and do we +not infer the habits of these Nauset and Barnegat wreckers from the +common modes of getting a living? + +The sea, vast and wild as it is, bears thus the waste and wrecks of +human art to its remotest shore. There is no telling what it may not +vomit up. It lets nothing lie; not even the giant clams which cling to +its bottom. It is still heaving up the tow-cloth of the _Franklin_, and +perhaps a piece of some old pirate's ship, wrecked more than a hundred +years ago, comes ashore to-day. Some years since, when a vessel was +wrecked here which had nutmegs in her cargo, they were strewn all along +the beach, and for a considerable time were not spoiled by the salt +water. Soon afterward, a fisherman caught a cod which was full of them. +Why, then, might not the Spice-Islanders shake their nutmeg trees into +the ocean, and let all nations who stand in need of them pick them up? +However, after a year, I found that the nutmegs from the _Franklin_ had +become soft. + +You might make a curious list of articles which fishes have +swallowed,--sailors' open clasp-knives, and bright tin snuff-boxes, not +knowing what was in them,--and jugs, and jewels, and Jonah. The other +day I came across the following scrap in a newspaper. + +"A Religious Fish.--A short time ago, mine host Stewart, of the Denton +Hotel, purchased a rock-fish, weighing about sixty pounds. On opening it +he found in it a certificate of membership of the M. E. Church, which we +read as follows:-- + + Member + Methodist E. Church. + Founded A. D. 1784. + Quarterly Ticket. + 18 + Minister. + +'For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a +far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'--"2 Cor. iv. 17. + + 'O what are all my sufferings here, + If, Lord, thou count me meet + With that enraptured host t' appear, + And worship at thy feet!' + +"The paper was of course in a crumpled and wet condition, but on +exposing it to the sun, and ironing the kinks out of it, it became quite +legible.--_Denton (Md.) Journal_." + +From time to time we saved a wreck ourselves, a box or barrel, and set +it on its end, and appropriated it with crossed sticks; and it will lie +there perhaps, respected by brother wreckers, until some more violent +storm shall take it, really lost to man until wrecked again. We also +saved, at the cost of wet feet only, a valuable cord and buoy, part of a +seine, with which the sea was playing, for it seemed ungracious to +refuse the least gift which so great a personage offered you. We brought +this home and still use it for a garden line. I picked up a bottle half +buried in the wet sand, covered with barnacles, but stoppled tight, and +half full of red ale, which still smacked of juniper,--all that remained +I fancied from the wreck of a rowdy world,--that great salt sea on the +one hand, and this little sea of ale on the other, preserving their +separate characters. What if it could tell us its adventures over +countless ocean waves! Man would not be man through such ordeals as it +had passed. But as I poured it slowly out on to the sand, it seemed to +me that man himself was like a half-emptied bottle of pale ale, which +Time had drunk so far, yet stoppled tight for a while, and drifting +about in the ocean of circumstances; but destined erelong to mingle with +the surrounding waves, or be spilled amid the sands of a distant shore. + +In the summer I saw two men fishing for Bass hereabouts. Their bait was +a bullfrog, or several small frogs in a bunch, for want of squid. They +followed a retiring wave and whirling their lines round and round their +heads with increasing rapidity, threw them as far as they could into the +sea; then retreating, sat down, flat on the sand, and waited for a bite. +It was literally (or _littorally_) walking down to the shore, and throwing +your line into the Atlantic. I should not have known what might take +hold of the other end, whether Proteus or another. At any rate, if you +could not pull him in, why, you might let him go without being pulled in +yourself. And _they_ knew by experience that it would be a Striped Bass, +or perhaps a Cod, for these fishes play along near the shore. + +From time to time we sat under the lee of a sand-hill on the bank, +thinly covered with coarse Beach-grass, and steadily gazed on the sea, +or watched the vessels going south, all Blessings of the Bay of course. +We could see a little more than half a circle of ocean, besides the +glimpses of the Bay which we got behind us; the sea there was not wild +and dreary in all respects, for there were frequently a hundred sail in +sight at once on the Atlantic. You can commonly count about eighty in a +favorable summer day and pilots sometimes land and ascend the bank to +look out for these which require their services. These had been waiting +for fair weather, and had come out of Boston Harbor together. The same +is the case when they have been assembled in the Vineyard Sound, so that +you may see but few one day, and a large fleet the next. Schooners with +many jibs and stay-sails crowded all the sea road; square-rigged vessels +with their great height and breadth of canvas were ever and anon +appearing out of the far horizon, or disappearing and sinking into it; +here and there a pilot-boat was towing its little boat astern toward +some distant foreigner who had just fired a gun, the echo of which along +the shore sounded like the caving of the bank. We could see the pilot +looking through his glass toward the distant ship which was putting back +to speak with him. He sails many a mile to meet her; and now she puts +her sails aback, and communicates with him alongside,--sends some +important message to the owners, and then bids farewell to these shores +for good and all; or, perchance a propeller passed and made fast to some +disabled craft, or one that had been becalmed, whose cargo of fruit +might spoil. Though silently, and for the most part incommunicatively, +going about their business, they were, no doubt, a source of +cheerfulness and a kind of society to one another. + +[Illustration: Unloading the day's catch] + +To-day it was the Purple Sea, an epithet which I should not before have +accepted. There were distinct patches of the color of a purple grape +with the bloom rubbed off. But first and last the sea is of all colors. +Well writes Gilpin concerning "the brilliant hues which are continually +playing on the surface of a quiet ocean," and this was not too turbulent +at a distance from the shore. "Beautiful," says he, "no doubt in a high +degree are those glimmering tints which often invest the tops of +mountains; but they are mere coruscations compared with these marine +colors, which are continually varying and shifting into each other in +all the vivid splendor of the rainbow, through the space often of +several leagues." Commonly, in calm weather, for half a mile from the +shore, where the bottom tinges it, the sea is green, or greenish, as are +some ponds; then blue for many miles, often with purple tinges, bounded +in the distance by a light almost silvery stripe; beyond which there is +generally a dark-blue rim, like a mountain-ridge in the horizon, as if, +like that, it owed its color to the intervening atmosphere. On another +day it will be marked with long streaks, alternately smooth and rippled, +light-colored and dark, even like our inland meadows in a freshet, and +showing which way the wind sets. + +Thus we sat on the foaming shore, looking on the wine-colored ocean,-- + + [Greek: Thin eph alos plies oroon epi oinopa ponton.] + +Here and there was a darker spot on its surface, the shadow of a cloud, +though the sky was so clear that no cloud would have been noticed +otherwise, and no shadow would have been seen on the land, where a much +smaller surface is visible at once. So, distant clouds and showers may +be seen on all sides by a sailor in the course of a day, which do not +necessarily portend rain where he is. In July we saw similar dark-blue +patches where schools of Menhaden rippled the surface, scarcely to be +distinguished from the shadows of clouds. Sometimes the sea was spotted +with them far and wide, such is its inexhaustible fertility. Close at +hand you see their back fin, which is very long and sharp, projecting +two or three inches above water. From time to time also we saw the white +bellies of the Bass playing along the shore. + +It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails steering for +half-fabulous ports, whose very names are a mysterious music to our +ears: Fayal, and Babelmandel, ay, and Chagres, and Panama,--bound to the +famous Bay of San Francisco, and the golden streams of Sacramento and +San Joaquin, to Feather River and the American Fork, where Sutter's Fort +presides, and inland stands the City de los Angeles. It is remarkable +that men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing remarkable +was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes and discoverers have +found true more than was previously believed, only when they were +expecting and dreaming of something more than their contemporaries +dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that is, when they were in a +frame of mind fitted to behold the truth. Referred to the world's +standard, they are always insane. Even savages have indirectly surmised +as much. Humboldt, speaking of Columbus approaching the New World, says: +"The grateful coolness of the evening air, the ethereal purity of the +starry firmament, the balmy fragrance of flowers, wafted to him by the +land breeze, all led him to suppose (as we are told by Herrara, in the +Decades) that he was approaching the garden of Eden, the sacred abode of +our first parents. The Orinoco seemed to him one of the four rivers +which, according to the venerable tradition of the ancient world, flowed +from Paradise, to water and divide the surface of the earth, newly +adorned with plants." So even the expeditions for the discovery of El +Dorado, and of the Fountain of Youth, led to real, if not compensatory +discoveries. + +We discerned vessels so far off, when once we began to look, that only +the tops of their masts in the horizon were visible, and it took a +strong intention of the eye, and its most favorable side, to see them at +all, and sometimes we doubted if we were not counting our eyelashes. +Charles Darwin states that he saw, from the base of the Andes, "the +masts of the vessels at anchor in the bay of Valparaiso, although not +less than twenty-six geographical miles distant," and that Anson had +been surprised at the distance at which his vessels were discovered from +the coast, without knowing the reason, namely, the great height of the +land and the transparency of the air. Steamers may be detected much +farther than sailing vessels, for, as one says, when their hulls and +masts of wood and iron are down, their smoky masts and streamers still +betray them; and the same writer, speaking of the comparative advantages +of bituminous and anthracite coal for war-steamers, states that, "from +the ascent of the columns of smoke above the horizon, the motions of the +steamers in Calais Harbor [on the coast of France] are at all times +observable at Ramsgate [on the English coast], from the first lighting +of the fires to the putting out at sea; and that in America the steamers +burning the fat bituminous coal can be tracked at sea at least seventy +miles before the hulls become visible, by the dense columns of black +smoke pouring out of their chimneys, and trailing along the horizon." + +Though there were numerous vessels at this great distance in the horizon +on every side, yet the vast spaces between them, like the spaces between +the stars, far as they were distant from us, so were they from one +another,--nay, some were twice as far from each other as from +us,--impressed us with a sense of the immensity of the ocean, the +"unfruitful ocean," as it has been called, and we could see what +proportion man and his works bear to the globe. As we looked off, and +saw the water growing darker and darker and deeper and deeper the +farther we looked, till it was awful to consider, and it appeared to +have no relation to the friendly land, either as shore or bottom,--of +what use is a bottom if it is out of sight, if it is two or three miles +from the surface, and you are to be drowned so long before you get to +it, though it were made of the same stuff with your native soil?--over +that ocean, where, as the Veda says, "there is nothing to give support, +nothing to rest upon, nothing to cling to," I felt that I was a land +animal. The man in a balloon even may commonly alight on the earth in a +few moments, but the sailor's only hope is that he may reach the distant +shore. I could then appreciate the heroism of the old navigator. Sir +Humphrey Gilbert, of whom it is related that, being overtaken by a storm +when on his return from America, in the year 1583, far northeastward +from where we were, sitting abaft with a book in his hand, just before +he was swallowed up in the deep, he cried out to his comrades in the +_Hind_, as they came within hearing, "We are as near to Heaven by sea as +by land." I saw that it would not be easy to realize. + +On Cape Cod, the next most eastern land you hear of is St. George's Bank +(the fishermen tell of "Georges," "Cashus," and other sunken lands which +they frequent). Every Cape man has a theory about George's Bank having +been an island once, and in their accounts they gradually reduce the +shallowness from six, five, four, two fathoms, to somebody's confident +assertion that he has seen a mackerel-gull sitting; on a piece of dry +land there. It reminded me, when I thought of the shipwrecks which had +taken place there, of the Isle of Demons, laid down off this coast in +old charts of the New World. There must be something monstrous, +methinks, in a vision of the sea bottom from over some bank a thousand +miles from the shore, more awful than its imagined bottomlessness; a +drowned continent, all livid and frothing at the nostrils, like the body +of a drowned man, which is better sunk deep than near the surface. + +I have been surprised to discover from a steamer the shallowness of +Massachusetts Bay itself. Off Billingsgate Point I could have touched +the bottom with a pole, and I plainly saw it variously shaded with +sea-weed, at five or six miles from the shore. This is "The Shoal-ground +of the Cape," it is true, but elsewhere the bay is not much deeper than +a country pond. We are told that the deepest water in the English +Channel between Shakespeare's Cliff and Cape Grinez, in France, is one +hundred and eighty feet; and Guyot says that "the Baltic Sea has a depth +of only one hundred and twenty feet between the coasts of Germany and +those of Sweden," and "the Adriatic between Venice and Trieste has a +depth of only one hundred and thirty feet." A pond in my native town, +only half a mile long, is more than one hundred feet deep. + +The ocean is but a larger lake. At midsummer you may sometimes see a +strip of glassy smoothness on it, a few rods in width and many miles +long, as if the surface there were covered with a thin pellicle of oil, +just as on a country pond; a sort of stand-still, you would say, at the +meeting or parting of two currents of air (if it does not rather mark +the unrippled steadiness of a current of water beneath), for sailors +tell of the ocean and land breeze meeting between the fore and aft sails +of a vessel, while the latter are full, the former being suddenly taken +aback. Daniel Webster, in one of his letters describing blue-fishing off +Martha's Vineyard, referring to those smooth places, which fishermen and +sailors call "slicks," says: "We met with them yesterday, and our +boatman made for them, whenever discovered. He said they were caused by +the blue-fish chopping up their prey. That is to say, those voracious +fellows get into a school of menhaden, which are too large to swallow +whole, and they bite them into pieces to suit their tastes. And the oil +from this butchery, rising to the surface, makes the 'slick.'" + +Yet this same placid Ocean, as civil now as a city's harbor, a place for +ships and commerce, will erelong be lashed into sudden fury, and all its +caves and cliffs will resound with tumult. It will ruthlessly heave +these vessels to and fro, break them in pieces in its sandy or stony +jaws, and deliver their crews to sea-monsters. It will play with them +like sea-weed, distend them like dead frogs, and carry them about, now +high, now low, to show to the fishes, giving them a nibble. This gentle +Ocean will toss and tear the rag of a man's body like the father of mad +bulls, and his relatives may be seen seeking the remnants for weeks +along the strand. From some quiet inland hamlet they have rushed weeping +to the unheard-of shore, and now stand uncertain where a sailor has +recently been buried amid the sandhills. + +It is generally supposed that they who have long been conversant with +the Ocean can foretell by certain indications, such as its roar and the +notes of sea-fowl, when it will change from calm to storm; but probably +no such ancient mariner as we dream of exists; they know no more, at +least, than the older sailors do about this voyage of life on which we +are all embarked. Nevertheless, we love to hear the sayings of old +sailors, and their accounts of natural phenomena, which totally ignore, +and are ignored by, science; and possibly they have not always looked +over the gunwale so long in vain. Kalm repeats a story which was told +him in Philadelphia by a Mr. Cock, who was one day sailing to the West +Indies in a small yacht, with an old man on board who was well +acquainted with those seas. "The old man sounding the depth, called to +the mate to tell Mr. Cock to launch the boats immediately, and to put a +sufficient number of men into them, in order to tow the yacht during the +calm, that they might reach the island before them as soon as possible, +as within twenty-four hours there would be a strong hurricane. Mr. Cock +asked him what reasons he had to think so; the old man replied that, on +sounding, he saw the lead in the water at a distance of many fathoms +more than he had seen it before; that therefore the water was become +clear all of a sudden, which he looked upon as a certain sign of an +impending hurricane in the sea." The sequel of the story is that, by +good fortune and by dint of rowing they managed to gain a safe +harbor before the hurricane had reached its height; but it finally +raged with so much violence that not only many ships were lost and +houses unroofed, but even their own vessel in harbor was washed so far +on shore that several weeks elapsed before it could be got off. + +The Greeks would not have called the ocean [Greek: atrnletos,] or +unfruitful, though it does not produce wheat, if they had viewed it by +the light of modern science; for naturalists now assert that "the sea, +and not the land, is the principal seat of life,"--though not of +vegetable life. Darwin affirms that "our most thickly inhabited forests +appear almost as deserts when we come to compare them with the +corresponding regions of the ocean." Agassiz and Gould tell us that "the +sea teems with animals of all classes, far beyond the extreme point of +flowering plants"; but they add that "experiments of dredging in very +deep water have also taught us that the abyss of the ocean is nearly a +desert";--"so that modern investigations," to quote the words of Desor, +"merely go to confirm the great idea which was vaguely anticipated by +the ancient poets and philosophers, that the Ocean is the origin of all +things." Yet marine animals and plants hold a lower rank in the scale of +being than land animals and plants. "There is no instance known," says +Desor, "of an animal becoming aquatic in its perfect state, after having +lived in its lower stage on dry land." but as in the case of the +tadpole, "the progress invariably points towards the dry land." In +short, the dry land itself came through and out of the water in its way +to the heavens, for, "in going back through the geological ages, we come +to an epoch when, according to all appearances, the dry land did not +exist, and when the surface of our globe was entirely covered with +water." We looked on the sea, then, once more, not as [Greek: +atrnletos,] or unfruitful, but as it has been more truly called, the +"laboratory of continents." + +Though we have indulged in some placid reflections of late, the reader +must not forget that the dash and roar of the waves were incessant. +Indeed, it would be well if he were to read with a large conch-shell at +his ear. But notwithstanding that it was very cold and windy to-day, it +was such a cold as we thought would not cause one to take cold who was +exposed to it, owing to the saltness of the air and the dryness of the +soil. Yet the author of the old Description of Wellfleet says: "The +atmosphere is very much impregnated with saline particles, which, +perhaps, with the great use of fish, and the neglect of cider and +spruce-beer, may be a reason why the people are more subject to sore +mouths and throats than in other places." + + + +VII + +ACROSS THE CAPE + +When we have returned from the seaside, we sometimes ask ourselves why +we did not spend more time in gazing at the sea; but very soon the +traveller does not look as the sea more than at the heavens. As for the +interior, if the elevated sand-bar in the midst of the ocean can be said +to have any interior, it was an exceedingly desolate landscape, with +rarely a cultivated or cultivable field in sight. We saw no villages, +and seldom a house, for these are generally on the Bay side. It was a +succession of shrubby hills and valleys, now wearing an autumnal tint. +You would frequently think, from the character of the surface, the +dwarfish trees, and the bearberries around, that you were on the top of +a mountain. The only wood in Eastham was on the edge of Wellfleet. The +pitch-pines were not commonly more than fifteen or eighteen feet high. +The larger ones covered with lichens,--often hung with the long gray +_Usnea_. There is scarcely a white-pine on the forearm of the Cape. Yet in +the northwest part of Eastham, near the Camp Ground, we saw, the next +summer, some quite rural, and even sylvan retreats, for the Cape, where +small rustling groves of oaks and locusts and whispering pines, on +perfectly level ground, made a little paradise. The locusts, both +transplanted and growing naturally about the houses there, appeared to +flourish better than any other tree. There were thin belts of wood in +Wellfleet and Truro, a mile or more from the Atlantic, but, for the most +part, we could see the horizon through them, or, if extensive, the trees +were not large. Both oaks and pines had often the same flat look with +the apple-trees. Commonly, the oak woods twenty-five years old were a +mere scraggy shrubbery nine or ten feet high, and we could frequently +reach to their topmost leaf. Much that is called "woods" was about half +as high as this,--only patches of shrub-oak, bayberry, beach-plum, and +wild roses, overrun with woodbine. When the roses were in bloom, these +patches in the midst of the sand displayed such a profusion of blossoms, +mingled with the aroma of the bayberry, that no Italian or other +artificial rose-garden could equal them. They were perfectly Elysian, +and realized my idea of an oasis in the desert. Huckleberry-bushes were +very abundant, and the next summer they bore a remarkable quantity of +that kind of gall called Huckleberry-apple, forming quite handsome +though monstrous blossoms. But it must be added, that this shrubbery +swarmed with wood-ticks, sometimes very troublesome parasites, and which +it takes very horny fingers to crack. + +[Illustration: A Truro footpath] + +The inhabitants of these towns have a great regard for a tree, though +their standard for one is necessarily neither large nor high; and when +they tell you of the large trees that once grew here, you must think of +them, not as absolutely large, but large compared with the present +generation. Their "brave old oaks," of which they speak with so much +respect, and which they will point out to you as relics of the primitive +forest, one hundred or one hundred and fifty, ay, for aught they know, +two hundred years old, have a ridiculously dwarfish appearance, which +excites a smile in the beholder. The largest and most venerable which +they will show you in such a case are, perhaps, not more than twenty or +twenty-five feet high. I was especially amused by the Liliputian old +oaks in the south part of Truro. To the inexperienced eye, which +appreciated their proportions only, they might appear vast as the tree +which saved his royal majesty, but measured, they were dwarfed at once +almost into lichens which a deer might eat up in a morning. Yet they +will tell you that large schooners were once built of timber which grew +in Wellfleet. The old houses also are built of the timber of the Cape; +but instead of the forests in the midst of which they originally stood, +barren heaths, with poverty-grass for heather, now stretch away on every +side. The modern houses are built of what is called "dimension timber," +_imported_ from Maine, all ready to be set up, so that commonly they do +not touch it again with an axe. Almost all the wood used for fuel is +imported by vessels or currents, and of course all the coal. I was told +that probably a quarter of the fuel and a considerable part of the +lumber used in North Truro was drift-wood. Many get _all_ their fuel from +the beach. + +Of birds not found in the interior of the State,--at least in my +neighborhood,--I heard, in the summer, the Black-throated Bunting +(_Fringilla Americana_) amid the shrubbery, and in the open land the +Upland Plover (_Totanus Bartramius_), whose quivering notes were ever and +anon prolonged into a clear, somewhat plaintive, yet hawk-like scream, +which sounded at a very indefinite distance. The bird may have been in +the next field, though it sounded a mile off. + +To-day we were walking through Truro, a town of about eighteen hundred +inhabitants. We had already come to Pamet River, which empties into the +Bay. This was the limit of the Pilgrims' journey up the Cape from +Provincetown, when seeking a place for settlement. It rises in a hollow +within a few rods of the Atlantic, and one who lives near its source +told us that in high tides the sea leaked through, yet the wind and +waves preserve intact the barrier between them, and thus the whole river +is steadily driven westward butt-end foremost,--fountain-head, channel, +and light-house at the mouth, all together. + +Early in the afternoon we reached the Highland Light, whose white tower +we had seen rising out of the bank in front of us for the last mile or +two. It is fourteen miles from the Nauset Lights, on what is called the +Clay Pounds, an immense bed of clay abutting on the Atlantic, and, as +the keeper told us, stretching quite across the Cape, which is here only +about two miles wide. We perceived at once a difference in the soil, for +there was an interruption of the desert, and a slight appearance of a +sod under our feet, such as we had not seen for the last two days. + +After arranging to lodge at the light-house, we rambled across the Cape +to the Bay, over a singularly bleak and barren-looking country, +consisting of rounded hills and hollows, called by geologists diluvial +elevations and depressions,--a kind of scenery which has been compared +to a chopped sea, though this suggests too sudden a transition. There is +a delineation of this very landscape in Hitchcock's Report on the +Geology of Massachusetts, a work which, by its size at least, reminds +one of a diluvial elevation itself. Looking southward from the +light-house, the Cape appeared like an elevated plateau, sloping very +regularly, though slightly, downward from the edge of the bank on the +Atlantic side, about one hundred and fifty feet above the ocean, to that +on the Bay side. On traversing this we found it to be interrupted by +broad valleys or gullies, which become the hollows in the bank when the +sea has worn up to them. They are commonly at right angles with the +shore, and often extend quite across the Cape. Some of the valleys, +however, are circular, a hundred feet deep without any outlet, as if the +Cape had sunk in those places, or its sands had run out. The few +scattered houses which we passed, being placed at the bottom of the +hollows for shelter and fertility, were, for the most part, concealed +entirely, as much as if they had been swallowed up in the earth. Even a +village with its meeting-house, which we had left little more than a +stone's throw behind, had sunk into the earth, spire and all, and we saw +only the surface of the upland and the sea on either hand. When +approaching it, we had mistaken the belfry for a summer-house on the +plain. We began to think that we might tumble into a village before we +were aware of it, as into an ant-lion's hole, and be drawn into the sand +irrecoverably. The most conspicuous objects on the land were a distant +windmill, or a meeting-house standing alone, for only they could afford +to occupy an exposed place. A great part of the township, however, is a +barren, heath-like plain, and perhaps one third of it lies in common, +though the property of individuals. The author of the old "Description +of Truro," speaking of the soil, says: "The snow, which would be of +essential service to it provided it lay level and covered the ground, is +blown into drifts and into the sea." This peculiar open country, with +here and there a patch of shrubbery, extends as much as seven miles, or +from Pamet River on the south to High Head on the north, and from Ocean +to Bay. To walk over it makes on a stranger such an impression as being +at sea, and he finds it impossible to estimate distances in any weather. +A windmill or a herd of cows may seem to be far away in the horizon, +yet, after going a few rods, he will be close upon them. He is also +deluded by other kinds of mirage. When, in the summer, I saw a family +a-blueberrying a mile off, walking about amid the dwarfish bushes which +did not come up higher than their ankles, they seemed to me to be a race +of giants, twenty feet high at least. + +The highest and sandiest portion next the Atlantic was thinly covered +with Beach-grass and Indigo-weed. Next to this the surface of the upland +generally consisted of white sand and gravel, like coarse salt, through +which a scanty vegetation found its way up. It will give an +ornithologist some idea of its barrenness if I mention that the next +June, the month of grass. I found a night-hawk's eggs there, and that +almost any square rod thereabouts, taken at random, would be an eligible +site for such a deposit. The kildeer-plover, which loves a similar +locality, also drops its eggs there, and fills the air above with its +din. This upland also produced _Cladonia_ lichens, poverty-grass, +savory-leaved aster (_Diplopappus linariifolius_), mouse-ear, bear-berry, +&c. On a few hillsides the savory-leaved aster and mouse-ear alone made +quite a dense sward, said to be very pretty when the aster is in bloom. +In some parts the two species of poverty-grass (_Hudsonia tomentosa_ and +_ericoides_), which deserve a better name, reign for miles in little +hemispherical tufts or islets, like moss, scattered over the waste. They +linger in bloom there till the middle of July. Occasionally near the +beach these rounded beds, as also those of the sea-sandwort (_Honkenya +peploides_), were filled with sand within an inch of their tops, and were +hard, like large ant-hills, while the surrounding sand was soft. In +summer, if the poverty-grass grows at the head of a Hollow looking +toward the sea, in a bleak position where the wind rushes up, the +northern or exposed half of the tuft is sometimes all black and dead +like an oven-broom, while the opposite half is yellow with blossoms, the +whole hillside thus presenting a remarkable contrast when seen from the +poverty-stricken and the flourishing side. This plant, which in many +places would be esteemed an ornament, is here despised by many on +account of its being associated with barrenness. It might well be +adopted for the Barnstable coat-of-arms, in a field _sableux_. I should +be proud of it. Here and there were tracts of Beach-grass mingled with +the Sea-side Goldenrod and Beach-pea, which reminded us still more +forcibly of the ocean. + +[Illustration: Truro meeting-house on the hill] + +We read that there was not a brook in Truro. Yet there were deer here +once, which must often have panted in vain; but I am pretty sure that I +afterward saw a small fresh-water brook emptying into the south side of +Pamet River, though I was so heedless as not to taste it. At any rate, a +little boy near by told me that he drank at it. There was not a tree as +far as we could see, and that was many miles each way, the general level +of the upland being about the same everywhere. Even from the Atlantic +side we overlooked the Bay, and saw to Manomet Point in Plymouth, and +better from that side because it was the highest. The almost universal +bareness and smoothness of the landscape were as agreeable as novel, +making it so much the more like the deck of a vessel. We saw vessels +sailing south into the Bay, on the one hand, and north along the +Atlantic shore, on the other, all with an aft wind. + +The single road which runs lengthwise the Cape, now winding over the +plain, now through the shrubbery which scrapes the wheels of the stage, +was a mere cart-track in the sand, commonly without any fences to +confine it, and continually changing from this side to that, to harder +ground, or sometimes to avoid the tide. But the inhabitants travel the +waste here and there pilgrim-wise and staff in hand, by narrow +footpaths, through which the sand flows out and reveals the nakedness of +the land. We shuddered at the thought of living there and taking our +afternoon walks over those barren swells, where we could overlook every +step of our walk before taking it, and would have to pray for a fog or a +snow-storm to conceal our destiny. The walker there must soon eat his +heart. + +In the north part of the town there is no house from shore to shore for +several miles, and it is as wild and solitary as the Western +Prairies--used to be. Indeed, one who has seen every house in Truro will +be surprised to hear of the number of the inhabitants, but perhaps five +hundred of the men and boys of this small town were then abroad on their +fishing grounds. Only a few men stay at home to till the sand or watch +for blackfish. The farmers are fishermen-farmers and understand better +ploughing the sea than the land. They do not disturb their sands much, +though there is a plenty of sea-weed in the creeks, to say nothing of +blackfish occasionally rotting the shore. Between the Pond and East +Harbor Village there was an interesting plantation of pitch-pines, +twenty or thirty acres in extent, like those which we had already seen +from the stage. One who lived near said that the land was purchased by +two men for a shilling or twenty-five cents an acre. Some is not +considered worth writing a deed for. This soil or sand, which was +partially covered with poverty and beach grass, sorrel, &c., was +furrowed at intervals of about four feet and the seed dropped by a +machine. The pines had come up admirably and grown the first year three +or four inches, and the second six inches and more. Where the seed had +been lately planted the white sand was freshly exposed in an endless +furrow winding round and round the sides of the deep hollows, in a +vertical spiral manner, which produced a very singular effect, as if you +were looking into the reverse side of a vast banded shield. This +experiment, so important to the Cape, appeared very successful, and +perhaps the time will come when the greater part of this kind of land in +Barnstable County will be thus covered with an artificial pine forest, +as has been done in some parts of France. In that country 12,500 acres +of downs had been thus covered in 1811 near Bayonne. They are called +_pignadas_, and according to Loudon "constitute the principal riches of +the inhabitants, where there was a drifting desert before." It seemed a +nobler kind of grain to raise than corn even. + +[Illustration: A herd of cows] + +A few years ago Truro was remarkable among the Cape towns for the number +of sheep raised in it; but I was told that at this time only two men +kept sheep in the town, and in 1855, a Truro boy ten years old told me +that he had never seen one. They were formerly pastured on the unfenced +lands or general fields, but now the owners were more particular to +assert their rights, and it cost too much for fencing. The rails are +cedar from Maine, and two rails will answer for ordinary purposes, but +four are required for sheep. This was the reason assigned by one who had +formerly kept them for not keeping them any longer. Fencing stuff is so +expensive that I saw fences made with only one rail, and very often the +rail when split was carefully tied with a string. In one of the villages +I saw the next summer a cow tethered by a rope six rods long, the rope +long in proportion as the feed was short and thin. Sixty rods, ay, all +the cables of the Cape, would have been no more than fair. Tethered in +the desert for fear that she would get into Arabia Felix! I helped a man +weigh a bundle of hay which he was selling to his neighbor, holding one +end of a pole from which it swung by a steel-yard hook, and this was +just half his whole crop. In short, the country looked so barren that I +several times refrained from asking the inhabitants for a string or a +piece of wrapping-paper, for fear I should rob them, for they plainly +were obliged to import these things as well as rails, and where there +were no newsboys, I did not see what they would do for waste paper. + +The objects around us, the make-shifts of fishermen ashore, often made +us look down to see if we were standing on terra firma. In the wells +everywhere a block and tackle were used to raise the bucket, instead of +a windlass, and by almost every house was laid up a spar or a plank or +two full of auger-holes, saved from a wreck. The windmills were partly +built of these, and they were worked into the public bridges. The +light-house keeper, who was having his barn shingled, told me casually +that he had made three thousand good shingles for that purpose out of a +mast. You would sometimes see an old oar used for a rail. Frequently +also some fair-weather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the +coast was nailed up against an outhouse. I saw fastened to a shed near +the lighthouse a long new sign with the words "ANGLO SAXON" on it in +large gilt letters, as if it were a useless part which the ship could +afford to lose, or which the sailors had discharged at the same time +with the pilot. But it interested somewhat as if it had been a part of +the Argo, clipped off in passing through the Symplegades. + +To the fisherman, the Cape itself is a sort of store-ship laden with +supplies,--a safer and larger craft which carries the women and +children, the old men and the sick; and indeed sea-phrases are as +common on it as on board a vessel. Thus is it ever with a sea-going +people. The old Northmen used to speak of the "keel-ridge" of the +country, that is, the ridge of the Doffrafield Mountains, as if the land +were a boat turned bottom up. I was frequently reminded of the Northmen +here. The inhabitants of the Cape are often at once farmers and +sea-rovers; they are more than vikings or kings of the bays, for their +sway extends over the open sea also. A farmer in Wellfleet, at whose +house I afterward spent a night, who had raised fifty bushels of +potatoes the previous year, which is a large crop for the Cape, and had +extensive salt-works, pointed to his schooner, which lay in sight, in +which he and his man and boy occasionally ran down the coast a-trading +as far as the Capes of Virginia. This was his market-cart, and his hired +man knew how to steer her. Thus he drove two teams a-field, + + "ere the high _seas_ appeared + Under the opening eyelids of the mom." + +Though probably he would not hear much of the "gray fly" on his way to +Virginia. + +A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad +about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of +one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into +the shade. I have just heard of a Cape Cod captain who was expected home +in the beginning of the winter from the West Indies, but was long since +given up for lost, till his relations at length have heard with joy, +that, after getting within forty miles of Cape Cod light, he was driven +back by nine successive gales to Key West, between Florida and Cuba, and +was once again shaping his course for home. Thus he spent his winter. In +ancient times the adventures of these two or three men and boys would +have been made the basis of a myth, but now such tales are crowded into +a line of shorthand signs, like an algebraic formula in the shipping +news. "Wherever over the world," said Palfrey in his oration at +Barnstable, "you see the stars and stripes floating, you may have good +hope that beneath them some one will be found who can tell you the +soundings of Barnstable, or Wellfleet, or Chatham Harbor." + +I passed by the home of somebody's (or everybody's) Uncle Bill, one day +over on the Plymouth shore. It was a schooner half keeled-up on the mud: +we aroused the master out of a sound sleep at noonday, by thumping on +the bottom of his vessel till he presented himself at the hatchway, for +we wanted to borrow his clam-digger. Meaning to make him a call, I +looked out the next morning, and lo! he had run over to "the Pines" the +evening before, fearing an easterly storm. He outrode the _great_ gale in +the spring of 1851, dashing about alone in Plymouth Bay. He goes after +rockweed, lighters vessels, and saves wrecks. I still saw him lying in +the mud over at "the Pines" in the horizon, which place he could not +leave if he would till flood tide. But he would not then probably. This +waiting for the tide is a singular feature in life by the sea-shore. A +frequent answer is, "Well! you can't start for two hours yet." It is +something new to a landsman, and at first he is not disposed to wait. +History says that "two inhabitants of Truro were the first who +adventured to the Falkland Isles in pursuit of whales. This voyage was +undertaken in the year 1774, by the advice of Admiral Montague of the +British navy, and was crowned with success." + +At the Pond Village we saw a pond three eighths of a mile long densely +filled with cat-tail flags, seven feet high,--enough for all the coopers +in New England. + +[Illustration: Pond Village] + +The western shore was nearly as sandy as the eastern, but the water was +much smoother, and the bottom was partially covered with the slender +grass-like seaweed (_Zostera_), which we had not seen on the Atlantic +side; there were also a few rude sheds for trying fish on the beach +there, which made it appear less wild. In the few marshes on this side +we afterward saw Samphire, Rosemary, and other plants new to us +inlanders. + +In the summer and fall sometimes, hundreds of blackfish (the +Social Whale, _Globicephalus Melas_ of De Kay; called also Black +Whale-fish, Howling Whale, Bottlehead, etc.), fifteen feet or more in +length, are driven ashore in a single school here. I witnessed such a +scene in July, 1855. A carpenter who was working at the lighthouse +arriving early in the morning remarked that he did not know but he had +lost fifty dollars by coming to his work; for as he came along the Bay +side he heard them driving a school of blackfish ashore, and he had +debated with himself whether he should not go and join them and take his +share, but had concluded to come to his work. After breakfast I came +over to this place, about two miles distant, and near the beach met some +of the fishermen returning from their chase. Looking up and down the +shore, I could see about a mile south some large black masses on the +sand, which I knew must be blackfish, and a man or two about them. As I +walked along towards them I soon came to a huge carcass whose head was +gone and whose blubber had been stripped off some weeks before; the tide +was just beginning to move it, and the stench compelled me to go a long +way round. When I came to Great Hollow I found a fisherman and some boys +on the watch, and counted about thirty blackfish, just killed, with many +lance wounds, and the water was more or less bloody around. They were +partly on shore and partly in the water, held by a rope round their +tails till the tide should leave them. A boat had been somewhat stove by +the tail of one. They were a smooth shining black, like India-rubber, +and had remarkably simple and lumpish forms for animated creatures, with +a blunt round snout or head, whale-like, and simple stiff-looking +flippers. The largest were about fifteen feet long, but one or two were +only five feet long, and still without teeth. The fisherman slashed one +with his jackknife, to show me how thick the blubber was,--about three +inches; and as I passed my finger through the cut it was covered thick +with oil. The blubber looked like pork, and this man said that when they +were trying it the boys would sometimes come round with a piece of bread +in one hand, and take a piece of blubber in the other to eat with it, +preferring it to pork scraps. He also cut into the flesh beneath, which +was firm and red like beef, and he said that for his part he preferred +it when fresh to beef. It is stated that in 1812 blackfish were used as +food by the poor of Bretagne. They were waiting for the tide to leave +these fishes high and dry, that they might strip off the blubber and +carry it to their try-works in their boats, where they try it on the +beach. They get commonly a barrel of oil, worth fifteen or twenty +dollars, to a fish. There were many lances and harpoons in the +boats,--much slenderer instruments than I had expected. An old man came +along the beach with a horse and wagon distributing the dinners of the +fishermen, which their wives had put up in little pails and jugs, and +which he had collected in the Pond Village, and for this service, I +suppose, he received a share of the oil. If one could not tell his own +pail, he took the first he came to. + +As I stood there they raised the cry of "another school," and we could +see their black backs and their blowing about a mile northward, as they +went leaping over the sea like horses. Some boats were already in +pursuit there, driving them toward the beach. Other fishermen and boys +running up began to jump into the boats and push them off from where I +stood, and I might have gone too had I chosen. Soon there were +twenty-five or thirty boats in pursuit, some large ones under sail, and +others rowing with might and main, keeping outside of the school, those +nearest to the fishes striking on the sides of their boats and blowing +horns to drive them on to the beach. It was an exciting race. If they +succeed in driving them ashore each boat takes one share, and then each +man, but if they are compelled to strike them off shore each boat's +company take what they strike. I walked rapidly along the shore toward +the north, while the fishermen were rowing still more swiftly to join +their companions, and a little boy who walked by my side was +congratulating himself that his father's boat was beating another one. +An old blind fisherman whom we met, inquired, "Where are they? I can't +see. Have they got them?" In the mean while the fishes had turned and +were escaping northward toward Provincetown, only occasionally the back +of one being seen. So the nearest crews were compelled to strike them, +and we saw several boats soon made fast, each to its fish, which, four +or five rods ahead, was drawing it like a race-horse straight toward the +beach, leaping half out of water, blowing blood and water from its hole, +and leaving a streak of foam behind. But they went ashore too far north +for us, though we could see the fishermen leap out and lance them on the +sand. It was just like pictures of whaling which I have seen, and a +fisherman told me that it was nearly as dangerous. In his first trial he +had been much excited, and in his haste had used a lance with its +scabbard on, but nevertheless had thrust it quite through his fish. + +I learned that a few days before this one hundred and eighty blackfish +had been driven ashore in one school at Eastham, a little farther south, +and that the keeper of Billingsgate Point light went out one morning +about the same time and cut his initials on the backs of a large school +which had run ashore in the night, and sold his right to them to +Provincetown for one thousand dollars, and probably Provincetown made as +much more. Another fisherman told me that nineteen years ago three +hundred and eighty were driven ashore in one school at Great Hollow. In +the Naturalists' Library, it is said that, in the winter of 1809-10, one +thousand one hundred and ten "approached the shore of Hralfiord, +Iceland, and were captured." De Kay says it is not known why they are +stranded. But one fisherman declared to me that they ran ashore in +pursuit of squid, and that they generally came on the coast about the +last of July. + +About a week afterward, when I came to this shore, it was strewn, as far +as I could see with a glass, with the carcasses of blackfish stripped of +their blubber and their heads cut off; the latter lying higher up. +Walking on the beach was out of the question on account of the stench. +Between Provincetown and Truro they lay in the very path of the stage. +Yet no steps were taken to abate the nuisance, and men were catching +lobsters as usual just off the shore. I was told that they did sometimes +tow them out and sink them; yet I wondered where they got the stones to +sink them with. Of course they might be made into guano, and Cape Cod is +not so fertile that her inhabitants can afford to do without this +manure,--to say nothing of the diseases they may produce. + +After my return home, wishing to learn what was known about the +Blackfish, I had recourse to the reports of the zoological surveys of +the State, and I found that Storer had rightfully omitted it in his +Report on the Fishes, since it is not a fish; so I turned to Emmons's +Report of the Mammalia, but was surprised to find that the seals and +whales were omitted by him, because he had had no opportunity to observe +them. Considering how this State has risen and thriven by its +fisheries.--that the legislature which authorized the Zoological Survey +sat under the emblem of a codfish,--that Nantucket and New Bedford are +within our limits,--that an early riser may find a thousand or fifteen +hundred dollars' worth of blackfish on the shore in a morning,--that the +Pilgrims saw the Indians cutting up a blackfish on the shore at Eastham, +and called a part of that shore "Grampus Bay," from the number of +blackfish they found there, before they got to Plymouth,--and that from +that time to this these fishes have continued to enrich one or two +counties almost annually, and that their decaying carcasses were now +poisoning the air of one county for more than thirty miles,--I thought +it remarkable that neither the popular nor scientific name was to +be found in a report on our mammalia,--a catalogue of the productions of +our land and water. + +We had here, as well as all across the Cape, a fair view of +Provincetown, five or six miles distant over the water toward the west, +under its shrubby sand-hills, with its harbor now full of vessels whose +masts mingled with the spires of its churches, and gave it the +appearance of a quite large seaport town. + +The inhabitants of all the lower Cape towns enjoy thus the prospect of +two seas. Standing on the western or larboard shore, and looking; across +to where the distant mainland looms, they can say. This is Massachusetts +Bay; and then, after an hour's sauntering walk, they may stand on the +starboard side, beyond which no land is seen to loom, and say, This is +the Atlantic Ocean. + +On our way back to the lighthouse, by whose white-washed tower we +steered as securely as the mariner by its light at night, we passed +through a graveyard, which apparently was saved from being blown away by +its slates, for they had enabled a thick bed of huckleberry-bushes to +root themselves amid the graves. We thought it would be worth the while +to read the epitaphs where so many were lost at sea; however, as not +only their lives, but commonly their bodies also, were lost or not +identified, there were fewer epitaphs of this sort than we expected, +though there were not a few. Their graveyard is the ocean. Near the +eastern side we started up a fox in a hollow, the only kind of wild +quadruped, if I except a skunk in a salt-marsh, that we saw in all our +walk (unless painted and box tortoises may be called quadrupeds). He was +a large, plump, shaggy fellow, like a yellow dog, with, as usual, a +white tip to his tail, and looked as if he fared well on the Cape. He +cantered away into the shrub-oaks and bayberry-bushes which chanced to +grow there, but were hardly high enough to conceal him. I saw another +the next summer leaping over the top of a beach-plum a little farther +north, a small arc of his course (which I trust is not yet run), from +which I endeavored in vain to calculate his whole orbit: there were too +many unknown attractions to be allowed for. I also saw the exuviae of a +third fast sinking into the sand, and added the skull to my collection. +Hence I concluded that they must be plenty thereabouts; but a traveller +may meet with more than an inhabitant, since he is more likely to take +an unfrequented route across the country. They told me that in some +years they died off in great numbers by a kind of madness, under the +effect of which they were seen whirling round and round as if in pursuit +of their tails. In Crantz's account of Greenland, he says: "They (the +foxes) live upon birds and their eggs, and, when they can't get them, +upon crowberries, mussels, crabs, and what the sea casts out." + +Just before reaching the light-house, we saw the sun set in the +Bay,--for standing on that narrow Cape was, as I have said, like being +on the deck of a vessel, or rather at the masthead of a man-of-war, +thirty miles at sea, though we knew that at the same moment the sun was +setting behind our native hills, which were just below the horizon in +that direction. This sight drove everything else quite out of our heads, +and Homer and the Ocean came in again with a rush,-- + + [Greek: En d epes Okeano lamron phaos eelioio,] + +the shining torch of the sun fell into the ocean. + + + + +VIII + +THE HIGHLAND LIGHT + +This light-house, known to mariners as the Cape Cod or Highland Light, +is one of our "primary sea-coast lights," and is usually the first seen +by those approaching the entrance of Massachusetts Bay from Europe. It +is forty-three miles from Cape Ann Light, and forty-one from Boston +Light. It stands about twenty rods from the edge of the bank, which is +here formed of clay. I borrowed the plane and square, level and +dividers, of a carpenter who was shingling a barn near by, and using one +of those shingles made of a mast, contrived a rude sort of quadrant, +with pins for sights and pivots, and got the angle of elevation of the +Bank opposite the light-house, and with a couple of cod-lines the length +of its slope, and so measured its height on the shingle. It rises one +hundred and ten feet above its immediate base, or about one hundred and +twenty-three feet above mean low water. Graham, who has carefully +surveyed the extremity of the Cape, makes it one hundred and thirty +feet. The mixed sand and clay lay at an angle of forty degrees with the +horizon, where I measured it, but the clay is generally much steeper. No +cow nor hen ever gets down it. Half a mile farther south the bank is +fifteen or twenty-five feet higher, and that appeared to be the highest +land in North Truro. Even this vast clay bank is fast wearing away. +Small streams of water trickling down it at intervals of two or three +rods, have left the intermediate clay in the form of steep Gothic roofs +fifty feet high or more, the ridges as sharp and rugged-looking as +rocks; and in one place the bank is curiously eaten out in the form of a +large semicircular crater. + +[Illustration: Dragging a dory up on the beach] + +According to the light-house keeper, the Cape is wasting here on both +sides, though most on the eastern. In some places it had lost many rods +within the last year, and, erelong, the light-house must be moved. We +calculated, _from his data_, how soon the Cape would be quite worn away at +this point, "for," said he, "I can remember sixty years back." We were +even more surprised at this last announcement,--that is, at the slow +waste of life and energy in our informant, for we had taken him to be +not more than forty,--than at the rapid wasting of the Cape, and we +thought that he stood a fair chance to outlive the former. + +Between this October and June of the next year I found that the bank had +lost about forty feet in one place, opposite the light-house, and it was +cracked more than forty feet farther from the edge at the last date, the +shore being strewn with the recent rubbish. But I judged that generally +it was not wearing away here at the rate of more than six feet annually. +Any conclusions drawn from the observations of a few years or one +generation only are likely to prove false, and the Cape may balk +expectation by its durability. In some places even a wrecker's foot-path +down the bank lasts several years. One old inhabitant told us that when +the light-house was built, in 1798, it was calculated that it would +stand forty-five years, allowing the bank to waste one length of fence +each year, "but," said he, "there it is" (or rather another near the +same site, about twenty rods from the edge of the bank). + +The sea is not gaining on the Cape everywhere, for one man told me of a +vessel wrecked long ago on the north of Provincetown whose "bones" (this +was his word) are still visible many rods within the present line of the +beach, half buried in sand. Perchance they lie alongside the timbers of +a whale. The general statement of the inhabitants is that the Cape is +wasting on both sides, but extending itself on particular points on the +south and west, as at Chatham and Monomoy Beaches, and at Billingsgate, +Long, and Race Points. James Freeman stated in his day that above three +miles had been added to Monomoy Beach during the previous fifty years, +and it is said to be still extending as fast as ever. A writer in the +Massachusetts Magazine, in the last century, tells us that "when the +English first settled upon the Cape, there was an island off Chatham, at +three leagues' distance, called Webbs' Island, containing twenty acres, +covered with red-cedar or savin. The inhabitants of Nantucket used to +carry wood from it"; but he adds that in his day a large rock alone +marked the spot, and the water was six fathoms deep there. The entrance +to Nauset Harbor, which was once in Eastham, has now travelled south +into Orleans. The islands in Wellfleet Harbor once formed a continuous +beach, though now small vessels pass between them. And so of many other +parts of this coast. + +Perhaps what the Ocean takes from one part of the Cape it gives to +another,--robs Peter to pay Paul. On the eastern side the sea appears to +be everywhere encroaching on the land. Not only the land is undermined, +and its ruins carried off by currents, but the sand is blown from the +beach directly up the steep bank where it is one hundred and fifty feet +high, and covers the original surface there many feet deep. If you sit +on the edge you will have ocular demonstration of this by soon getting +your eyes full. Thus the bank preserves its height as fast as it is worn +away. This sand is steadily travelling westward at a rapid rate, "more +than a hundred yards," says one writer, within the memory of inhabitants +now living; so that in some places peat-meadows are buried deep under +the sand, and the peat is cut through it; and in one place a large +peat-meadow has made its appearance on the shore in the bank covered +many feet deep, and peat has been cut there. This accounts for that +great pebble of peat which we saw in the surf. The old oysterman had +told us that many years ago he lost a "crittur" by her being mired in a +swamp near the Atlantic side east of his house, and twenty years ago he +lost the swamp itself entirely, but has since seen signs of it appearing +on the beach. He also said that he had seen cedar stumps "as big as +cart-wheels"(!) on the bottom of the Bay, three miles off Billingsate +Point, when leaning over the side of his boat in pleasant weather, and +that that was dry land not long ago. Another told us that a log canoe +known to have been buried many years before on the Bay side at East +Harbor in Truro, where the Cape is extremely narrow, appeared at length +on the Atlantic side, the Cape having rolled over it, and an old woman +said,--"Now, you see, it is true what I told you, that the Cape is +moving." + +The bars along the coast shift with every storm, and in many places +there is occasionally none at all. We ourselves observed the effect of a +single storm with a high tide in the night, in July, 1855. It moved the +sand on the beach opposite the light-house to the depth of six feet, and +three rods in width as far as we could see north and south, and carried +it bodily off no one knows exactly where, laying bare in one place a +large rock five feet high which was invisible before, and narrowing the +beach to that extent. There is usually, as I have said, no bathing on +the back-side of the Cape, on account of the undertow, but when we were +there last, the sea had, three months before, cast up a bar near this +lighthouse, two miles long and ten rods wide, over which the tide did +not flow, leaving a narrow cove, then a quarter of a mile long, between +it and the shore, which afforded excellent bathing. This cove had from +time to time been closed up as the bar travelled northward, in one +instance imprisoning four or five hundred whiting and cod, which died +there, and the water as often turned fresh, and finally gave place to +sand. This bar, the inhabitants assured us, might be wholly removed, and +the water six feet deep there in two or three days. + +The light-house keeper said that when the wind blowed strong on to the +shore, the waves ate fast into the bank, but when it blowed off they +took no sand away; for in the former case the wind heaped up the surface +of the water next to the beach, and to preserve its equilibrium a strong +undertow immediately set back again into the sea which carried with it +the sand and whatever else was in the way, and left the beach hard to +walk on; but in the latter case the undertow set on and carried the sand +with it, so that it was particularly difficult for shipwrecked men to +get to land when the wind blowed on to the shore, but easier when it +blowed off. This undertow, meeting the next surface wave on the bar +which itself has made, forms part of the dam over which the latter +breaks, as over an upright wall. The sea thus plays with the land +holding a sand-bar in its mouth awhile before it swallows it, as a cat +plays with a mouse; but the fatal gripe is sure to come at last. The sea +sends its rapacious east wind to rob the land, but before the former has +got far with its prey, the land sends its honest west wind to recover +some of its own. But, according to Lieutenant Davis, the forms, extent, +and distribution of sand-bars and banks are principally determined, not +by winds and waves but by tides. + +Our host said that you would be surprised if you were on the beach when +the wind blew a hurricane directly on to it, to see that none of the +drift-wood came ashore, but all was carried directly northward and +parallel with the shore as fast as a man can walk, by the inshore +current, which sets strongly in that direction at flood tide. The +strongest swimmers also are carried along with it, and never gain an +inch toward the beach. Even a large rock has been moved half a mile +northward along-the beach. He assured us that the sea was never still on +the back-side of the Cape, but ran commonly as high as your head, so +that a great part of the time you could not launch a boat there, and +even in the calmest weather the waves run six or eight feet up the +beach, though then you could get off on a plank. Champlain and +Pourtrincourt could not land here in 1606, on account of the swell (_la +houlle_), yet the savages came off to them in a canoe. In the Sieur de la +Borde's "Relation des Caraibes," my edition of which was published at +Amsterdam in 1711, at page 530 he says:-- + +"Couroumon a Caraibe, also a star [_i.e._ a god], makes the great _lames a +la mer_, and overturns canoes. _Lames a la mer_ are the long _vagues_ which +are not broken (_entrecoupees_), and such as one sees come to land all in +one piece, from one end of a beach to another, so that, however little +wind there may be, a shallop or a canoe could hardly land (_aborder +terre_) without turning over, or being filled with water." + +But on the Bay side the water even at its edge is often as smooth and +still as in a pond. Commonly there are no boats used along this beach. +There was a boat belonging to the Highland Light which the next keeper +after he had been there a year had not launched, though he said that +there was good fishing just off the shore. Generally the Life Boats +cannot be used when needed. When the waves run very high it is +impossible to get a boat off, however skilfully you steer it, for it +will often be completely covered by the curving edge of the approaching +breaker as by an arch, and so filled with water, or it will be lifted up +by its bows, turned directly over backwards, and all the contents +spilled out. A spar thirty feet long is served in the same way. + +I heard of a party who went off fishing back of Wellfleet some years +ago, in two boats, in calm weather, who, when they had laden their boats +with fish, and approached the land again, found such a swell breaking on +it, though there was no wind, that they were afraid to enter it. At +first they thought to pull for Provincetown, but night was coming on, +and that was many miles distant. Their case seemed a desperate one. As +often as they approached the shore and saw the terrible breakers that +intervened, they were deterred. In short, they were thoroughly +frightened. Finally, having thrown their fish overboard, those in one +boat chose a favorable opportunity, and succeeded, by skill and good +luck, in reaching the land, but they were unwilling to take the +responsibility of telling the others when to come in, and as the other +helmsman was inexperienced, their boat was swamped at once, yet all +managed to save themselves. + +Much smaller waves soon make a boat "nail-sick," as the phrase is. The +keeper said that after a long and strong blow there would be three large +waves, each successively larger than the last, and then no large ones +for some time, and that, when they wished to land in a boat, they came +in on the last and largest wave. Sir Thomas Browne (as quoted in Brand's +Popular Antiquities, p. 372), on the subject of the tenth wave being +"greater or more dangerous than any other," after quoting Ovid,-- + + "Qui venit hic fluctus, fluctus supereminet omnes + Posterior nono est, undecimo que prior,"-- + +says, "Which, notwithstanding, is evidently false; nor can it be made +out either by observation either upon the shore or the ocean, as we have +with diligence explored in both. And surely in vain we expect regularity +in the waves of the sea, or in the particular motions thereof, as we may +in its general reciprocations, whose causes are constant, and effects +therefore correspondent; whereas its fluctuations are but motions +subservient, which winds, storms, shores, shelves, and every +interjacency, irregulates." + +We read that the Clay Pounds, were so called "because vessels have had +the misfortune to be pounded against it in gales of wind," which we +regard as a doubtful derivation. There are small ponds here, upheld by +the clay, which were formerly called the Clay Pits. Perhaps this, or +Clay Ponds, is the origin of the name. Water is found in the clay quite +near the surface; but we heard of one man who had sunk a well in the +sand close by, "till he could see stars at noonday," without finding +any. Over this bare Highland the wind has full sweep. Even in July it +blows the wings over the heads of the young turkeys, which do not know +enough to head against it; and in gales the doors and windows are blown +in, and you must hold on to the lighthouse to prevent being blown into +the Atlantic. They who merely keep out on the beach in a storm in the +winter are sometimes rewarded by the Humane Society. If you would feel +the full force of a tempest, take up your residence on the top of Mount +Washington, or at the Highland Light, in Truro. + +It was said in 1794 that more vessels were cast away on the east shore +of Truro than anywhere in Barnstable County. Notwithstanding that this +light-house has since been erected, after almost every storm we read of +one or more vessels wrecked here, and sometimes more than a dozen wrecks +are visible from this point at one time. The inhabitants hear the crash +of vessels going to pieces as they sit round their hearths, and they +commonly date from some memorable shipwreck. If the history of this +beach could be written from beginning to end, it would be a thrilling +page in the history of commerce. + +Truro was settled in the year 1700 as _Dangerfield_. This was a very +appropriate name, for I afterward read on a monument in the graveyard, +near Pamet River, the following inscription:-- + + Sacred + to the memory of + 57 citizens of Truro, + who were lost in seven + vessels, which + foundered at sea in + the memorable gale + of Oct. 3d, 1841. + +Their names and ages by families were recorded on different sides of the +stone. They are said to have been lost on George's Bank, and I was told +that only one vessel drifted ashore on the backside of the Cape, with +the boys locked into the cabin and drowned. It is said that the homes of +all were "within a circuit of two miles." Twenty-eight inhabitants of +Dennis were lost in the same gale; and I read that "in one day, +immediately after this storm, nearly or quite one hundred bodies were +taken up and buried on Cape Cod." The Truro Insurance Company failed for +want of skippers to take charge of its vessels. But the surviving +inhabitants went a-fishing again the next year as usual. I found that it +would not do to speak of shipwrecks there, for almost every family has +lost some of its members at sea. "Who lives in that house?" I inquired. +"Three widows," was the reply. The stranger and the inhabitant view the +shore with very different eyes. The former may have come to see and +admire the ocean in a storm; but the latter looks on it as the scene +where his nearest relatives were wrecked. When I remarked to an old +wrecker partially blind, who was sitting on the edge of the bank smoking +a pipe, which he had just lit with a match of dried beach-grass, that I +supposed he liked to hear the sound of the surf, he answered: "No, I do +not like to hear the sound of the surf." He had lost at least one son in +"the memorable gale," and could tell many a tale of the shipwrecks which +he had witnessed there. + +In the year 1717, a noted pirate named Bellamy was led on to the bar off +Wellfleet by the captain of a _snow_ which he had taken, to whom he had +offered his vessel again if he would pilot him into Provincetown Harbor. +Tradition says that the latter threw over a burning tar-barrel in the +night, which drifted ashore, and the pirates followed it. A storm coming +on, their whole fleet was wrecked, and more than a hundred dead bodies +lay along the shore. Six who escaped shipwreck were executed. "At times +to this day" (1793), says the historian of Wellfleet, "there are King +William and Queen Mary's coppers picked up, and pieces of silver called +cob-money. The violence of the seas moves the sands on the outer bar, so +that at times the iron caboose of the ship [that is, Bellamy's] at low +ebbs has been seen." Another tells us that, "For many years after this +shipwreck, a man of a very singular and frightful aspect used every +spring and autumn to be seen travelling on the Cape, who was supposed to +have been one of Bellamy's crew. The presumption is that he went to some +place where money had been secreted by the pirates, to get such a supply +as his exigencies required. When he died, many pieces of gold were found +in a girdle which he constantly wore." + +[Illustration: An old wrecker at home] + +As I was walking on the beach here in my last visit, looking for shells +and pebbles, just after that storm, which I have mentioned as moving the +sand to a great depth, not knowing but I might find some cob-money, I +did actually pick up a French crown piece, worth about a dollar and six +cents, near high-water mark, on the still moist sand, just under the +abrupt, caving base of the bank. It was of a dark slate color, and +looked like a flat pebble, but still bore a very distinct and handsome +head of Louis XV., and the usual legend on the reverse. _Sit Nomen Domini +Benedictum_ (Blessed be the Name of the Lord), a pleasing sentiment to +read in the sands of the sea-shore, whatever it might be stamped on, and +I also made out the date, 1741. Of course, I thought at first that it +was that same old button which I have found so many times, but my knife +soon showed the silver. Afterward, rambling on the bars at low tide, I +cheated my companion by holding up round shells (_Scutelloe_) between my +fingers, whereupon he quickly stripped and came off to me. + +In the Revolution, a British ship of war called the Somerset was wrecked +near the Clay Pounds, and all on board, some hundreds in number, were +taken prisoners. My informant said that he had never seen any mention of +this in the histories, but that at any rate he knew of a silver watch, +which one of those prisoners by accident left there, which was still +going to tell the story. But this event is noticed by some writers. + +The next summer I saw a sloop from Chatham dragging for anchors and +chains just oft' this shore. She had her boats out at the work while she +shuffled about on various tacks, and, when anything was found, drew up +to hoist it on board. It is a singular employment, at which men are +regularly hired and paid for their industry, to hunt to-day in pleasant +weather for anchors which have been lost,--the sunken faith and hope of +mariners, to which they trusted in vain; now, perchance, it is the rusty +one of some old pirate's ship or Norman fisherman, whose cable parted +here two hundred years ago; and now the best bower anchor of a Canton or +a California ship, which has gone about her business. If the roadsteads +of the spiritual ocean could be thus dragged, what rusty flukes of hope +deceived and parted chain-cables of faith might again be windlassed +aboard! enough to sink the finder's craft, or stock new navies to the +end of time. The bottom of the sea is strewn with anchors, some deeper +and some shallower, and alternately covered and uncovered by the sand, +perchance with a small length of iron cable still attached,--to which +where is the other end? So many unconcluded tales to be continued +another time. So, if we had diving-bells adapted to the spiritual deeps, +we should see anchors with their cables attached, as thick as eels in +vinegar, all wriggling vainly toward their holding-ground. But that is +not treasure for us which another man has lost; rather it is for us to +seek what no other man has found or can find,--not be Chatham men, +dragging for anchors. + +The annals of this voracious beach! who could write them, unless it were +a shipwrecked sailor? How many who have seen it have seen it only in the +midst of danger and distress, the last strip of earth which their mortal +eyes beheld. Think of the amount of suffering which a single strand has +witnessed. The ancients would have represented it as a sea-monster with +open jaws, more terrible than Scylla and Charybdis. An inhabitant of +Truro told me that about a fortnight after the _St. John_ was wrecked at +Cohasset he found two bodies on the shore at the Clay Pounds. They were +those of a man, and a corpulent woman. The man had thick boots on, +though his head was off, but "it was alongside." It took the finder some +weeks to get over the sight. Perhaps they were man and wife, and whom +God had joined the ocean currents had not put asunder. Yet by what +slight accidents at first may they have been associated in their +drifting. Some of the bodies of those passengers were picked up far out +at sea, boxed up and sunk; some brought ashore and buried. There are +more consequences to a shipwreck than the underwriters notice. The Gulf +Stream may return some to their native shores, or drop them in some +out-of-the-way cave of Ocean, where time and the elements will write new +riddles with their bones.--But to return to land again. + +In this bank, above the clay, I counted in the summer, two hundred holes +of the Bank Swallow within a space six rods long, and there were at +least one thousand old birds within three times that distance, +twittering over the surf. I had never associated them in my thoughts +with the beach before. One little boy who had been a-birds-nesting had +got eighty swallows' eggs for his share! Tell it not to the Humane +Society. There were many young birds on the clay beneath, which had +tumbled out and died. Also there were many Crow-blackbirds hopping about +in the dry fields, and the Upland Plover were breeding close by the +light-house. The keeper had once cut off one's wing while mowing, as she +sat on her eggs there. This is also a favorite resort for gunners in the +fall to shoot the Golden Plover. As around the shores of a pond are seen +devil's-needles, butterflies, etc., so here, to my surprise, I saw at +the same season great devil's-needles of a size proportionably larger, +or nearly as big as my finger, incessantly coasting up and down the edge +of the bank, and butterflies also were hovering over it, and I never saw +so many dorr-bugs and beetles of various kinds as strewed the beach. +They had apparently flown over the bank in the night, and could not get +up again, and some had perhaps fallen into the sea and were washed +ashore. They may have been in part attracted by the light-house lamps. + +The Clay Pounds are a more fertile tract than usual. We saw some fine +patches of roots and corn here. As generally on the Cape, the plants had +little stalk or leaf, but ran remarkably to seed. The corn was hardly +more than half as high as in the interior, yet the ears were large and +full, and one farmer told us that he could raise forty bushels on an +acre without manure, and sixty with it. The heads of the rye also were +remarkably large. The Shadbush (_Amelanchier_), Beach Plums, and +Blueberries (_Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum_), like the apple-trees and oaks, +were very dwarfish, spreading over the sand, but at the same time very +fruitful. The blueberry was but an inch or two high, and its fruit often +rested on the ground, so that you did not suspect the presence of the +bushes, even on those bare hills, until you were treading on them. I +thought that this fertility must be owing mainly to the abundance of +moisture in the atmosphere, for I observed that what little grass there +was was remarkably laden with dew in the morning, and in summer dense +imprisoning fogs frequently last till midday, turning one's beard into a +wet napkin about his throat, and the oldest inhabitant may lose his way +within a stone's throw of his house or be obliged to follow the beach +for a guide. The brick house attached to the light-house was exceedingly +damp at that season, and, writing-paper lost all its stiffness in it. It +was impossible to dry your towel after bathing, or to press flowers +without their mildewing. The air was so moist that we rarely wished to +drink, though we could at all times taste the salt on our lips. Salt was +rarely used at table, and our host told us that his cattle invariably +refused it when it was offered them, they got so much with their grass +and at every breath, but he said that a sick horse or one just from the +country would sometimes take a hearty draught of salt water, and seemed +to like it and be the better for it. + +It was surprising to see how much water was contained in the terminal +bud of the sea-side golden-rod, standing in the sand early in July, and +also how turnips, beets, carrots, etc., flourished even in pure sand. A +man travelling by the shore near there not long before us noticed +something green growing in the pure sand of the beach, just at +high-water mark, and on approaching found it to be a bed of beets +flourishing vigorously, probably from seed washed out of the _Franklin_. +Also beets and turnips came up in the sea-weed used for manure in many +parts of the Cape. This suggests how various plants may have been +dispersed over the world to distant islands and continents. Vessels, +with seeds in their cargoes, destined for particular ports, where +perhaps they were not needed, have been cast away on desolate islands, +and though their crews perished, some of their seeds have been +preserved. Out of many kinds a few would find a soil and climate adapted +to them, become naturalized, and perhaps drive out the native plants at +last, and so fit the land for the habitation of man. It is an ill wind +that blows nobody any good, and for the time lamentable shipwrecks may +thus contribute a new vegetable to a continent's stock, and prove on the +whole a lasting blessing to its inhabitants. Or winds and currents might +effect the same without the intervention of man. What indeed are the +various succulent plants which grow on the beach but such beds of beets +and turnips, sprung originally from seeds which perhaps were cast on the +waters for this end, though we do not know the _Franklin_ which they came +out of? In ancient times some Mr. Bell (?) was sailing this way in his +ark with seeds of rocket, salt-wort, sandwort, beachgrass, samphire, +bayberry, poverty-grass, etc., all nicely labelled with directions, +intending to establish a nursery somewhere; and did not a nursery get +established, though he thought that he had failed? + +About the light-house I observed in the summer the pretty _Polygala +polygama_, spreading ray-wise flat on the ground, white pasture thistles +(_Cirsium pumilum_), and amid the shrubbery the _Smilax glauca_, which is +commonly said not to grow so far north; near the edge of the banks about +half a mile southward, the broom crow-berry (_Empetrum Conradii_), for +which Plymouth is the only locality in Massachusetts usually named, +forms pretty green mounds four or five feet in diameter by one foot +high,--soft, springy beds for the wayfarer. I saw it afterward in +Provincetown, but prettiest of all the scarlet pimpernel, or poor-man's +weather-glass (_Anagallis-arvensis_), greets you in fair weather on almost +every square yard of sand. From Yarmouth, I have received the _Chrysopsis +falcata_ (golden aster), and _Vaccinium stamineum_ (Deerberry or Squaw +Huckleberry), with fruit not edible, sometimes as large as a cranberry +(Sept. 7). + +[Illustration: The Highland Light] + +The Highland Light-house, [1] where we were staying, is a +substantial-looking building of brick, painted white, and surmounted by +an iron cap. Attached to it is the dwelling of the keeper, one story +high, also of brick, and built by government. As we were going to spend +the night in a light-house, we wished to make the most of so novel an +experience, and therefore told our host that we would like to accompany +him when he went to light up. At rather early candle-light he lighted a +small Japan lamp, allowing it to smoke rather more than we like on +ordinary occasions, and told us to follow him. He led the way first +through his bedroom, which was placed nearest to the light-house, and +then through a long, narrow, covered passage-way, between whitewashed +walls like a prison entry, into the lower part of the light-house, where +many great butts of oil were arranged around; thence we ascended by a +winding and open iron stairway, with a steadily increasing scent of oil +and lamp-smoke, to a trap-door in an iron floor, and through this into +the lantern. It was a neat building, with everything in apple-pie order, +and no danger of anything; rusting there for want of oil. The light +consisted of fifteen argand lamps, placed within smooth concave +reflectors twenty-one inches in diameter, and arranged in two horizontal +circles one above the other, facing every way excepting directly down +the Cape. These were surrounded, at a distance of two or three feet, by +large plate-glass windows, which defied the storms, with iron sashes, on +which rested the iron cap. All the iron work, except the floor, was +painted white. And thus the light-house was completed. We walked slowly +round in that narrow space as the keeper lighted each lamp in +succession, conversing with him at the same moment that many a sailor on +the deep witnessed the lighting of the Highland Light. His duty was to +fill and trim and light his lamps, and keep bright the reflectors. He +filled them every morning, and trimmed them commonly once in the course +of the night. He complained of the quality of the oil which was +furnished. This house consumes about eight hundred gallons in a year, +which cost not far from one dollar a gallon; but perhaps a few lives +would be saved if better oil were provided. Another light-house keeper +said that the same proportion of winter-strained oil was sent to the +southernmost light-house in the Union as to the most northern. Formerly, +when this light-house had windows with small and thin panes, a severe +storm would sometimes break the glass, and then they were obliged to put +up a wooden shutter in haste to save their lights and reflectors,--and +sometimes in tempests, when the mariner stood most in need of their +guidance, they had thus nearly converted the light-house into a dark +lantern, which emitted only a few feeble rays, and those commonly on the +land or lee side. He spoke of the anxiety and sense of responsibility +which he felt in cold and stormy nights in the winter; when he knew that +many a poor fellow was depending on him, and his lamps burned dimly, the +oil being chilled. Sometimes he was obliged to warm the oil in a kettle +in his house at midnight, and fill his lamps over again,--for he could +not have a fire in the light-house, it produced such a sweat on the +windows. His successor told me that he could not keep too hot a fire in +such a case. All this because the oil was poor. The government lighting +the mariners on its wintry coast with summer-strained oil, to save +expense! That were surely a summer-strained mercy. + +This keeper's successor, who kindly entertained me the next year stated +that one extremely cold night, when this and all the neighboring lights +were burning summer oil, but he had been provident enough to reserve a +little winter oil against emergencies, he was waked up with anxiety, and +found that his oil was congealed, and his lights almost extinguished; +and when, after many hours' exertion, he had succeeded in replenishing +his reservoirs with winter oil at the wick end, and with difficulty had +made them burn, he looked out and found that the other lights in the +neighborhood, which were usually visible to him, had gone out, and he +heard afterward that the Pamet River and Billingsgate Lights also had +been extinguished. + +Our host said that the frost, too, on the windows caused him much +trouble, and in sultry summer nights the moths covered them and dimmed +his lights; sometimes even small birds flew against the thick plate +glass, and were found on the ground beneath in the morning with their +necks broken. In the spring of 1855 he found nineteen small +yellow-birds, perhaps goldfinches or myrtle-birds, thus lying dead +around the light-house; and sometimes in the fall he had seen where a +golden plover had struck the glass in the night, and left the down and +the fatty part of its breast on it. + +Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his light shining before +men. Surely the light-house keeper has a responsible, if an easy, +office. When his lamp goes out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such +accident is pardoned. + +I thought it a pity that some poor student did not live there, to profit +by all that light, since he would not rob the mariner. "Well," he said, +"I do sometimes come up here and read the newspaper when they are noisy +down below." Think of fifteen argand lamps to read the newspaper by! +Government oil!--light, enough, perchance, to read the Constitution by! +I thought that he should read nothing less than his Bible by that light. +I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a light-house, +which was more light, we think, than the University afforded. + +When we had come down and walked a dozen rods from the light-house, we +found that we could not get the full strength of its light on the narrow +strip of land between it and the shore, being too low for the focus, and +we saw only so many feeble and rayless stars; but at forty rods inland +we could see to read, though we were still indebted to only one lamp. +Each reflector sent forth a separate "fan" of light,--one shone on the +windmill, and one in the hollow, while the intervening spaces were in +shadow. This light is said to be visible twenty nautical miles and more +from an observer fifteen feet above the level of the sea. We could see +the revolving light at Race Point, the end of the Cape, about nine miles +distant, and also the light on Long Point, at the entrance of +Provincetown Harbor, and one of the distant Plymouth Harbor Lights, +across the Bay, nearly in a range with the last, like a star in the +horizon. The keeper thought that the other Plymouth Light was concealed +by being exactly in a range with the Long Point Light. He told us that +the mariner was sometimes led astray by a mackerel fisher's lantern, who +was afraid of being run down in the night, or even by a cottager's +light, mistaking them for some well-known light on the coast, and, when +he discovered his mistake, was wont to curse the prudent fisher or the +wakeful cottager without reason. + +Though it was once declared that Providence placed this mass of clay +here on purpose to erect a light-house on, the keeper said that the +light-house should have been erected half a mile farther south, where +the coast begins to bend, and where the light could be seen at the same +time with the Nauset Lights, and distinguished from them. They now talk +of building one there. It happens that the present one is the more +useless now, so near the extremity of the Cape, because other +light-houses have since been erected there. + +Among the many regulations of the Light-house Board, hanging against the +wall here, many of them excellent, perhaps, if there were a regiment +stationed here to attend to them, there is one requiring the keeper to +keep an account of the number of vessels which pass his light during the +day. But there are a hundred vessels in sight at once, steering in all +directions, many on the very verge of the horizon, and he must have more +eyes than Argus, and be a good deal farther-sighted, to tell which are +passing his light. It is an employment in some respects best suited to +the habits of the gulls which coast up and down here, and circle over +the sea. + +I was told by the next keeper, that on the 8th of June following, a +particularly clear and beautiful morning, he rose about half an hour +before sunrise, and having a little time to spare, for his custom was to +extinguish his lights at sunrise, walked down toward the shore to see +what he might find. When he got to the edge of the bank he looked up, +and, to his astonishment, saw the sun rising, and already part way above +the horizon. Thinking that his clock was wrong, he made haste back, and +though it was still too early by the clock, extinguished his lamps, and +when he had got through and come down, he looked out the window, and, to +his still greater astonishment, saw the sun just where it was before, +two-thirds above the horizon. He showed me where its rays fell on the +wall across the room. He proceeded to make a fire, and when he had done, +there was the sun still at the same height. Whereupon, not trusting to +his own eyes any longer, he called up his wife to look at it, and she +saw it also. There were vessels in sight on the ocean, and their crews, +too, he said, must have seen it, for its rays fell on them. It remained +at that height for about fifteen minutes by the clock, and then rose as +usual, and nothing else extraordinary happened during that day. Though +accustomed to the coast, he had never witnessed nor heard of such a +phenomenon before. I suggested that there might have been a cloud in the +horizon invisible to him, which rose with the sun, and his clock was +only as accurate as the average; or perhaps, as he denied the +possibility of this, it was such a looming of the sun as is said to +occur at Lake Superior and elsewhere. Sir John Franklin, for instance, +says in his Narrative, that when he was on the shore of the Polar Sea, +the horizontal refraction varied so much one morning that "the upper +limb of the sun twice appeared at the horizon before it finally rose." + +He certainly must be a son of Aurora to whom the sun looms, when there +are so many millions to whom it _glooms_ rather, or who never see it till +an hour _after_ it has risen. But it behooves us old stagers to keep our +lamps trimmed and burning to the last, and not trust to the sun's +looming. + +This keeper remarked that the centre of the flame should be exactly +opposite the centre of the reflectors, and that accordingly, if he was +not careful to turn down his wicks in the morning, the sun falling on +the reflectors on the south side of the building would set fire to them, +like a burning-glass, in the coldest day, and he would look up at noon +and see them all lighted! When your light is ready to give light, it is +readiest to receive it, and the sun will light it. His successor said +that he had never known them to blaze in such a case, but merely to +smoke. + +I saw that this was a place of wonders. In a sea turn or shallow fog +while I was there the next summer, it being clear overhead, the edge of +the bank twenty rods distant, appeared like a mountain pasture in the +horizon. I was completely deceived by it, and I could then understand +why mariners sometimes ran ashore in such cases, especially in the +night, supposing it to be far away, though they could see the land. Once +since this, being in a large oyster boat two or three hundred miles from +here, in a dark night, when there was a thin veil of mist on land and +water, we came so near to running on to the land before our skipper was +aware of it, that the first warning was my hearing the sound of the surf +under my elbow. I could almost have jumped ashore, and we were obliged +to go about very suddenly to prevent striking. The distant light for +which we were steering, supposing it a light-house five or six miles +off, came through the cracks of a fisherman's bunk not more than six +rods distant. + +The keeper entertained us handsomely in his solitary little ocean house. +He was a man of singular patience and intelligence, who, when our +queries struck him, rung as clear as a bell in response. The light-house +lamps a few feet distant shone full into my chamber, and made it as +bright as day, so I knew exactly how the Highland Light bore all that +night, and I was in no danger of being wrecked. Unlike the last, this +was as still as a summer night. I thought, as I lay there, half awake +and half asleep, looking upward through the window at the lights above +my head, how many sleepless eyes from far out on the Ocean +stream--mariners of all nations spinning their yarns through the various +watches of the night--were directed toward my couch. + +[1] The light-house has since been rebuilt, and shows a _Fresnel_ light. + + + + +IX + +THE SEA AND THE DESERT + +The light-house lamps were still burning, though now with a silvery +lustre, when I rose to see the sun come out of the Ocean; for he still +rose eastward of us; but I was convinced that he must have come out of a +dry bed beyond that stream, though he seemed to come out of the water. + + "The sun once more touched the fields, + Mounting to heaven from the fair flowing + Deep-running Ocean." + +Now we saw countless sails of mackerel fishers abroad on the deep, one +fleet in the north just pouring round the Cape, another standing down +toward Chatham, and our host's son went off to join some lagging member +of the first which had not yet left the Bay. + +Before we left the light-house we were obliged to anoint our shoes +faithfully with tallow, for walking on the beach, in the salt water and +the sand, had turned them red and crisp. To counterbalance this, I have +remarked that the seashore, even where muddy, as it is not here, is +singularly clean; for notwithstanding the spattering of the water and +mud and squirting of the clams while walking to and from the boat, your +best black pants retain no stain nor dirt, such as they would acquire +from walking in the country. + +We have heard that a few days after this, when the Provincetown Bank was +robbed, speedy emissaries from Provincetown made particular inquiries +concerning us at this light-house. Indeed, they traced us all the way +down the Cape, and concluded that we came by this unusual route down the +back-side and on foot, in order that we might discover a way to get off +with our booty when we had committed the robbery. The Cape is so long +and narrow, and so bare withal, that it is wellnigh impossible for a +stranger to visit it without the knowledge of its inhabitants generally, +unless he is wrecked on to it in the night. So, when this robbery +occurred, all their suspicions seem to have at once centred on us two +travellers who had just passed down it. If we had not chanced to leave +the Cape so soon, we should probably have been arrested. The real +robbers were two young men from Worcester County who travelled with a +centre-bit, and are said to have done their work very neatly. But the +only bank that we pried into was the great Cape Cod sand-bank, and we +robbed it only of an old French crown piece, some shells and pebbles, +and the materials of this story. + +Again we took to the beach for another day (October 13), walking along +the shore of the resounding sea, determined to get it into us. We wished +to associate with the Ocean until it lost the pond-like look which it +wears to a country-man. We still thought that we could see the other +side. Its surface was still more sparkling than the day before, and we +beheld "the countless smilings of the ocean waves"; though some of them +were pretty broad grins, for still the wind blew and the billows broke +in foam along the beach. The nearest beach to us on the other side, +whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, +whose capital is Santiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have +been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west +now. At first we were abreast of that part of Portugal _entre Douro e +Mino_, and then Galicia and the port of Pontevedra opened to us as we +walked along; but we did not enter, the breakers ran so high. The bold +headland of Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, jutted toward us +next, with its vain brag, for we flung back,--"Here is Cape Cod,--Cape +Land's-Beginning." A little indentation toward the north,--for the land +loomed to our imaginations by a common mirage,--we knew was the Bay of +Biscay, and we sang:-- + + "There we lay, till next day. + In the Bay of Biscay O!" + +A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and +farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we +inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,--for we had +the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,--the +inhabitants shouted _Ne plus ultra_ (no more beyond), but the wind bore to +us the truth only, _plus ultra_ (more beyond), and over the Bay westward +was echoed _ultra_ (beyond). We spoke to them through the surf about the +Far West, the true Hesperia, [Greek: eo peras] or end of the day, the +This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the _Pacific_, and we +advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the +shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,--the only _ne_ plus +ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen on their cliffs, for we had +taken the wind out of all their sails. + +We could not perceive that any of their leavings washed up here, though +we picked up a child's toy, a small dismantled boat, which may have been +lost at Pontevedra. + +The Cape became narrower and narrower as we approached its wrist between +Truro and Provincetown, and the shore inclined more decidedly to the +west. At the head of East Harbor Creek, the Atlantic is separated but by +half a dozen rods of sand from the tide-waters of the Bay. From the Clay +Pounds the bank flatted off for the last ten miles to the extremity at +Race Point, though the highest parts, which are called "islands" from +their appearance at a distance on the sea, were still seventy or eighty +feet above the Atlantic, and afforded a good view of the latter, as well +as a constant view of the Bay, there being no trees nor a hill +sufficient to interrupt it. Also the sands began to invade the land more +and more, until finally they had entire possession from sea to sea, at +the narrowest part. For three or four miles between Truro and +Provincetown there were no inhabitants from shore to shore, and there +were but three or four houses for twice that distance. + +As we plodded along, either by the edge of the ocean, where the sand was +rapidly drinking up the last wave that wet it, or over the sand-hills of +the bank, the mackerel fleet continued to pour round the Cape north of +us, ten or fifteen miles distant, in countless numbers, schooner after +schooner, till they made a city on the water. They were so thick that +many appeared to be afoul of one another; now all standing on this tack, +now on that. We saw how well the New-Englanders had followed up Captain +John Smith's suggestions with regard to the fisheries, made in 1616,--to +what a pitch they had carried "this contemptible trade of fish," as he +significantly styles it, and were now equal to the Hollanders whose +example he holds up for the English to emulate; notwithstanding that "in +this faculty," as he says, "the former are so naturalized, and of their +vents so certainly acquainted, as there is no likelihood they will ever +be paralleled, having two or three thousand busses, flat-bottoms, +sword-pinks, todes, and such like, that breeds them sailors, mariners, +soldiers, and merchants, never to be wrought out of that trade and fit +for any other." We thought that it would take all these names and more +to describe the numerous craft which we saw. Even then, some years +before our "renowned sires" with their "peerless dames" stepped on +Plymouth Rock, he wrote, "Newfoundland doth yearly freight neir eight +hundred sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, poor-john, and cor +fish," though all their supplies must be annually transported from +Europe. Why not plant a colony here then, and raise those supplies on +the spot? "Of all the four parts of the world," says he, "that I have +yet seen, not inhabited, could I have but means to transport a colony, I +would rather live here than anywhere. And if it did not maintain itself, +were we but once indifferently well fitted, let us starve." Then +"fishing before your doors," you "may every night sleep quietly ashore, +with good cheer and what fires you will, or, when you please, with your +wives and family." Already he anticipates "the new towns in New England +in memory of their old,"--and who knows what may be discovered in the +"heart and entrails" of the land, "seeing even the very edges," etc., +etc. + +[Illustration: Towing along shore] + +All this has been accomplished, and more, and where is Holland now? +Verily the Dutch have taken it. There was no long interval between the +suggestion of Smith and the eulogy of Burke. + +Still one after another the mackerel schooners hove in sight round the +head of the Cape, "whitening all the sea road," and we watched each one +for a moment with an undivided interest. It seemed a pretty sport. Here +in the country it is only a few idle boys or loafers that go a-fishing +on a rainy day; but there it appeared as if every able-bodied man and +helpful boy in the Bay had gone out on a pleasure excursion in their +yachts, and all would at last land and have a chowder on the Cape. The +gazetteer tells you gravely how many of the men and boys of these towns +are engaged in the whale, cod, and mackerel fishery, how many go to the +banks of Newfoundland, or the coast of Labrador, the Straits of Belle +Isle or the Bay of Chaleurs (Shalore the sailors call it); as if I were +to reckon up the number of boys in Concord who are engaged during the +summer in the perch, pickerel, bream, hornpout, and shiner fishery, of +which no one keeps the statistics,--though I think that it is pursued +with as much profit to the moral and intellectual man (or boy), and +certainly with less danger to the physical one. + +One of my playmates, who was apprenticed to a printer, and was somewhat +of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and +his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he +said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again +as if only an afternoon had intervened. + +I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole +day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable what a +serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally +shiftlessness and a grovelling taste take refuge in a merely ant-like +industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus +everlastingly fishing for it like a cormorant. Of course, _viewed from +the shore_, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit less frivolous. + +I once sailed three miles on a mackerel cruise myself. It was a Sunday +evening after a very warm day in which there had been frequent +thunder-showers, and I had walked along the shore from Cohasset to +Duxbury. I wished to get over from the last place to Clark's Island, but +no boat could stir, they said, at that stage of the tide, they being +left high on the mud. At length I learned that the tavern-keeper, +Winsor, was going out mackerelling with seven men that evening, and +would take me. When there had been due delay, we one after another +straggled down to the shore in a leisurely manner, as if waiting for the +tide still, and in India-rubber boots, or carrying our shoes in our +hands, waded to the boats, each of the crew bearing an armful of wood, +and one a bucket of new potatoes besides. Then they resolved that each +should bring one more armful of wood, and that would be enough. They had +already got a barrel of water, and had some more in the schooner. We +shoved the boats a dozen rods over the mud and water till they floated, +then rowing half a mile to the vessel climbed aboard, and there we were +in a mackerel schooner, a fine stout vessel of forty-three tons, whose +name I forget. The baits were not dry on the hooks. There was the mill +in which they ground the mackerel, and the trough to hold it, and the +long-handled dipper to cast it overboard with; and already in the harbor +we saw the surface rippled with schools of small mackerel, the real +_Scomber vernalis_. The crew proceeded leisurely to weigh anchor and raise +their two sails, there being a fair but very slight wind;--and the sun +now setting clear and shining on the vessel after the thundershowers, I +thought that I could not have commenced the voyage under more favorable +auspices. They had four dories and commonly fished in them, else they +fished on the starboard side aft where their fines hung ready, two to a +man. The boom swung round once or twice, and Winsor cast overboard the +foul juice of mackerel mixed with rain-water which remained in his +trough, and then we gathered about the helmsman and told stories. I +remember that the compass was affected by iron in its neighborhood and +varied a few degrees. There was one among us just returned from +California, who was now going as passenger for his health and +amusement. They expected to be gone about a week, to begin fishing the +next morning, and to carry their fish fresh to Boston. They landed me at +Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims landed, for my companions wished to +get some milk for the voyage. But I had seen the whole of it. The rest +was only going to sea and catching the mackerel. Moreover, it was as +well that I did not remain with them, considering the small quantity of +supplies they had taken. + +Now I saw the mackerel fleet _on its fishing-ground_, though I was not at +first aware of it. So my experience was complete. + +It was even more cold and windy to-day than before, and we were +frequently glad to take shelter behind a sand-hill. None of the elements +were resting. On the beach there is a ceaseless activity, always +something going on, in storm and in calm, winter and summer, night and +day. Even the sedentary man here enjoys a breadth of view which is +almost equivalent to motion. In clear weather the laziest may look +across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as +far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids; or if he is too +lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash +and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a +whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, +the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings. No +creature could move slowly where there was so much life around. The few +wreckers were either going or coming, and the ships and the sand-pipers, +and the screaming gulls overhead; nothing stood still but the shore. The +little beach-birds trotted past close to the water's edge, or paused but +an instant to swallow their food, keeping time with the elements. I +wondered how they ever got used to the sea, that they ventured so near +the waves. Such tiny inhabitants the land brought forth! except one fox. +And what could a fox do, looking on the Atlantic from that high bank? +What is the sea to a fox? Sometimes we met a wrecker with his cart and +dog,--and his dog's faint bark at us wayfarers, heard through the +roaring of the surf, sounded ridiculously faint. To see a little +trembling dainty-footed cur stand on the margin of the ocean, and +ineffectually bark at a beach-bird, amid the roar of the Atlantic! Come +with design to bark at a whale, perchance! That sound will do for +farmyards. All the dogs looked out of place there, naked and as if +shuddering at the vastness; and I thought that they would not have been +there had it not been for the countenance of their masters. Still less +could you think of a cat bending her steps that way, and shaking her wet +foot over the Atlantic; yet even this happens sometimes, they tell me. +In summer I saw the tender young of the Piping Plover, like chickens +just hatched, mere pinches of down on two legs, running in troops, with +a faint peep, along the edge of the waves. I used to see packs of +half-wild dogs haunting the lonely beach on the south shore of Staten +Island, in New York Bay, for the sake of the carrion there cast up; and +I remember that once, when for a long time I had heard a furious barking +in the tall grass of the marsh, a pack of half a dozen large dogs burst +forth on to the beach, pursuing a little one which ran straight to me +for protection, and I afforded it with some stones, though at some risk +to myself; but the next day the little one was the first to bark at me. +under these circumstances I could not but remember the words of the +poet:-- + + "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, + Thou art not so unkind + As _his_ ingratitude; + Thy tooth is not so keen, + Because thou art not seen, + Although thy breath be rude. + + "Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, + Thou dost not bite so nigh + As benefits forgot; + Though thou the waters warp, + Thy sting is not so sharp + As friend remembered not." + +Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of a horse or ox which lay +on the beach there, where there was no living creature in sight, a dog +would unexpectedly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful of +offal. + +The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous point +from which to contemplate this world. It is even a trivial place. The +waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to +be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and +the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime. + +It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in it. Strewn with +crabs, horse-shoes, and razor-clams, and whatever the sea casts up,--a +vast _morgue_, where famished dogs may range in packs, and crows come +daily to glean the pittance which the tide leaves them. The carcasses of +men and beasts together lie stately up upon its shelf, rotting and +bleaching in the sun and waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, +and tucks fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature, inhumanly +sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where +gulls wheel amid the spray. + +We saw this forenoon what, at a distance, looked like a bleached log +with a branch still left on it. It proved to be one of the principal +bones of a whale, whose carcass, having been stripped of blubber at sea +and cut adrift, had been washed up some months before. It chanced that +this was the most conclusive evidence which we met with to prove, what +the Copenhagen antiquaries assert, that these shores were the +_Furdustrandas_ which Thorhall, the companion of Thorfinn during his +expedition to Vinland in 1007. sailed past in disgust. It appears that +after they had left the Cape and explored the country about +Straum-Fiordr (Buzzards' Bay!), Thorhall, who was disappointed at not +getting any wine to drink there, determined to sail north again in +search of Vinland. Though the antiquaries have given us the original +Icelandic. I prefer to quote their translation, since theirs is the only +Latin which I know to have been aimed at Cape Cod. + + "Cum parati erant, sublato + velo, cecinit Thorhallus: + Eo redeamus, ubi conterranei + sunt nostri! faciamus aliter, + expansi arenosi peritum, + lata navis explorare curricula: + dum procellam incitantes gladii + morae impatientes, qui terram + collaudant, Furdustrandas + inhabitant et coquunt balaenas." + +In other words: "When they were ready and their sail hoisted, Thorhall +sang: Let us return thither where our fellow-countrymen are. Let us make +a bird [1] skilful to fly through the heaven of sand, [2] to explore the +broad track of ships; while warriors who impel to the tempest of swords, +[3] who praise the land, inhabit Wonder-Strands, _and cook whales_.'" And +so he sailed north past Cape Cod, as the antiquaries say, "and was +shipwrecked on to Ireland." + +Though once there were more whales cast up here, I think that it was +never more wild than now. We do not associate the idea of antiquity with +the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of +the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians +have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized +man and the savage. The aspect of the shore only has changed. The ocean +is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, +and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves of our cities and the +gardens of our sea-side residences. Serpents, bears, hyenas, tigers, +rapidly vanish as civilization advances, but the most populous and +civilized city cannot scare a shark far from its wharves. It is no +further advanced than Singapore, with its tigers, in this respect. The +Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I +had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish +people. Yet from the parlor windows all along the coast you may see +families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as +the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the +sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,--to +realize the deluge. Every vessel is an ark. + +We saw no fences as we walked the beach, no birchen _riders_, highest of +rails, projecting into the sea to keep the cows from wading round, +nothing to remind us that man was proprietor of the shore. Yet a Truro +man did tell us that owners of land on the east side of that town were +regarded as owning the beach, in order that they might have the control +of it so far as to defend themselves against the encroachments of the +sand and the beach-grass,--for even this friend is sometimes regarded as +a foe; but he said that this was not the case on the Bay side. Also I +have seen in sheltered parts of the Bay temporary fences running to +low-water mark, the posts being set in sills or sleepers placed +transversely. + +After we had been walking many hours, the mackerel fleet still hovered +in the northern horizon nearly in the same direction, but farther off, +hull down. Though their sails were set they never sailed away, nor yet +came to anchor, but stood on various tacks as close together as vessels +in a haven, and we in our ignorance thought that they were contending +patiently with adverse winds, beating eastward; but we learned afterward +that they were even then on their fishing-ground, and that they caught +mackerel without taking in their mainsails or coming to anchor, "a smart +breeze" (thence called a mackerel breeze) "being," as one says, +"considered most favorable" for this purpose. We counted about two +hundred sail of mackerel fishers within one small arc of the horizon, +and a nearly equal number had disappeared southward. Thus they hovered +about the extremity of the Cape, like moths round a candle; the lights +at Race Point and Long Point being bright candles for them at +night,--and at this distance they looked fair and white, as if they had +not yet flown into the light, but nearer at hand afterward, we saw how +some had formerly singed their wings and bodies. + +A village seems thus, where its able-bodied men are all ploughing the +ocean together, as a common field. In North Truro the women and girls +may sit at their doors, and see where their husbands and brothers are +harvesting their mackerel fifteen or twenty miles off, on the sea, with +hundreds of white harvest wagons, just as in the country the farmers' +wives sometimes see their husbands working in a distant hillside field. +But the sound of no dinner-horn can reach the fisher's ear. + +Having passed the narrowest part of the waist of the Cape, though still +in Truro, for this township is about twelve miles long on the shore, we +crossed over to the Bay side, not half a mile distant, in order to spend +the noon on the nearest shrubby sand-hill in Provincetown, called Mount +Ararat, which rises one hundred feet above the ocean. On our way thither +we had occasion to admire the various beautiful forms and colors of the +sand, and we noticed an interesting mirage, which I have since found +that Hitchcock also observed on the sands of the Cape. We were crossing +a shallow valley in the Desert, where the smooth and spotless sand +sloped upward by a small angle to the horizon on every side, and at the +lowest part was a long chain of clear but shallow pools. As we were +approaching these for a drink in a diagonal direction across the valley, +they appeared inclined at a slight but decided angle to the horizon, +though they were plainly and broadly connected with one another, and +there was not the least ripple to suggest a current; so that by the time +we had reached a convenient part of one we seemed to have ascended +several feet. They appeared to lie by magic on the side of the vale, +like a mirror left in a slanting position. It was a very pretty mirage +for a Provincetown desert, but not amounting to what, in Sanscrit, is +called "the thirst of the gazelle," as there was real water here for a +base, and we were able to quench our thirst after all. + +Professor Rafn, of Copenhagen, thinks that the mirage which I noticed, +but which an old inhabitant of Provincetown, to whom I mentioned it, had +never seen nor heard of, had something to do with the name +"Furdustrandas," i.e. Wonder-Strands, given, as I have said, in the old +Icelandic account of Thorfinn's expedition to Vinland in the year 1007, +to a part of the coast on which he landed. But these sands are more +remarkable for their length than for their mirage, which is common to +all deserts, and the reason for the name which the Northmen them-selves +give,--"because it took a long time to sail by them,"--is sufficient and +more applicable to these shores. However, if you should sail all the way +from Greenland to Buzzards' Bay along the coast, you would get sight of +a good many sandy beaches. But whether Thorfinn saw the mirage here or +not, Thor-eau, one of the same family, did; and perchance it was because +Lief the Lucky had, in a previous voyage, taken Thor-er and his people +off the rock in the middle of the sea, that Thor-eau was born to see it. + +This was not the only mirage which I saw on the Cape. That half of the +beach next the bank is commonly level, or nearly so, while the other +slopes downward to the water. As I was walking upon the edge of the bank +in Wellfleet at sundown, it seemed to me that the inside half of the +beach sloped upward toward the water to meet the other, forming a ridge +ten or twelve feet high the whole length of the shore, but higher always +opposite to where I stood; and I was not convinced of the contrary till +I descended the bank, though the shaded outlines left by the waves of a +previous tide but half-way down the apparent declivity might have taught +me better. A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest +inhabitant, for the strange is his province. The old oysterman, speaking +of gull-shooting, had said that you must aim under, when firing down +the bank. + +A neighbor tells me that one August, looking through a glass from +Naushon to some vessels which were sailing along near Martha's Vineyard, +the water about them appeared perfectly smooth, so that they were +reflected in it, and yet their full sails proved that it must be +rippled, and they who were with him thought that it was mirage, _i.e._ a +reflection from a haze. + +From the above-mentioned sand-hill we over-looked Provincetown and its +harbor, now emptied of vessels, and also a wide expanse of ocean. As we +did not wish to enter Provincetown before night, though it was cold and +windy, we returned across the Deserts to the Atlantic side, and walked +along the beach again nearly to Race Point, being still greedy of the +sea influence. All the while it was not so calm as the reader may +suppose, but it was blow, blow, blow,--roar, roar, roar,--tramp, tramp, +tramp,--without interruption. The shore now trended nearly east and +west. + +Before sunset, having already seen the mackerel fleet returning into the +Bay, we left the sea-shore on the north of Provincetown, and made our +way across the Desert to the eastern extremity of the town. From the +first high sand-hill, covered with beach-grass and bushes to its top, on +the edge of the desert, we overlooked the shrubby hill and swamp country +which surrounds Provincetown on the north, and protects it, in some +measure, from the invading sand. Notwithstanding the universal +barrenness, and the contiguity of the desert, I never saw an autumnal +landscape so beautifully painted as this was. It was like the richest +rug imaginable spread over an uneven surface; no damask nor velvet, nor +Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any loom, could ever match it. +There was the incredibly bright red of the Huckleberry, and the reddish +brown of the Bayberry, mingled with the bright and living green of small +Pitch-Pines, and also the duller green of the Bayberry, Boxberry, and +Plum, the yellowish green of the Shrub-oaks, and the various golden and +yellow and fawn-colored tints of the Birch and Maple and Aspen,--each +making its own figure, and, in the midst, the few yellow sand-slides on +the sides of the hills looked like the white floor seen through rents in +the rug. Coming from the country as I did, and many autumnal woods as I +had seen, this was perhaps the most novel and remarkable sight that I +saw on the Cape. Probably the brightness of the tints was enhanced by +contrast with the sand which surrounded this tract. This was a part of +the furniture of Cape Cod. We had for days walked up the long and bleak +piazza which runs along her Atlantic side, then over the sanded floor of +her halls, and now we were being introduced into her boudoir. The +hundred white sails crowding round Long Point into Provincetown Harbor, +seen over the painted hills in front, looked like toy ships upon a +mantel-piece. + +The peculiarity of this autumnal landscape consisted in the lowness and +thickness of the shrubbery, no less than in the brightness of the tints. +It was like a thick stuff of worsted or a fleece, and looked as if a +giant could take it up by the hem, or rather the tasselled fringe which +trailed out on the sand, and shake it, though it needed not to be +shaken. But no doubt the dust would fly in that case, for not a little +has accumulated underneath it. Was it not such an autumnal landscape as +this which suggested our high-colored rugs and carpets? Hereafter when I +look on a richer rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, +there are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser swamps of boxberry +and blueberry: there the shrub-oak patches and the bayberries, there the +maples and the birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be +compared to these? They were warmer colors than I had associated with +the New England coast. + +After threading a swamp full of boxberry, and climbing several hills +covered with shrub-oaks, without a path, where shipwrecked men would be +in danger of perishing in the night, we came down upon the eastern +extremity of the four planks which run the whole length of Provincetown +street. This, which is the last town on the Cape, lies mainly in one +street along the curving beach fronting the southeast. The sand-hills, +covered with shrubbery and interposed with swamps and ponds, rose +immediately behind it in the form of a crescent, which is from half a +mile to a mile or more wide in the middle, and beyond these is the +desert, which is the greater part of its territory, stretching to the +sea on the east and west and north. The town is compactly built in the +narrow space, from ten to fifty rods deep, between the harbor and the +sand-hills, and contained at that time about twenty-six hundred +inhabitants. The houses, in which a more modern and pretending style has +at length prevailed over the fisherman's hut, stand on the inner or +plank side of the street, and the fish and store houses, with the +picturesque-looking windmills of the Salt-works, on the water side. The +narrow portion of the beach between, forming the street, about eighteen +feet wide, the only one where one carriage could pass another, if there +was more than one carriage in the town, looked much "heavier" than any +portion of the beach or the desert which we had walked on, it being +above the reach of the highest tide, and the sand being kept loose by +the occasional passage of a traveller. We learned that the four planks +on which we were walking had been bought by the town's share of the +Surplus Revenue, the disposition of which was a bone of contention +between the inhabitants, till they wisely resolved thus to put it under +foot. Yet some, it was said, were so provoked because they did not +receive their particular share in money, that they persisted in walking +in the sand a long time after the sidewalk was built. This is the only +instance which I happen to know in which the surplus revenue proved a +blessing to any town. A surplus revenue of dollars from the treasury to +stem the greater evil of a surplus revenue of sand from the ocean. They +expected to make a hard road by the time these planks were worn out. +Indeed, they have already done so since we were there, and have almost +forgotten their sandy baptism. + +As we passed along we observed the inhabitants engaged in curing either +fish or the coarse salt hay which they had brought home and spread on +the beach before their doors, looking as yellow as if they had raked it +out of the sea. The front-yard plots appeared like what indeed they +were, portions of the beach fenced in, with Beach-grass growing in them, +as if they were sometimes covered by the tide. You might still pick up +shells and pebbles there. There were a few trees among the houses, +especially silver abeles, willows, and balm-of-Gileads; and one man +showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, +thinking it an apple-tree. But every man to his trade. Though he had +little woodcraft, he was not the less weatherwise, and gave us one piece +of information; viz., he had observed that when a thunder-cloud came up +with a flood-tide it did not rain. This was the most completely maritime +town that we were ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded by +land dry, if not firm,--an inhabited beach, whereon fishermen cured and +stored their fish, without any back country. When ashore the inhabitants +still walk on planks. A few small patches have been reclaimed from the +swamps, containing commonly half a dozen square rods only each. We saw +one which was fenced with four lengths of rail; also a fence made wholly +of hogshead-staves stuck in the ground. These, and such as these, were +all the cultivated and cultivable land in Provincetown. We were told +that there were thirty or forty acres in all, but we did not discover a +quarter part so much, and that was well dusted with sand, and looked as +if the desert was claiming it. They are now turning some of their swamps +into Cranberry Meadows on quite an extensive scale. + +[Illustration: A cranberry meadow] + +Yet far from being out of the way. Provincetown is directly in the way +of the navigator, and he is lucky who does not run afoul of it in the +dark. It is situated on one of the highways of commerce, and men from +all parts of the globe touch there in the course of a year. + +The mackerel fleet had nearly all got in before us, it being Saturday +night, excepting that division which had stood down towards Chatham in +the morning; and from a hill where we went to see the sun set in the Bay +we counted two hundred goodly looking schooners at anchor in the harbor +at various distances from the shore, and more were yet coming round the +Cape. As each came to anchor, it took in sail and swung round in the +wind, and lowered its boat. They belonged chiefly to Wellfleet, Truro, +and Cape Ann. This was that city of canvas which we had seen hull down +in the horizon. Near at hand, and under bare poles, they were +unexpectedly black-looking vessels, [Greek: melaiuai nees.] A +fisherman told us that there were fifteen hundred vessels in the +mackerel fleet, and that he had counted three hundred and fifty in +Provincetown Harbor at one time. Being obliged to anchor at a +considerable distance from the shore on account of the shallowness of +the water, they made the impression of a larger fleet than the vessels +at the wharves of a large city. As they had been manoeuvring out there +all day seemingly for our entertainment, while we were walking +north-westward along the Atlantic, so now we found them flocking into +Provincetown Harbor at night, just as we arrived, as if to meet us, and +exhibit themselves close at hand. Standing by Race Point and Long Point +with various speed, they reminded me of fowls coming home to roost. + +These were genuine New England vessels. It is stated in the Journal of +Moses Prince, a brother of the annalist, under date of 1721, at which +time he visited Gloucester, that the first vessel of the class called +schooner was built at Gloucester about eight years before, by Andrew +Robinson; and late in the same century one Cotton Tufts gives us the +tradition with some particulars, which he learned on a visit to the same +place. According to the latter, Robinson having constructed a vessel +which he masted and rigged in a peculiar manner, on her going off the +stocks a bystander cried out, "_O, how she scoons!_" whereat Robinson +replied, "_A schooner let her be!_" "From which time," says Tufts, +"vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by the name of schooners; +before which, vessels of this description were not known in Europe." +(See Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. IX., 1st Series, and Vol. I., 4th Series.) +Yet I can hardly believe this, for a schooner has always seemed to +me--the typical vessel. + +According to C. E. Potter of Manchester, New Hampshire, the very word +_schooner_ is of New England origin, being from the Indian _schoon_ or +_scoot_, meaning to rush, as Schoodic, from _scoot_ and _anke_, a place +where water rushes. N. B. Somebody of Gloucester was to read a paper on +this matter before a genealogical society, in Boston, March 3, 1859, +according to the _Boston Journal_, q. v. + +Nearly all who come out must walk on the four planks which I have +mentioned, so that you are pretty sure to meet all the inhabitants of +Provincetown who come out in the course of a day, provided you keep out +yourself. This evening the planks were crowded with mackerel fishers, to +whom we gave and from whom we took the wall, as we returned to our +hotel. This hotel was kept by a tailor, his shop on the one side of the +door, his hotel on the other, and his day seemed to be divided between +carving meat and carving broadcloth. + +The next morning, though it was still more cold and blustering than the +day before, we took to the Deserts again, for we spent our days wholly +out of doors, in the sun when there was any, and in the wind which never +failed. After threading the shrubby hill country at the southwest end of +the town, west of the Shank-Painter Swamp, whose expressive name--for we +understood it at first as a landsman naturally would--gave it importance +in our eyes, we crossed the sands to the shore south of Race Point and +three miles distant, and thence roamed round eastward through the desert +to where we had left the sea the evening before. We travelled five or +six miles after we got out there, on a curving line, and might have gone +nine or ten, over vast platters of pure sand, from the midst of which we +could not see a particle of vegetation, excepting the distant thin +fields of Beach-grass, which crowned and made the ridges toward which +the sand sloped upward on each side;--all the while in the face of a +cutting wind as cold as January; indeed, we experienced no weather so +cold as this for nearly two months afterward. This desert extends from +the extremity of the Cape, through Provincetown into Truro, and many a +time as we were traversing it we were reminded of "Riley's Narrative" of +his captivity in the sands of Arabia, notwithstanding the cold. Our eyes +magnified the patches of Beach-grass into cornfields in the horizon, and +we probably exaggerated the height of the ridges on account of the +mirage. I was pleased to learn afterward, from Kalm's Travels in North +America, that the inhabitants of the Lower St. Lawrence call this grass +(_Calamagrostis arenaria_), and also Sea-lyme grass (_Elymus arenarius_), +_seigle de mer;_ and he adds, "I have been assured that these plants grow +in great plenty in Newfoundland, and on other North American shores; the +places covered with them looking, at a distance, like cornfields; which +might explain the passage in our northern accounts [he wrote in 1749] of +the excellent wine land [_Vinland det goda_, Translator], which mentions +that they had found whole fields of wheat growing wild." + +The Beach-grass is "two to four feet high, of a seagreen color," and it +is said to be widely diffused over the world. In the Hebrides it is used +for mats, pack-saddles, bags, hats, etc.; paper has been made of it at +Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when tender. It has heads +somewhat like rye, from six inches to a foot in length, and it is +propagated both by roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some +botanists have called it _Psamma arenaria_, which is the Greek for sand, +qualified by the Latin for sandy,--or sandy sand. As it is blown about +by the wind, while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad +circles in the sand as accurately as if they were made by compasses. + +It was the dreariest scenery imaginable. The only animals which we saw +on the sand at that time were spiders, which are to be found almost +everywhere whether on snow or ice-water or sand,--and a +venomous-looking, long, narrow worm, one of the myriapods, or +thousand-legs. We were surprised to see spider-holes in that flowing +sand with an edge as firm as that of a stoned well. + +In June this sand was scored with the tracks of turtles both large and +small, which had been out in the night, leading to and from the swamps. +I was told by a _terroe filius_ who has a "farm" on the edge of the +desert, and is familiar with the fame of Provincetown, that one man had +caught twenty-five snapping-turtles there the previous spring. His own +method of catching them was to put a toad on a mackerel-hook and cast it +into a pond, tying the line to a stump or stake on shore. Invariably the +turtle when hooked crawled up the line to the stump, and was found +waiting there by his captor, however long afterward. He also said that +minks, muskrats, foxes, coons, and wild mice were found there, but no +squirrels. We heard of sea-turtle as large as a barrel being found on +the beach and on East Harbor marsh, but whether they were native there, +or had been lost out of some vessel, did not appear. Perhaps they were +the Salt-water Terrapin, or else the Smooth Terrapin, found thus far +north. Many toads were met with where there was nothing but sand and +beach-grass. In Truro I had been surprised at the number of large +light-colored toads everywhere hopping over the dry and sandy fields, +their color corresponding to that of the sand. Snakes also are common on +these pure sand beaches, and I have never been so much troubled by +mosquitoes as in such localities. At the same season strawberries grew +there abundantly in the little hollows on the edge of the desert +standing amid the beach-grass in the sand, and the fruit of the shadbush +or Amelanchier, which the inhabitants call Josh-pears (some think from +juicy?), is very abundant on the hills. I fell in with an obliging man +who conducted me to the best locality for strawberries. He said that he +would not have shown me the place if he had not seen that I was a +stranger, and could not anticipate him another year; I therefore feel +bound in honor not to reveal it. When we came to a pond, he being the +native did the honors and carried me over on his shoulders, like +Sindbad. One good turn deserves another, and if he ever comes our way I +will do as much for him. + +In one place we saw numerous dead tops of trees projecting through the +otherwise uninterrupted desert, where, as we afterward learned, thirty +or forty years before a flourishing forest had stood, and now, as the +trees were laid bare from year to year, the inhabitants cut off their +tops for fuel. + +We saw nobody that day outside of the town; it was too wintry for such +as had seen the Backside before, or for the greater number who never +desire to see it, to venture out; and we saw hardly a track to show that +any had ever crossed this desert. Yet I was told that some are always +out on the Back-side night and day in severe weather, looking for +wrecks, in order that they may get the job of discharging the cargo, or +the like,--and thus shipwrecked men are succored. But, generally +speaking, the inhabitants rarely visit these sands. One who had lived in +Provincetown thirty years told me that he had not been through to the +north side within that time. Sometimes the natives themselves come near +perishing by losing their way in snow-storms behind the town. + +The wind was not a Sirocco or Simoon, such as we associate with the +desert, but a New England northeaster,--and we sought shelter in vain +under the sand-hills, for it blew all about them, rounding them into +cones, and was sure to find us out on whichever side we sat. From time +to time we lay down and drank at little pools in the sand, filled with +pure fresh water, all that was left, probably, of a pond or swamp. The +air was filled with dust like snow, and cutting sand which made the face +tingle, and we saw what it must be to face it when the weather was +drier, and, if possible, windier still,--to face a migrating sand-bar in +the air, which has picked up its duds and is off,--to be whipped with a +cat, not o' nine-tails, but of a myriad of tails, and each one a sting +to it. A Mr. Whitman, a former minister of Wellfleet, used to write to +his inland friends that the blowing sand scratched the windows so that +he was obliged to have one new pane set every week, that he might see +out. + +On the edge of the shrubby woods the sand had the appearance of an +inundation which was overwhelming them, terminating in an abrupt bank +many feet higher than the surface on which they stood, and having +partially buried the out-side trees. The moving sand-hills of England, +called Dunes or Downs, to which these have been likened, are either +formed of sand cast up by the sea, or of sand taken from the land itself +in the first place by the wind, and driven still farther inward. It is +here a tide of sand impelled by waves and wind, slowly flowing from the +sea toward the town. The northeast winds are said to be the strongest, +but the northwest to move most sand, because they are the driest. On the +shore of the Bay of Biscay many villages were formerly destroyed in this +way. Some of the ridges of beach-grass which we saw were planted by +government many years ago, to preserve the harbor of Provincetown and +the extremity of the Cape. I talked with some who had been employed in +the planting. In the "Description of the Eastern Coast," which I have +already referred to, it is said: "Beach-grass during the spring and +summer grows about two feet and a half. If surrounded by naked beach, +the storms of autumn and winter heap up the sand on all sides, and cause +it to rise nearly to the top of the plant. In the ensuing spring the +grass mounts anew; is again covered with sand in the winter; and thus a +hill or ridge continues to ascend as long as there is a sufficient base +to support it, or till the circumscribing sand, being also covered with +beach-grass, will no longer yield to the force of the winds." Sand-hills +formed in this way are sometimes one hundred feet high and of every +variety of form, like snow-drifts, or Arab tents, and are continually +shifting. The grass roots itself very firmly. When I endeavored to pull +it up, it usually broke off ten inches or a foot below the surface, at +what had been the surface the year before, as appeared by the numerous +offshoots there, it being a straight, hard, round shoot, showing by its +length how much the sand had accumulated the last year; and sometimes +the dead stubs of a previous season were pulled up with it from still +deeper in the sand, with their own more decayed shoot attached,--so +that the age of a sand-hill, and its rate of increase for several years, +is pretty accurately recorded in this way. + +[Illustration: The sand dunes drifting in upon the trees] + +Old Gerard, the English herbalist, says, p. 1250: "I find mention in +Stowe's Chronicle, in Anno 1555, of a certain pulse or pease, as they +term it, wherewith the poor people at that time, there being a great +dearth, were miraculously helped: he thus mentions it. In the month of +August (saith he), in Suffolke, at a place by the sea side all of hard +stone and pibble, called in those parts a shelf, lying between the towns +of Orford and Aldborough, where neither grew grass nor any earth was +ever seen; it chanced in this barren place suddenly to spring up without +any tillage or sowing, great abundance of peason, whereof the poor +gathered (as men judged) above one hundred quarters, yet remained some +ripe and some blossoming, as many as ever there were before: to the +which place rode the Bishop of Norwich and the Lord Willoughby, with +others in great number, who found nothing but hard, rocky stone the +space of three yards under the roots of these peason, which roots were +great and long, and very sweet." He tells us also that Gesner learned +from Dr. Cajus that there were enough there to supply thousands of men. +He goes on to say that "they without doubt grew there many years before, +but were not observed till hunger made them take notice of them, and +quickened their invention, which commonly in our people is very dull, +especially in finding out food of this nature. My worshipful friend Dr. +Argent hath told me that many years ago he was in this place, and caused +his man to pull among the beach with his hands, and follow the roots so +long until he got some equal in length unto his height, yet could come +to no ends of them." Gerard never saw them, and is not certain what kind +they were. + +In Dwight's Travels in New England it is stated that the inhabitants of +Truro were formerly regularly warned under the authority of law in the +month of April yearly, to plant beachgrass, as elsewhere they are warned +to repair the highways. They dug up the grass in bunches, which were +afterward divided into several smaller ones, and set about three feet +apart, in rows, so arranged as to break joints and obstruct the passage +of the wind. It spread itself rapidly, the weight of the seeds when ripe +bending the heads of the grass, and so dropping directly by its side and +vegetating there. In this way, for instance, they built up again that +part of the Cape between Truro and Provincetown where the sea broke over +in the last century. They have now a public road near there, made by +laying sods, which were full of roots, bottom upward and close together +on the sand, double in the middle of the track, then spreading brush +evenly over the sand on each side for half a dozen feet, planting +beachgrass on the banks in regular rows, as above described, and +sticking a fence of brush against the hollows. + +The attention of the general government was first attracted to the +danger which threatened Cape Cod Harbor from the inroads of the sand, +about thirty years ago, and commissioners were at that time appointed by +Massachusetts, to examine the premises. They reported in June, 1825, +that, owing to "the trees and brush having been cut down, and the +beach-grass destroyed on the seaward side of the Cape, opposite the +Harbor," the original surface of the ground had been broken up and +removed by the wind toward the Harbor,--during the previous fourteen +years,--over an extent of "one half a mile in breadth, and about four +and a half miles in length."--"The space where a few years since were +some of the highest lands on the Cape, covered with trees and bushes," +presenting "an extensive waste of undulating sand ";--and that, during +the previous twelve months, the sand "had approached the Harbor an +average distance of fifty rods, for an extent of four and a half miles!" +and unless some measures were adopted to check its progress, it would in +a few years destroy both the harbor and the town. They therefore +recommended that beach-grass be set out on a curving line over a space +ten rods wide and four and a half miles long, and that cattle, horses, +and sheep be prohibited from going abroad, and the inhabitants from +cutting the brush. + +I was told that about thirty thousand dollars in all had been +appropriated to this object, though it was complained that a great part +of this was spent foolishly, as the public money is wont to be. Some say +that while the government is planting beach-grass behind the town for +the protection of the harbor, the inhabitants are rolling the sand into +the harbor in wheelbarrows, in order to make house-lots. The +Patent-Office has recently imported the seed of this grass from Holland, +and distributed it over the country, but probably we have as much as the +Hollanders. + +Thus Cape Cod is anchored to the heavens, as it were, by a myriad little +cables of beach-grass, and, if they should fail, would become a total +wreck, and erelong go to the bottom. Formerly, the cows were permitted +to go at large, and they ate many strands of the cable by which the Cape +is moored, and well-nigh set it adrift, as the bull did the boat which +was moored with a grass rope; but now they are not permitted to wander. + +A portion of Truro which has considerable taxable property on it has +lately been added to Provincetown, and I was told by a Truro man that +his townsmen talked of petitioning the legislature to set off the next +mile of their territory also to Provincetown, in order that she might +have her share of the lean as well as the fat, and take care of the road +through it; for its whole value is literally to hold the Cape together, +and even this it has not always done. But Provincetown strenuously +declines the gift. + +The wind blowed so hard from the northeast that, cold as it was, we +resolved to see the breakers on the Atlantic side, whose din we had +heard all the morning; so we kept on eastward through the Desert, till +we struck the shore again northeast of Provincetown, and exposed +ourselves to the full force of the piercing blast. There are extensive +shoals there over which the sea broke with great force. For half a mile +from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, +made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak. Of this part +of the coast it is said: "A northeast storm, the most violent and fatal +to seamen, as it is frequently accompanied with snow, blows directly on +the land: a strong current sets along the shore; add to which that +ships, during the operation of such a storm, endeavor to work northward, +that they may get into the bay. Should they be unable to weather Race +Point, the wind drives them on the shore, and a shipwreck is inevitable. +Accordingly, the strand is everywhere covered with the fragments of +vessels." But since the Highland Light was erected, this part of the +coast is less dangerous, and it is said that more shipwrecks occur south +of that light, where they were scarcely known before. + +[Illustration: The white breakers on the Atlantic side] + +This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,--more _tumultuous_, my +companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far +greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only +one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a +harbor. It was high tide when we reached the shore, and in one place, +for a considerable distance, each wave dashed up so high that it was +difficult to pass between it and the bank. Further south, where the bank +was higher, it would have been dangerous to attempt it. A native of the +Cape has told me that, many years ago, three boys, his playmates, having +gone to this beach in Wellfleet to visit a wreck, when the sea receded +ran down to the wreck, and when it came in ran before it to the bank, +but the sea following fast at their heels, caused the bank to cave and +bury them alive. + +It was the roaring sea, [Greek: thalassa echeessa,-- + + amphi de t akrai + Eiones booosin, erenomenes alos exo.] + + And the summits of the bank + Around resound, the sea being vomited forth. + +As we stood looking on this scene we were gradually convinced that +fishing here and in a pond were not, in all respects, the same, and that +he who waits for fair weather and a calm sea may never see the glancing +skin of a mackerel, and get no nearer to a cod than the wooden emblem in +the State House. + +Having lingered on the shore till we were well-nigh chilled to death by +the wind, and were ready to take shelter in a Charity-house, we turned +our weather-beaten faces toward Provincetown and the Bay again, having +now more than doubled the Cape. + +[1] I. e. a vessel. + +[2] The sea, which is arched over its sandy bottom like a heaven. + +[3] Battle. + + + + +X + +PROVINCETOWN + +Early the next morning I walked into a fish-house near our hotel, where +three or four men were engaged in trundling out the pickled fish on +barrows, and spreading them to dry. They told me that a vessel had +lately come in from the Banks with forty-four thousand codfish. Timothy +Dwight says that, just before he arrived at Provincetown, "a schooner +come in from the Great Bank with fifty-six thousand fish, almost one +thousand five hundred quintals, taken in a single voyage; the main deck +being, on her return, eight inches under water in calm weather." The cod +in this fish-house, just out of the pickle, lay packed several feet +deep, and three or four men stood on them in cowhide boots, pitching +them on to the barrows with an instrument which had a single iron point. +One young man, who chewed tobacco, spat on the fish repeatedly. Well, +sir, thought I, when that older man sees you he will speak to you. But +presently I saw the older man do the same thing. It reminded me of the +figs of Smyrna. "How long does it take to cure these fish? I asked. + +"Two good drying days, sir," was the answer. + +I walked across the street again into the hotel to breakfast, and mine +host inquired if I would take "hashed fish or beans." I took beans, +though they never were a favorite dish of mine. I found next summer that +this was still the only alternative proposed here, and the landlord was +still ringing the changes on these two words. In the former dish there +was a remarkable proportion of fish. As you travel inland the potato +predominates. It chanced that I did not taste fresh fish of any kind on +the Cape, and I was assured that they were not so much used there as in +the country. That is where they are cured, and where, sometimes, +travellers are cured of eating them. No fresh meat was slaughtered in +Provincetown, but the little that was used at the public houses was +brought from Boston by the steamer. + +[Illustration: In Provincetown harbor] + +A great many of the houses here were surrounded by fish-flakes close up +to the sills on all sides, with only a narrow passage two or three feet +wide, to the front door; so that instead of looking out into a flower or +grass plot, you looked on to so many square rods of cod turned wrong +side outwards. These parterres were said to be least like a +flower-garden in a good drying day in mid-summer. There were flakes of +every age and pattern, and some so rusty and overgrown with lichens that +they looked as if they might have served the founders of the fishery +here. Some had broken down under the weight of successive harvests. The +principal employment of the inhabitants at this time seemed to be to +trundle out their fish and spread them in the morning, and bring them in +at night. I saw how many a loafer who chanced to be out early enough got +a job at wheeling out the fish of his neighbor who was anxious to +improve the whole of a fair day. Now, then, I knew where salt fish were +caught. They were everywhere lying on their backs, their collar-bones +standing out like the lapels of a man-o'-war-man's jacket, and inviting +all things to come and rest in their bosoms; and all things, with a few +exceptions, accepted the invitation. I think, by the way, that if you +should wrap a large salt fish round a small boy, he would have a coat of +such a fashion as I have seen many a one wear to muster. Salt fish were +stacked up on the wharves, looking like corded wood, maple and yellow +birch with the bark left on. I mistook them for this at first, and such +in one sense they were,--fuel to maintain our vital fires,--an eastern +wood which grew on the Grand Banks. Some were stacked in the form of +huge flower-pots, being laid in small circles with the tails outwards, +each circle successively larger than the preceding until the pile was +three or four feet high, when the circles rapidly diminished, so as to +form a conical roof. On the shores of New Brunswick this is covered with +birch-bark, and stones are placed upon it, and being thus rendered +impervious to the rain, it is left to season before being packed for +exportation. + +It is rumored that in the fall the cows here are sometimes fed on +cod's-heads! The godlike part of the cod, which, like the human head, is +curiously and wonderfully made, forsooth has but little less brain in +it,--coming; to such an end I to be craunched by cows I I felt my own +skull crack from sympathy. What if the heads of men were to be cut off +to feed the cows of a superior order of beings who inhabit the islands +in the ether? Away goes your fine brain, the house of thought and +instinct, to swell the cud of a ruminant animal!--However, an inhabitant +assured me that they did not make a practice of feeding cows on +cod's-heads; the cows merely would eat them sometimes; but I might live +there all my days and never see it done. A cow wanting salt would also +sometimes lick out all the soft part of a cod on the flakes. This he +would have me believe was the foundation of this fish-story. + +It has been a constant traveller's tale and perhaps slander, now for +thousands of years, the Latins and Greeks have repeated it, that this or +that nation feeds its cattle, or horses, or sheep, on fish, as may be +seen in OElian and Pliny, but in the Journal of Nearchus, who was +Alexander's admiral, and made a voyage from the Indus to the Euphrates +three hundred and twenty-six years before Christ, it is said that the +inhabitants of a portion of the intermediate coast, whom he called +Ichthyophagi or Fish-eaters, not only ate fishes raw and also dried and +pounded in a whale's vertebra for a mortar and made into a paste, but +gave them to their cattle, there being no grass on the coast; and +several modern travellers--Braybosa, Niebuhr, and others--make the same +report. Therefore in balancing the evidence I am still in doubt about +the Provincetown cows. As for other domestic animals. Captain King in +his continuation of Captain Cook's Journal in 1779, says of the dogs of +Kamtschatka, "Their food in the winter consists entirely of the heads, +entrail, and backbones of salmon, which are put aside and dried for that +purpose; and with this diet they are fed but sparingly." (Cook's +Journal, Vol. VII., p. 315.) + +As we are treating of fishy matters, let me insert what Pliny says, that +"the commanders of the fleets of Alexander the Great have related that +the Gedrosi, who dwell on the banks of the river Arabis, are in the +habit of making the doors of their houses with the jaw-bones of fishes, +and raftering the roofs with their bones." Strabo tells the same of the +Ichthyophagi. "Hardouin remarks that the Basques of his day were in the +habit of fencing their gardens with the ribs of the whale, which +sometimes exceeded twenty feet in length; and Cuvier says that at the +present time the jaw-bone of the whale is used in Norway for the purpose +of making beams or posts for buildings." (Bohn's ed., trans, of Pliny, +Vol. II., p. 361.) Herodotus says the inhabitants on Lake Prasias in +Thrace (living on piles) "give fish for fodder to their horses and +beasts of burden." + +Provincetown was apparently what is called a flourishing town. Some of +the inhabitants asked me if I did not think that they appeared to be +well off generally. I said that I did, and asked how many there were in +the almshouse. "O, only one or two, infirm or idiotic," answered they. +The outward aspect of the houses and shops frequently suggested a +poverty which their interior comfort and even richness disproved. You +might meet a lady daintily dressed in the Sabbath morning, wading in +among the sandhills, from church, where there appeared no house fit to +receive her, yet no doubt the interior of the house answered to the +exterior of the lady. As for the interior of the inhabitants I am still +in the dark about it. I had a little intercourse with some whom I met in +the street, and was often agreeably disappointed by discovering the +intelligence of rough, and what would be considered unpromising +specimens. Nay, I ventured to call on one citizen the next summer, by +special invitation. I found him sitting in his front doorway, that +Sabbath evening, prepared for me to come in unto him; but unfortunately +for his reputation for keeping open house, there was stretched across +his gateway a circular cobweb of the largest kind and quite entire. This +looked so ominous that I actually turned aside and went in the back way. + +This Monday morning was beautifully mild and calm, both on land and +water, promising us a smooth passage across the Bay, and the fishermen +feared that it would not be so good a drying day as the cold and windy +one which preceded it. There could hardly have been a greater contrast. +This was the first of the Indian summer days, though at a late hour in +the morning we found the wells in the sand behind the town still covered +with ice, which had formed in the night. What with wind and sun my most +prominent feature fairly cast its slough. But I assure you it will take +more than two good drying days to cure me of rambling. After making an +excursion among the hills in the neighborhood of the Shank-Painter +Swamp, and getting a little work done in its line, we took our seat upon +the highest sand-hill overlooking the town, in mid-air, on a long plank +stretched across between two hillocks of sand, where some boys were +endeavoring in vain to fly their kite; and there we remained the rest of +that forenoon looking out over the placid harbor, and watching for the +first appearance of the steamer from Wellfleet, that we might be in +readiness to go on board when we heard the whistle off Long Point. + +We got what we could out of the boys in the meanwhile. Provincetown boys +are of course all sailors and have sailors' eyes. When we were at the +Highland Light the last summer, seven or eight miles from Provincetown +Harbor, and wished to know one Sunday morning if the _Olata_, a well-known +yacht, had got in from Boston, so that we could return in her, a +Provincetown boy about ten years old, who chanced to be at the table, +remarked that she had. I asked him how he knew. "I just saw her come +in," said he. When I expressed surprise that he could distinguish her +from other vessels so far, he said that there were not so many of those +two-topsail schooners about but that he could tell her. Palfrey said, in +his oration at Barnstable, the duck does not take to the water with a +surer instinct than the Barnstable boy. [He might have said the Cape Cod +boy as well.] He leaps from his leading-strings into the shrouds, it is +but a bound from the mother's lap to the masthead. He boxes the compass +in his infant soliloquies. He can hand, reef, and steer by the time he +flies a kite. + +This was the very day one would have chosen to sit upon a hill +overlooking sea and land, and muse there. The mackerel fleet was rapidly +taking its departure, one schooner after another, and standing round the +Cape, like fowls leaving their roosts in the morning to disperse +themselves in distant fields. The turtle-like sheds of the salt-works +were crowded into every nook in the hills, immediately behind the town, +and their now idle windmills lined the shore. It was worth the while to +see by what coarse and simple chemistry this almost necessary of life is +obtained, with the sun for journeyman, and a single apprentice to do the +chores for a large establishment. It is a sort of tropical labor, +pursued too in the sunniest season; more interesting than gold or +diamond-washing, which, I fancy, it somewhat resembles at a distance. In +the production of the necessaries of life Nature is ready enough to +assist man. So at the potash works which I have seen at Hull, where they +burn the stems of the kelp and boil the ashes. Verily, chemistry is not +a splitting of hairs when you have got half a dozen raw Irishmen in the +laboratory. It is said, that owing to the reflection of the sun from the +sand-hills, and there being absolutely no fresh water emptying into the +harbor, the same number of superficial feet yields more salt here than +in any other part of the county. A little rain is considered necessary +to clear the air, and make salt fast and good, for as paint does not +dry, so water does not evaporate in dog-day weather. But they were now, +as elsewhere on the Cape, breaking up their salt-works and selling them +for lumber. + +From that elevation we could overlook the operations of the inhabitants +almost as completely as if the roofs had been taken off. They were +busily covering the wicker-worked flakes about their houses with salted +fish, and we now saw that the back yards were improved for this purpose +as much as the front; where one man's fish ended another's began. In +almost every yard we detected some little building from which these +treasures were being trundled forth and systematically spread, and we +saw that there was an art as well as a knack even in spreading fish, and +that a division of labor was profitably practised. One man was +withdrawing his fishes a few inches beyond the nose of his neighbor's +cow which had stretched her neck over a paling to get at them. It seemed +a quite domestic employment, like drying clothes, and indeed in some +parts of the county the women take part in it. + +I noticed in several places on the Cape a sort of clothes-_flakes_. They +spread brush on the ground, and fence it round, and then lay their +clothes on it, to keep them from the sand. This is a Cape Cod +clothes-yard. + +The sand is the great enemy here. The tops of some of the hills were +enclosed and a board put up, forbidding all persons entering the +enclosure, lest their feet should disturb the sand, and set it a-blowing +or a-sliding. The inhabitants are obliged to get leave from the +authorities to cut wood behind the town for fish-flakes, bean-poles, +pea-brush, and the like, though, as we were told, they may transplant +trees from one part of the township to another without leave. The sand +drifts like snow, and sometimes the lower story of a house is concealed +by it, though it is kept off by a wall. The houses were formerly built +on piles, in order that the driving sand might pass under them. We saw a +few old ones here still standing on their piles, but they were boarded +up now, being protected by their younger neighbors. There was a +school-house, just under the hill on which we sat, filled with sand up +to the tops of the desks, and of course the master and scholars had +fled. Perhaps they had imprudently left the windows open one day, or +neglected to mend a broken pane. Yet in one place was advertised "Fine +sand for sale here,"--I could hardly believe my eyes,--probably some of +the street sifted,--a good instance of the fact that a man confers a +value on the most worthless thing by mixing himself with it, according +to which rule we must have conferred a value on the whole back-side of +Cape Cod;--but I thought that if they could have advertised "Fat Soil," +or perhaps "Fine sand got rid of," ay, and "Shoes emptied here," it +would have been more alluring. As we looked down on the town, I thought +that I saw one man, who probably lived beyond the extremity of the +planking, steering and tacking for it in a sort of snow-shoes, but I may +have been mistaken. In some pictures of Provincetown the persons of the +inhabitants are not drawn below the ankles, so much being supposed to be +buried in the sand. Nevertheless, natives of Provincetown assured me +that they could walk in the middle of the road without trouble even in +slippers, for they had learned how to put their feet down and lift them +up without taking in any sand. One man said that he should be surprised +if he found half a dozen grains of sand in his pumps at night, and +stated, moreover, that the young ladies had a dexterous way of emptying +their shoes at each step, which it would take a stranger a long time to +learn. The tires of the stage-wheels were about five inches wide; and +the wagon-tires generally on the Cape are an inch or two wider, as the +sand is an inch or two deeper than elsewhere. I saw a baby's wagon with +tires six inches wide to keep it near the surface. The more tired the +wheels, the less tired the horses. Yet all the time that we were in +Provincetown, which was two days and nights, we saw only one horse and +cart, and they were conveying a coffin. They did not try such +experiments there on common occasions. The next summer I saw only the +two-wheeled horse-cart which conveyed me thirty rods into the harbor on +my way to the steamer. Yet we read that there were two horses and two +yoke of oxen here in 1791, and we were told that there were several more +when we were there, beside the stage team. In Barber's Historical +Collections, it is said, "So rarely are wheel-carriages seen in the +place that they are a matter of some curiosity to the younger part of +the community. A lad who understood navigating the ocean much better +than land travel, on seeing a man driving a wagon in the street, +expressed his surprise at his being able to drive so straight without +the assistance of a rudder." There was no rattle of carts, and there +would have been no rattle if there had been any carts. Some +saddle-horses that passed the hotel in the evening merely made the sand +fly with a rustling sound like a writer sanding his paper copiously, but +there was no sound of their tread. No doubt there are more horses and +carts there at present, A sleigh is never seen, or at least is a great +novelty on the Cape, the snow being either absorbed by the sand or blown +into drifts. + +Nevertheless, the inhabitants of the Cape generally do not complain of +their "soil," but will tell you that it is good enough for them to dry +their fish on. + +Notwithstanding all this sand, we counted three meeting-houses, and four +school-houses nearly as large, on this street, though some had a tight +board fence about them to preserve the plot within level and hard. +Similar fences, even within a foot of many of the houses, gave the town +a less cheerful and hospitable appearance than it would otherwise have +had. They told us that, on the whole, the sand had made no progress for +the last ten years, the cows being no longer permitted to go at large, +and every means being taken to stop the sandy tide. + +In 1727 Provincetown was "invested with peculiar privileges." for its +encouragement. Once or twice it was nearly abandoned; but now lots on +the street fetch a high price, though titles to them were first obtained +by possession and improvement, and they are still transferred by +quitclaim deeds merely, the township being the property of the State. +But though lots were so valuable on the street, you might in many places +throw a stone over them to where a man could still obtain land, or sand, +by squatting on or improving it. + +[Illustration: Provincetown--A bit of the village from the wharf] + +Stones are very rare on the Cape. I saw a very few small stones used for +pavements and for bank walls, in one or two places in my walk, but they +are so scarce that, as I was informed, vessels have been forbidden to +take them from the beach for ballast, and therefore their crews used to +land at night and steal them. I did not hear of a rod of regular stone +wall below Orleans. Yet I saw one man underpinning a new house in +Eastham with some "rocks," as he called them, which he said a neighbor +had collected with great pains in the course of years, and finally made +over to him. This I thought was a gift worthy of being recorded,--equal +to a transfer of California "rocks," almost. Another man who was +assisting him, and who seemed to be a close observer of nature, hinted +to me the locality of a rock in that neighborhood which was "forty-two +paces in circumference and fifteen feet high," for he saw that I was a +stranger, and, probably, would not carry it off. Yet I suspect that the +locality of the few large rocks on the forearm of the Cape is well known +to the inhabitants generally. I even met with one man who had got a +smattering of mineralogy, but where he picked it up I could not guess. I +thought that he would meet with some interesting geological nuts for him +to crack, if he should ever visit the mainland, Cohasset, or Marblehead +for instance. + +The well stones at the Highland Light were brought from Hingham, but the +wells and cellars of the Cape are generally built of brick, which also +are imported. The cellars, as well as the wells, are made in a circular +form, to prevent the sand from pressing in the wall. The former are only +from nine to twelve feet in diameter, and are said to be very cheap, +since a single tier of brick will suffice for a cellar of even larger +dimensions. Of course, if you live in the sand, you will not require a +large cellar to hold your roots. In Provincetown, when formerly they +suffered the sand to drive under their houses, obliterating all +rudiments of a cellar, they did not raise a vegetable to put into one. +One farmer in Wellfleet, who raised fifty bushels of potatoes, showed me +his cellar under a corner of his house, not more than nine feet in +diameter, looking like a cistern: but he had another of the same size +under his barn. + +You need dig only a few feet almost anywhere near the shore of the Cape +to find fresh water. But that which we tasted was invariably poor. +though the inhabitants called it good, as if they were comparing it +with salt water. In the account of Truro, it is said. "Wells dug near +the shore are dry at low water, or rather at what is called young flood, +but are replenished with the flowing of the tide,"--- the salt water, +which is lowest in the sand, apparently forcing the fresh up. When you +express your surprise at the greenness of a Provincetown garden on the +beach, in a dry season, they will sometimes tell you that the tide +forces the moisture up to them. It is an interesting fact that low +sand-bars in the midst of the ocean, perhaps even those which are laid +bare only at low tide, are reservoirs of fresh water at which the +thirsty mariner can supply himself. They appear, like huge sponges, to +hold the rain and dew which fall on them, and which, by capillary +attraction, are prevented from mingling with the surrounding brine. + +The Harbor of Provincetown--which, as well as the greater part of the +Bay, and a wide expanse of ocean, we overlooked from our perch--is +deservedly famous. It opens to the south, is free from rocks, and is +never frozen over. It is said that the only ice seen in it drifts in +sometimes from Barnstable or Plymouth. Dwight remarks that "The storms +which prevail on the American coast generally come from the east; and +there is no other harbor on a windward shore within two hundred miles." +J. D. Graham, who has made a very minute and thorough survey of this +harbor and the adjacent waters, states that "its capacity, depth of +water, excellent anchorage, and the complete shelter it affords from all +winds, combine to render it one of the most valuable ship harbors on our +coast." It is _the_ harbor of the Cape and of the fishermen of +Massachusetts generally. It was known to navigators several years at +least before the settlement of Plymouth. In Captain John Smith's map of +New England, dated 1614. it bears the name of Milford Haven, and +Massachusetts Bay that of Stuard's Bay. His Highness, Prince Charles, +changed the name of Cape Cod to Cape James; but even princes have not +always power to change a name for the worse, and as Cotton Mather said, +Cape Cod is "a name which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of +codfish be seen swimming on its highest hills." + +Many an early voyager was unexpectedly caught by this hook, and found +himself embayed. On successive maps, Cape Cod appears sprinkled over +with French, Dutch, and English names, as it made part of New France, +New Holland, and New England. On one map Provincetown Harbor is called +"Fuic (bownet?) Bay," Barnstable Bay "Staten Bay," and the sea north of +it "Mare del Noort," or the North Sea. On another, the extremity of the +Cape is called "Staten Hoeck," or the States Hook. On another, by Young, +this has Noord Zee, Staten hoeck or Hit hoeck, but the copy at Cambridge +has no date; the whole Cape is called "Niew Hollant," (after Hudson); +and on another still, the shore between Race Point and Wood End appears +to be called "Bevechier." In Champlain's admirable Map of New France, +including the oldest recognizable map of what is now the New England +coast with which I am acquainted, Cape Cod is called C. Blan (i.e. Cape +White), from the color of its sands, and Massachusetts Bay is Baye +Blanche. It was visited by De Monts and Champlain in 1605, and the next +year was further explored by Poitrincourt and Champlain. The latter has +given a particular account of these explorations in his "Voyages," +together with separate charts and soundings of two of its +harbors,--_Malle Barre_, the Bad Bar (Nauset Harbor?), a name now applied +to what the French called _Cap Baturier_; and _Port Fortune_, apparently +Chatham Harbor. Both these names are copied on the map of "Novi Belgii," +in Ogilvy's America. He also describes minutely the manners and customs +of the savages, and represents by a plate the savages surprising the +French and killing five or six of them. The French afterward killed some +of the natives, and wished, by way of revenge, to carry off some and +make them grind in their hand-mill at Port Royal. + +It is remarkable that there is not in English any adequate or correct +account of the French exploration of what is now the coast of New +England, between 1604 and 1608, though it is conceded that they then +made the first permanent European settlement on the continent of North +America north of St. Augustine. If the lions had been the painters it +would have been otherwise. This omission is probably to be accounted for +partly by the fact that the _early edition_ of Champlain's "Voyages" had +not been consulted for this purpose. This contains by far the most +particular, and, I think, the most interesting chapter of what we may +call the Ante-Pilgrim history of New England, extending to one hundred +and sixty pages quarto; but appears to be unknown equally to the +historian and the orator on Plymouth Rock. Bancroft does not mention +Champlain at all among the authorities for De Monts's expedition, nor +does he say that he ever visited the coast of New England. Though he +bore the title of pilot to De Monts, he was, in _another sense_, the +leading spirit, as well as the historian of the expedition. Holmes, +Hildreth, and Barry, and apparently all our historians who mention +Champlain, refer to the edition of 1632, in which all the separate +charts of our harbors, etc., and about one-half the narrative, are +omitted; for the author explored so many lands afterward that he could +afford to forget a part of what he had done. Hildreth, speaking of De +Monts's expedition, says that "he looked into the Penobscot [in 1605], +which Pring had discovered two years before," saying nothing about +Champlain's extensive exploration of it for De Monts in 1604 (Holmes +says 1608, and refers to Purchas); also that he followed in the track of +Pring along the coast "to Cape Cod, which he called Malabarre." +(Haliburton had made the same statement before him in 1829. He called it +Cap Blanc, and Malle Barre (the Bad Bar) was the name given to a harbor +on the east side of the Cape). Pring says nothing about a river there. +Belknap says that Weymouth discovered it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges, says, +in his narration (Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. 19), 1658, that Pring +in 1606 "made a perfect discovery of all the rivers and harbors." This +is the most I can find. Bancroft makes Champlain to have dis-covered +more western rivers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, however, +must have been the discoverer of distances on this river (see Belknap, +p. 147). Pring was absent from England only about six months, and sailed +by this part of Cape Cod (Malabarre) be-cause it yielded no sassafras, +while the French, who probably had not heard of Pring, were patiently +for years exploring the coast in search of a place of settlement, +sounding and surveying its harbors. + +John Smith's map, published in 1616, from observations in 1614-15, is by +many regarded as the oldest map of New England. It is the first that was +made after this country was called New England, for he so called it; but +in Champlain's "Voyages," edition 1613 (and Lescarbot, in 1612, quotes a +still earlier account of his voyage), there is a map of it made when it +was known to Christendom as New France, called _Carte Geographique de la +Nouvelle Franse faictte par le Sieur de Champlain Saint Tongois +Cappitaine ordinaire pour le roi en la Marine,--faict l'en 1612_, from +his observations between 1604 and 1607; a map extending from Labrador to +Cape Cod and westward _to the Great Lakes_, and crowded with information, +geographical, ethnographical, zoological, and botanical. He even gives +the variation of the compass as observed by himself at that date on many +parts of the coast. This, taken together with the many _separate charts_ +of harbors and their soundings on a large scale, which this volume +contains,--among the rest. _Qui ni be quy_ (Kennebec), _Chouacoit R._ (Saco +R.), _Le Beau port, Port St. Louis_ (near Cape Ann), and others on our +coast,--but _which are not in the edition of 1632_, makes this a completer +map of the New England and adjacent northern coast than was made for +half a century afterward, almost, we might be allowed to say, till +another Frenchman, Des Barres, made another for us, which only our late +Coast Survey has superseded. Most of the maps of this coast made for a +long time after betray their indebtedness to Champlain. He was a skilful +navigator, a man of science, and geographer to the King of France. He +crossed the Atlantic about twenty times, and made nothing of it; often +in a small vessel in which few would dare to go to sea today; and on one +occasion making the voyage from Tadoussac to St. Malo in eighteen days. +He was in this neighborhood, that is, between Annapolis, Nova Scotia, +and Cape Cod, observing the land and its inhabitants, and making a map +of the coast, from May, 1604, to September, 1607, _or about three and a +half years_, and he has described minutely his method of surveying +harbors. By his own account, a part of his map was engraved in 1604 (?). +When Pont-Grave and others returned to France in 1606, he remained at +Port Royal with Poitrincourt, "in order," says he, "by the aid of God, +to finish the chart of the coasts which I had begun"; and again in his +volume, printed before John Smith visited this part of America, he says: +"It seems to me that I have done my duty as far as I could, if I have +not forgotten to put in my said chart whatever I saw, and give a +particular knowledge to the public of what had never been described nor +discovered so particularly as I have done it, although some other may +have heretofore written of it; but it was a very small affair in +comparison with what we have discovered within the last ten years." + +It is not generally remembered, if known, by the descendants of the +Pilgrims, that when their forefathers were spending their first +memorable winter in the New World, they had for neighbors a colony of +French no further off than Port Royal (Annapolis, Nova Scotia), three +hundred miles distant (Prince seems to make it about five hundred +miles); where, in spite of many vicissitudes, they had been for fifteen +years. They built a grist-mill there as early as 1606; also made bricks +and turpentine on a stream, Williamson says, in 1606. De Monts, who was +a Protestant, brought his minister with him, who came to blows with the +Catholic priest on the subject of religion. Though these founders of +Acadie endured no less than the Pilgrims, and about the same proportion +of them--thirty-five out of seventy-nine (Williamson's Maine says +thirty-six out of seventy)--died the first winter at St. Croix, 1604-5, +sixteen years earlier, no orator, to my knowledge, has ever celebrated +their enterprise (Williamson's History of Maine does considerably), +while the trials which their successors and descendants endured at the +hands of the English have furnished a theme for both the historian and +poet. (See Bancroft's History and Longfellow's Evangeline.) The remains +at their fort at St. Croix were discovered at the end of the last +century, and helped decide where the true St. Croix, our boundary, was. + +The very gravestones of those Frenchmen are probably older than the +oldest English monument in New England north of the Elizabeth Islands, +or perhaps anywhere in New England, for if there are any traces of +Gosnold's storehouse left, his strong works are gone. Bancroft says, +advisedly, in 1834, "It requires a believing eye to discern the ruins of +the fort"; and that there were no ruins of a fort in 1837. Dr. Charles +T. Jackson tells me that, in the course of a geological survey in 1827, +he discovered a gravestone, a slab of trap rock, on Goat Island, +opposite Annapolis (Port Royal), in Nova Scotia, bearing a Masonic +coat-of-arms and the date 1606, which is fourteen years earlier than the +landing of the Pilgrims. This was left in the possession of Judge +Haliburton, of Nova Scotia. + +There were Jesuit priests in what has since been called New England, +converting the savages at Mount Desert, then St. Savior, in +1613,--having come over to Port Royal in 1611, though they were almost +immediately interrupted by the English, years before the Pilgrims came +hither to enjoy their own religion. This according to Champlain. +Charlevoix says the same; and after coming from France in 1611, went +west from Port Royal along the coast as far as the Kennebec in 1612, and +was often carried from Port Royal to Mount Desert. + +Indeed, the Englishman's history of _New_ England commences only when it +ceases to be _New_ France. Though Cabot was the first to discover the +continent of North America, Champlain, in the edition of his "Voyages" +printed in 1632, after the English had for a season got possession of +Quebec and Port Royal, complains with no little justice: "The common +consent of all Europe is to represent New France as extending at least +to the thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth degrees of latitude, as appears by +the maps of the world printed in Spain, Italy, Holland, Flanders, +Germany, and England, until they possessed themselves of the coasts of +New France, where are Acadie, the Etchemins (Maine and New Brunswick), +the Almouchicois (Massachusetts?), and the Great River St. Lawrence, +where they have imposed, according to their fancy, such names as New +England, Scotland, and others; but it is not easy to efface the memory +of a thing which is known to all Christendom." + +That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabitable shore of Labrador, gave +the English no just title to New England, or to the United States, +generally, any more than to Patagonia. His careful biographer (Biddle) +is not certain in what voyage he ran down the coast of the United States +as is reported, and no one tells us what he saw. Miller, in the New York +Hist. Coll., Vol. I., p. 28, says he does not appear to have landed +anywhere. Contrast with this Verrazzani's tarrying fifteen days at one +place on the New England coast, and making frequent excursions into the +interior thence. It chances that the latter's letter to Francis I., in +1524, contains "the earliest original account extant of the Atlantic +coast of the United States"; and even from that time the northern part +of it began to be called _La Terra Francese_, or French Land. A part of it +was called New Holland before it was called New England. The English +were very back-ward to explore and settle the continent which they had +stumbled upon. The French preceded them both in their attempts to +colonize the continent of North America (Carolina and Florida, 1562-4), +and in their first permanent settlement (Port Royal, 1605); and the +right of possession, naturally enough, was the one which England mainly +respected and recognized in the case of Spain, of Portugal, and also of +France, from the time of Henry VII. + +The explorations of the French gave to the world the first valuable maps +of these coasts. Denys of Honfleur made a map of the Gulf of St. +Lawrence in 1506. No sooner had Cartier explored the St. Lawrence, in +1535, than there began to be published by his countrymen remarkably +accurate charts of that river as far up as Montreal. It is almost all of +the continent north of Florida that you recognize on charts for more +than a generation afterward,--though Verrazzani's rude plot (made under +French auspices) was regarded by Hackluyt, more than fifty years after +his voyage (in 1524), as the most accurate representation of our coast. +The French trail is distinct. They went measuring and sounding, and when +they got home had something to show for their voyages and explorations. +There was no danger of their charts being lost, as Cabot's have been. + +The most distinguished navigators of that day were Italians, or of +Italian descent, and Portuguese. The French and Spaniards, though less +advanced in the science of navigation than the former, possessed more +imagination and spirit of adventure than the English, and were better +fitted to be the explorers of a new continent even as late as 1751. + +This spirit it was which so early carried the French to the Great Lakes +and the Mississippi on the north, and the Spaniard to the same river on +the south. It was long before our frontiers reached their settlements in +the west, and a _voyageur_ or _coureur de bois_ is still our conductor +there. Prairie is a French word, as Sierra is a Spanish one. Augustine +in Florida, and Santa Fe in New Mexico [1582], both built by the +Spaniards, are considered the oldest towns in the United States. Within +the memory of the oldest man, the Anglo-Americans were confined between +the Appalachian Mountains and the sea, "a space not two hundred miles +broad," while the Mississippi was by treaty the eastern boundary of New +France. (See the pamphlet on settling the Ohio, London, 1763, bound up +with the travels of Sir John Bartram.) So far as inland discovery was +concerned, the adventurous spirit of the English was that of sailors who +land but for a day, and their enterprise the enterprise of traders. +Cabot spoke like an Englishman, as he was, if he said, as one reports, +in reference to the discovery of the American Continent, when he found +it running toward the north, that it was a great disappointment to him, +being in his way to India; but we would rather add to than detract from +the fame of so great a discoverer. + +Samuel Penhallow, in his history (Boston, 1726), p. 51, speaking of +"Port Royal and Nova Scotia," says of the last that its "first seizure +was by Sir Sebastian Cobbet for the crown of Great Britain, in the reign +of King Henry VII.; but lay dormant till the year 1621," when Sir +William Alexander got a patent of it, and possessed it some years; and +afterward Sir David Kirk was proprietor of it, but erelong, "to the +surprise of all thinking men, it was given up unto the French." + +Even as late as 1633 we find Winthrop, the first Governor of the +Massachusetts Colony, who was not the most likely to be misinformed, +who, moreover, has the _fame_, at least, of having discovered Wachusett +Mountain (discerned it forty miles inland), talking about the "Great +Lake" and the "hideous swamps about it," near which the Connecticut and +the "Potomack" took their rise; and among the memorable events of the +year 1642 he chronicles Darby Field, an Irishman's expedition to the +"White hill," from whose top he saw eastward what he "judged to be the +Gulf of Canada," and westward what he "judged to be the great lake which +Canada River comes out of," and where he found much "Muscovy glass," and +"could rive out pieces of forty feet long and seven or eight broad." +While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the +country a hundred miles inland, which was a _terra incognita_ to them,--or +rather many years before the earliest date referred to,--Champlain, the +_first Governor of Canada_, not to mention the inland discoveries of +Cartier, [1] Roberval, and others, of the preceding century, and his own +earlier voyage, had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their +forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, +before a Pilgrim had heard of New England. + +In Champlain's "Voyages," printed in 1613, there is a plate representing +a fight in which he aided the Canada Indians against the Iroquois, near +the south end of Lake Champlain, in July, 1609, eleven years before the +settlement of Plymouth. Bancroft says he joined the Algonquins in an +expedition against the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in the northwest of +New York. This is that "Great Lake," which the English, hearing some +rumor of from the French, long after, locate in an "Imaginary Province +called Laconia, and spent several years about 1630 in the vain attempt +to discover." (Sir Ferdinand Gorges, in Maine Hist. Coll., Vol. II., p. +68.) Thomas Morton has a chapter on this "Great Lake." In the edition of +Champlain's map dated 1632, the Falls of Niagara appear; and in a great +lake northwest of _Mer Douce_ (Lake Huron) there is an island represented, +over which is written, "_Isle ou il y a une mine de cuivre_,"--"Island +where there is a mine of copper." This will do for an offset to our +Governor's "Muscovy Glass." Of all these adventures and discoveries we +have a minute and faithful account, giving facts and dates as well as +charts and soundings, all scientific and Frenchman-like, with scarcely +one fable or traveller's story. + +Probably Cape Cod was visited by Europeans long before the seventeenth +century. It may be that Cabot himself beheld it. Verrazzani, in 1524, +according to his own account, spent fifteen days on our coast, in +latitude 41 degrees 40 minutes (some suppose in the harbor of Newport), +and often went five or six leagues into the interior there, and he says +that he sailed thence at once one hundred and fifty leagues +northeasterly, _always in sight of the coast_. There is a chart in +Hackluyt's "Divers Voyages," made according to Verrazzani's plot, which +last is praised for its accuracy by Hackluyt, but I cannot distinguish +Cape Cod on it, unless it is the "C. Arenas," which is in the right +latitude, though ten degrees west of "Claudia," which is thought to be +Block Island. + +The "Biographic Universelle" informs us that "An ancient manuscript +chart drawn in 1529 by Diego Ribeiro, a Spanish cosmographer, has +preserved the memory of the voyage of Gomez [a Portuguese sent out by +Charles the Fifth]. One reads in it under (_au dessous_) the place +occupied by the States of New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, _Terre +d'Etienne Gomez, qu'il decouvrit en 1525_ (Land of Etienne Gomez, which +he discovered in 1525)." This chart, with a memoir, was published at +Weimar in the last century. + +Jean Alphonse, Roberval's pilot in Canada in 1642, one of the most +skilful navigators of his time, and who has given remarkably minute and +accurate direction for sailing up the St. Lawrence, showing that he +knows what he is talking about, says in his "_Routier_" (it is in +Hackluyt), "I have been at a bay as far as the forty-second degree, +between Norimbegue [the Penobscot?] and Florida, but I have not explored +the bottom of it, and I do not know whether it passes from one land to +the other," _i.e._ to Asia. (" J'ai ete a une Baye jusques par les 42 +degres entre la Norimbegue et la Floride; mais je n'en ai pas cherche le +fond, et ne scais pas si elle passe d'une terre a I'autre.") This may +refer to Massachusetts Bay, if not possibly to the western inclination +of the coast a little farther south. When he says, "I have no doubt that +the Norimbegue enters into the river of Canada," he is perhaps so +interpreting some account which the Indians had given respecting the +route from the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic by the St. John, or +Penobscot, or possibly even the Hudson River. + +We hear rumors of this country of "Norumbega" and its great city from +many quarters. In a discourse by a great French sea-captain in Ramusio's +third volume (1556-65), this is said to be the name given to the land by +its inhabitants, and Verrazzani is called the discoverer of it; another +in 1607 makes the natives call it, or the river, Aguncia. It is +represented as an island on an accompanying chart. It is frequently +spoken of by old writers as a country of indefinite extent, between +Canada and Florida, and it appears as a large island with Cape Breton at +its eastern extremity, on the map made according to Verrazzani's plot in +Hackluyt's "Divers Voyages." These maps and rumors may have been the +origin of the notion, common among the early settlers, that New England +was an island. The country and city of Norumbega appear about where +Maine now is on a map in Ortelius ("Theatrum Orbis Terrarum," Antwerp, +1570), and the "R. Grande" is drawn where the Penobscot or St. John +might be. + +In 1604, Champlain being sent by the Sieur de Monts to explore the coast +of Norumbegue, sailed up the Penobscot twenty-two or twenty-three +leagues from "Isle Haute," or till he was stopped by the falls. He says: +"I think that this river is that which many pilots and historians call +Norumbegue, and which the greater part have described as great and +spacious, with numerous islands; and its entrance in the forty-third or +forty-third and one half or, according to others, the forty-fourth +degree of latitude, more or less." He is convinced that "the greater +part" of those who speak of a great city there have never seen it, but +repeat a mere rumor, but he thinks that some have seen the mouth of the +river since it answers to their description. + +Under date of 1607 Champlain writes: "Three or four leagues north of the +Cap de Poitrincourt [near the head of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia] +we found a cross, which was very old, covered with moss and almost all +decayed, which was an evident sign that there had formerly been +Christians there." + +Also the following passage from Lescarbot will show how much the +neighboring coasts were frequented by Europeans in the sixteenth +century. Speaking of his return from Port Royal to France in 1607, he +says: "At last, within four leagues of Campseau [the Gut of Canso], we +arrived at a harbor [in Nova Scotia], where a worthy old gentleman from +St. John de Lus, named Captain Savale, was fishing, who received us with +the utmost courtesy. And as this harbor, which is small, but very good, +has no name, I have given it on my geographical chart the name of +Savalet. [It is on Champlain's map also.] This worthy man told us that +this voyage was the forty-second which he had made to those parts, and +yet the Newfoundlanders [_Terre neuviers_] make only one a year. He was +wonderfully content with his fishery, and informed us that he made daily +fifty crowns' worth of cod, and that his voyage would be worth ten +thousand francs. He had sixteen men in his employ; and his vessel was of +eighty tons, which could carry a hundred thousand dry cod." (Histoire de +la Nouvelle France, 1612.) They dried their fish on the rocks on shore. + +The "Isola della Rena" (Sable Island?) appears on the chart of "Nuova +Francia" and Norumbega, accompanying the "Discourse" above referred to +in Ramusio's third volume, edition 1556-65. Champlain speaks of there +being at the Isle of Sable, in 1604, "grass pastured by oxen (_boeufs_) +and cows which the Portuguese carried there more than sixty years ago," +_i.e._ sixty years before 1613; in a later edition he says, which came +out of a Spanish vessel which was lost in endeavoring to settle on the +Isle of Sable; and he states that De la Roche's men, who were left on +this island seven years from 1598, lived on the flesh of these cattle +which they found "_en quantie)_," and built houses out of the wrecks of +vessels which came to the island ("perhaps Gilbert's"), there being no +wood or stone. Lescarbot says that they lived "on fish and the milk of +cows left there about eighty years before by Baron de Leri and Saint +Just." Charlevoix says they ate up the cattle and then lived on fish. +Haliburton speaks of cattle left there as a rumor. De Leri and Saint +Just had suggested plans of colonization on the Isle of Sable as early +as 1515 (1508?) according to Bancroft, referring to Charlevoix. These +are but a few of the instances which I might quote. + +Cape Cod is commonly said to have been discovered in 1602. We will +consider at length under what circumstances, and with what observation +and expectations, the first Englishmen whom history clearly discerns +approached the coast of New England. According to the accounts of Archer +and Brereton (both of whom accompanied Gosnold), on the 26th of March, +1602, old style. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold set sail from Falmouth, +England, for the North part of Virginia, in a small bark called the +_Concord_, they being in all, says one account, "thirty-two persons, +whereof eight mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery +to return with the ship for England, the rest remain there for +population." This is regarded as "the first attempt of the English to +make a settlement within the limits of New England." Pursuing a new and +a shorter course than the usual one by the Canaries, "the 14th of April +following" they had sight of Saint Mary's, an island of the Azores. As +their sailors were few and "none of the best" (I use their own +phrases), and they were "going upon an unknown coast," they were not +"overbold to stand in with the shore but in open weather"; so they made +their first discovery of land with the lead. The 23d of April the ocean +appeared yellow, but on taking up some of the water in a bucket, "it +altered not either in color or taste from the sea azure." The 7th of May +they saw divers birds whose names they knew, and many others in their +"English tongue of no name." The 8th of May "the water changed to a +yellowish green, where at seventy fathoms" they "had ground." The 9th, +they had upon their lead "many glittering stones,"--"which might promise +some mineral matter in the bottom." The 10th, they were over a bank +which they thought to be near the western end of St. John's Island, and +saw schools of fish. The 12th, they say, "continually passed fleeting by +us sea-oare, which seemed to have their movable course towards the +northeast." On the 13th, they observed "great beds of weeds, much wood, +and divers things else floating by," and "had smelling of the shore much +as from the southern Cape and Andalusia in Spain." On Friday, the 14th, +early in the morning they descried land on the north, in the latitude of +forty-three degrees, apparently some part of the coast of Maine. +Williamson (History of Maine) says it certainly could not have been +south of the central Isle of Shoals. Belknap inclines to think it the +south side of Cape Ann. Standing fair along by the shore, about twelve +o'clock the same day, they came to anchor and were visited by eight +savages, who came off to them "in a Biscay shallop, with sail and +oars,"--"an iron grapple, and a kettle of copper." These they at first +mistook for "Christians distressed." One of them was "apparelled with a +waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea-fashion, hoes +and shoes on his feet; all the rest (saving one that had a pair of +breeches of blue cloth) were naked." They appeared to have had dealings +with "some Basques of St. John de Luz, and to understand much more than +we," say the English, "for want of language, could comprehend." But they +soon "set sail westward, leaving them and their coast." (This was a +remarkable discovery for discoverers.) + +"The 15th day," writes Gabriel Archer, "we had again sight of the land, +which made ahead, being as we thought an island, by reason of a large +sound that appeared westward between it and the main, for coming to the +west end thereof, we did perceive a large opening, we called it Shoal +Hope. Near this cape we came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took +great store of cod-fish, for which we altered the name and called it +Cape Cod. Here we saw skulls of her-ring, mackerel, and other small +fish, in great abundance. This is a low sandy shoal, but without danger; +also we came to anchor again in sixteen fathoms, fair by the land in the +latitude of forty-two degrees. This Cape is well near a mile broad, and +lieth northeast by east. The captain went here ashore, and found the +ground to be full of peas, strawberries, whortleberries, etc., as then +unripe, the sand also by the shore somewhat deep; the firewood there by +us taken in was of cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beach. A young +Indian came here to the captain, armed with his bow and arrows, and had +certain plates of copper hanging at his ears; he showed a willingness +to help us in our occasions." + +"The 16th we trended the coast southerly, which was all champaign and +full of grass, but the islands somewhat woody." + +Or, according to the account of John Brereton, "riding here," that is, +where they first communicated with the natives, "in no very good harbor, +and withal doubting the weather, about three of the clock the same day +in the afternoon we weighed, and standing southerly off into sea the +rest of that day and the night following, with a fresh gale of wind, in +the morning we found ourselves embayed with a mighty headland; but +coming to an anchor about nine of the clock the same day, within a +league of the shore, we hoisted out the one half of our shallop, and +Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, myself and three others, went ashore, being +a white sandy and very bold shore; and marching all that afternoon with +our muskets on our necks, on the highest hills which we saw (the weather +very hot), at length we perceived this headland to be parcel of the +main, and sundry islands lying almost round about it; so returning +towards evening to our shallop (for by that time the other part was +brought ashore and set together), we espied an Indian, a young man of +proper stature, and of a pleasing countenance, and after some +familiarity with him, we left him at the sea side, and returned to our +ship, where in five or six hours' absence we had pestered our ship so +with codfish, that we threw numbers of them overboard again; and surely +I am persuaded that in the months of March, April, and May, there is +upon this coast better fishing, and in as great plenty, as in +Newfoundland; for the skulls of mackerel, herrings, cod, and other fish, +that we daily saw as we went and came from the shore, were wonderful," +etc. + +"From this place we sailed round about this headland, almost all the +points of the compass, the shore very bold; but as no coast is free from +dangers, so I am persuaded this is as free as any. The land somewhat +low, full of goodly woods, but in some places plain." + +It is not quite clear on which side of the Cape they landed. If it was +inside, as would appear from Brereton's words, "From this place we +sailed round about this headland almost all the points of the compass," +it must have been on the western shore either of Truro or Wellfleet. To +one sailing south into Barnstable Bay along the Cape, the only "white, +sandy, and very bold shore" that appears is in these towns, though the +bank is not so high there as on the eastern side. At a distance of four +or five miles the sandy cliffs there look like a long fort of yellow +sandstone, they are so level and regular, especially in Wellfleet,--the +fort of the land defending itself against the encroachments of the +Ocean. They are streaked here and there with a reddish sand as if +painted. Farther south the shore is more flat, and less _obviously_ and +abruptly sandy, and a little tinge of green here and there in the +marshes appears to the sailor like a rare and precious emerald. But in +the Journal of Pring's Voyage the next year (and Salterne, who was with +Pring, had accompanied Gosnold) it is said, "Departing hence [_i.e._ from +Savage Rocks] we bore unto that great gulf which Captain Gosnold +overshot the year before." [2] + +So they sailed round the Cape, calling the southeasterly extremity +"Point Cave," till they came to an island which they named Martha's +Vineyard (now called No Man's Land), and another on which they dwelt +awhile, which they named Elizabeth's Island, in honor of the Queen, one +of the group since so called, now known by its Indian name Cuttyhunk. +There they built a small storehouse, the first house built by the +English in New England, whose cellar could recently still be seen, made +partly of stones taken from the beach. Bancroft says (edition of 1837), +the ruins of the fort can no longer be discerned. They who were to have +remained becoming discontented, all together set sail for England with a +load of sassafras and other commodities, on the 18th of June following. + +The next year came Martin Pring, looking for sassafras, and thereafter +they began to come thick and fast, until long after sassafras had lost +its reputation. + +These are the oldest acounts which we have of Cape Cod, unless, +perchance. Cape Cod is, as some suppose, the same with that +"Kial-ar-nes" or Keel-Cape, on which, according to old Icelandic +manuscripts, Thorwald, son of Eric the Red, after sailing many days +southwest from Greenland, broke his keel in the year 1004; and where, +according to another, in some respects less trustworthy manuscript, +Thor-finn Karlsefue ("that is, one who promises or is destined to be an +able or great man"; he is said to have had a son born in New. England, +from whom Thorwaldsen the sculptor was descended), sailing past, in the +year 1007, with his wife Gudrida, Snorre Thorbrandson, Biarne +Grinolfson, and Thorhall Garnlason, distinguished Norsemen, in three +ships containing "one hundred and sixty men and all sorts of live stock" +(probably the first Norway rats among the rest), having the land "on the +right side" of them, "roved ashore," and found "_Or-oefi_ (trackless +deserts)," and "_Strand-ir lang-ar ok sand-ar_ (long narrow beaches and +sand-hills)," and "called the shores _Furdustrand-ir_ (Wonder-Strands), +because the sailing by them seemed long." + +According to the Icelandic manuscripts, _Thorwald_ was the first, +then,--unless possibly one Biarne Heriulfson (_i.e._ son of Heriulf) who +had been seized with a great desire to travel, sailing from Iceland to +Greenland in the year 986 to join his father who had migrated thither, +for he had resolved, says the manuscript, "to spend the following +winter, like all the preceding ones, with his father,"--being driven far +to the southwest by a storm, when it cleared up saw the low land of Cape +Cod looming faintly in the distance; but this not answering to the +description of Greenland, he put his vessel about, and, sailing +northward along the coast, at length reached Greenland and his father. +At any rate, he may put forth a strong claim to be regarded as the +discoverer of the American continent. + +These Northmen were a hardy race, whose younger sons inherited the +ocean, and traversed it without chart or compass, and they are said to +have been "the first who learned the art of sailing on a wind." +Moreover, they had a habit of casting their door-posts overboard and +settling wherever they went ashore. But as Biarne, and Thorwald, and +Thorfinn have not mentioned the latitude and longitude distinctly +enough, though we have great respect for them as skilful and adventurous +navigators, we must for the present remain in doubt as to what capes +they did see. We think that they were considerably further north. + +If time and space permitted, I could present the claims of other several +worthy persons. Lescarbot, in 1609, asserts that the French sailors had +been accustomed to frequent the Newfoundland Banks from time immemorial, +"for the codfish with which they feed almost all Europe and supply all +sea-going vessels," and accordingly "the language of the nearest lands +is half Basque"; and he quotes Postel, a learned but extravagant French +author, born in 1510, only six years after the Basques, Bretons, and +Normans are said to have discovered the Grand Bank and adjacent islands, +as saying, in his _Charte Geographique_, which we have not seen: "Terra +haec ob lucrosissimam piscationis utilitatem summa litterarum memoria a +Gallis adiri solita, et ante mille sexcentos annos frequentari solita +est; sed eo quod sit urbibus inculta et vasta, spreta est." "This land, +on account of its very lucrative fishery, was accustomed to be visited +by the Gauls from the very dawn of history, and more than sixteen +hundred years ago was accustomed to be frequented; but because it was +unadorned with cities, and waste, it was despised." + +It is the old story. Bob Smith discovered the mine, but I discovered it +to the world. And now Bob Smith is putting in his claim. + +But let us not laugh at Postel and his visions. He was perhaps better +posted up than we; and if he does seem to draw the long bow, it may be +because he had a long way to shoot,--quite across the Atlantic, If +America was found and lost again once, as most of us believe, then why +not twice? especially as there were likely to be so few records of an +earlier discovery. Consider what stuff history is made of,--that for the +most part it is merely a story agreed on by posterity. Who will tell us +even how many Russians were engaged in the battle of the Chernaya, the +other day? Yet no doubt, Mr. Scriblerus, the historian, will fix on a +definite number for the schoolboys to commit to their excellent +memories. What, then, of the number of Persians at Salamis? The +historian whom I read knew as much about the position of the parties and +their tactics in the last-mentioned affair, as they who describe a +recent battle in an article for the press now-a-days, before the +particulars have arrived. I believe that, if I were to live the life of +mankind over again myself (which I would not be hired to do), with the +Universal History in my hands, I should not be able to tell what was +what. + +Earlier than the date Postel refers to, at any rate. Cape Cod lay in +utter darkness to the civilized world, though even then the sun rose +from eastward out of the sea every day, and, rolling over the Cape, went +down westward into the Bay. It was even then Cape and Bay,--ay, the Cape +of _Codfish_, and the Bay of the _Massachusetts_, perchance. + +Quite recently, on the 11th of November, 1620, old style, as is well +known, the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_ came to anchor in Cape Cod harbor. +They had loosed from Plymouth, England, the 6th of September, and, in +the words of "Mourts' Relation," "after many difficulties in boisterous +storms, at length, by God's providence, upon the 9th of November, we +espied land, which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved. +Upon the 11th of November we came to anchor in the bay, which is a good +harbor and pleasant bay, circled round except in the entrance, which is +about four miles over from land to land, compassed about to the very sea +with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other sweet wood. It is a +harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. There we +relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people, while +our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation." +There we put up at Fuller's Hotel, passing by the Pilgrim House as too +high for us (we learned afterward that we need not have been so +particular), and we refreshed ourselves with hashed fish and beans, +beside taking in a supply of liquids (which were not intoxicating), +while our legs were refitted to coast the back-side. Further say the +Pilgrims: "We could not come near the shore by three quarters of an +English mile, because of shallow water; which was a great prejudice to +us; for our people going on shore were forced to wade a bow-shot or two +in going aland, which caused many to get colds and coughs; for it was +many times freezing cold weather." They afterwards say: "It brought much +weakness amongst us"; and no doubt it led to the death of some at +Plymouth. + +The harbor of Provincetown is very shallow near the shore, especially +about the head, where the Pilgrims landed. When I left this place the +next summer, the steamer could not get up to the wharf, but we were +carried out to a large boat in a cart as much as thirty rods in shallow +water, while a troop of little boys kept us company, wading around, and +thence we pulled to the steamer by a rope. The harbor being thus shallow +and sandy about the shore, coasters are accustomed to run in here to +paint their vessels, which are left high and dry when the tide goes +down. + +It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were there, I had joined a +party of men who were smoking and lolling over a pile of boards on one +of the wharves (_nihil humanum a me, etc_.), when our landlord, who was a +sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors who were engaged in +painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from time to time by +other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had just got out +of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom there to +lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked that, +as I thought, they might as well let the men paint, for all us. It was +not noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in +the company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain +contradiction of the law of God, which he quoted, and if they did not +have some such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, +and paint, and they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good +argument enough, if he had not put it in the name of religion. The next +summer, as I sat on a hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon the +meeting-house windows being open, my meditations were interrupted by the +noise of a preacher who shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet +atmosphere, and who, I fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things +could have been more disgusting or disheartening. I wished the +tithing-man would stop him. + +[Illustration: The day of rest] + +The Pilgrims say: "There was the greatest store of fowl that ever we +saw." + +We saw no fowl there, except gulls of various kinds; but the greatest +store of them that ever we saw was on a flat but slightly covered with +water on the east side of the harbor, and we observed a man who had +landed there from a boat creeping along the shore in order to get a shot +at them, but they all rose and flew away in a great scattering flock, +too soon for him, having apparently got their dinners, though he did not +get his. + +It is remarkable that the Pilgrims (or their reporter) describe this +part of the Cape, not only as well wooded, but as having a deep and +excellent soil, and hardly mention the word _sand_. Now what strikes the +voyager is the barrenness and desolation of the land. _They_ found "the +ground or earth sand-hills, much like the downs in Holland, but much +better the crust of the earth, a spit's depth, excellent black earth." +_We_ found that the earth had lost its crust,--if, in-deed, it ever had +any,--and that there was no soil to speak of. We did not see enough +black earth in Provincetown to fill a flower-pot, unless in the swamps. +They found it "all wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, birch, +holly, vines, some ash, walnut; the wood for the most part open and +without underwood, fit either to go or ride in." We saw scarcely +anything high enough to be called a tree, except a little low wood at +the east end of the town, and the few ornamental trees in its +yards,--only a few small specimens of some of the above kinds on the +sand-hills in the rear; but it was all thick shrubbery, without any +large wood above it, very unfit either to go or ride in. The greater +part of the land was a perfect desert of yellow sand, rippled like waves +by the wind, in which only a little Beach-grass grew here and there. +They say that, just after passing the head of East Harbor Creek, the +boughs and bushes "tore" their "very armor in pieces" (the same thing +happened to such armor as we wore, when out of curiosity we took to the +bushes); or they came to deep valleys, "full of brush, wood-gaile, and +long grass," and "found springs of fresh water." + +For the most part we saw neither bough nor bush, not so much as a shrub +to tear our clothes against if we would, and a sheep would lose none of +its fleece, even if it found herbage enough to make fleece grow there. +We saw rather beach and poverty-grass, and merely sorrel enough to color +the surface. I suppose, then, by Woodgaile they mean the Bay berry. + +All accounts agree in affirming that this part of the Cape was +_comparatively_ well wooded a century ago. But notwithstanding the great +changes which have taken place in these respects, I cannot but think +that we must make some allowance for the greenness of the Pilgrims in +these matters, which caused them to see green. We do not believe that +the trees were large or the soil was deep here. Their account may be +true particularly, but it is generally false. They saw literally, as +well as figuratively, but one side of the Cape. They naturally +exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness of the land, for they were +glad to get to any land at all after that anxious voyage. Everything +appeared to them of the color of the rose, and had the scent of juniper +and sassafras. Very different is the general and off-hand account given +by Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six years earlier, and +speaks like an old traveller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too +much of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it. +In his "Description of New England," printed in 1616, after speaking of +Accomack, since called Plymouth, he says: "Cape Cod is the next presents +itself, which is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with +shrubby pines, _hurts_ [i.e. whorts, or whortleberries], and such trash, +but an excellent harbor for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main +sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle." +Champlain had already written, "Which we named _Cap Blanc_ (Cape White), +because they were sands and downs (_sables et dunes_) which appeared +thus." + +When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter says again, "The land +for the crust of the earth is a spit's depth,"--that would seem to be +their recipe for an earth's crust,--"excellent black mould and fat in +some places." However, according to Bradford himself, whom some consider +the author of part of "Mourt's Relation," they who came over in the +_Fortune_ the next year were somewhat daunted when "they came into the +harbor of Cape Cod, and there saw nothing but a naked and barren place." +They soon found out their mistake with respect to the goodness of +Plymouth soil. Yet when at length, some years later, when they were +fully satisfied of the poorness of the place which they had chosen, "the +greater part," says Bradford, "consented to a removal to a place called +Nausett," they agreed to remove all together to Nauset, now Eastham, +which was jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of the +most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did actually remove +thither accordingly. + +It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but few of the +qualities of the modern pioneer. They were not the ancestors of the +American backwoodsmen. They did not go at once into the woods with their +axes. They were a family and church, and were more anxious to keep +together, though it were on the sand, than to explore and colonize a New +World. When the above-mentioned company removed to Eastham, the church +at Plymouth was left, to use Bradford's expression, "like an ancient +mother grown old, and forsaken of her children." Though they landed on +Clark's Island in Plymouth harbor, the 9th of December (O. S.), and the +16th all hands came to Plymouth, and the 18th they rambled about the +mainland, and the 19th decided to settle there, it was the 8th of +January before Francis Billington went with one of the master's mates to +look at the magnificent pond or lake now called "Billington Sea," about +two miles distant, which he had discovered from the top of a tree, and +mistook for a great sea. And the 7th of March "Master Carver with five +others went to the great ponds which seem to be excellent fishing," both +which points are within the compass of an ordinary afternoon's +ramble,--however wild the country. It is true they were busy at first +about their building, and were hindered in that by much foul weather; +but a party of emigrants to California or Oregon, with no less work on +their hands,--and more hostile Indians,--would do as much exploring the +first afternoon, and the Sieur de Champlain would have sought an +interview with the savages, and examined the country as far as the +Connecticut, and made a map of it, before Billington had climbed his +tree. Or contrast them only with the French searching for copper about +the Bay of Fundy in 1603, tracing up small streams with Indian guides. +Nevertheless, the Pilgrims were pioneers and the ancestors of pioneers, +in a far grander enterprise. + +By this time we saw the little steamer _Naushon_ entering the harbor, and +heard the sound of her whistle, and came down from the hills to meet her +at the wharf. So we took leave of Cape Cod and its inhabitants. We liked +the manners of the last, what little we saw of them, very much. They +were particularly downright and good-humored. The old people appeared +remarkably well preserved, as if by the saltness of the atmosphere, and +after having once mistaken, we could never be certain whether we were +talking to a coeval of our grandparents, or to one of our own age. They +are said to be more purely the descendants of the Pilgrims than the +inhabitants of any other part of the State. We were told that +"sometimes, when the court comes together at Barnstable, they have not a +single criminal to try, and the jail is shut up." It was "to let" when +we were there. Until quite recently there was no regular lawyer below +Orleans. Who then will complain of a few regular man-eating sharks along +the back-side? + +One of the ministers of Truro, when I asked what the fishermen did in +the winter, answered that they did nothing but go a-visiting, sit about +and tell stories,--though they worked hard in summer. Yet it is not a +long vacation they get. I am sorry that I have not been there in the +winter to hear their yarns. Almost every Cape man is Captain of some +craft or other,--every man at least who is at the head of his own +affairs, though it is not every one that is, for some heads have the +force of _Alpha privative_, negativing all the efforts which Nature would +fain make through them. The greater number of men are merely corporals. +It is worth the while to talk with one whom his neighbors address as +Captain, though his craft may have long been sunk, and he may be holding +by his teeth to the shattered mast of a pipe alone, and only gets +half-seas-over in a figurative sense, now. He is pretty sure to +vindicate his right to the title at last,--can tell one or two good +stories at least. + +For the most part we saw only the back-side of the towns, but our story +is true as far as it goes. We might have made more of the Bay side, but +we were inclined to open our eyes widest at the Atlantic. We did not +care to see those features of the Cape in which it is inferior or merely +equal to the mainland, but only those in which it is peculiar or +superior. We cannot say how its towns look in front to one who goes to +meet them; we went to see the ocean behind them. They were merely the +raft on which we stood, and we took notice of the barnacles which +adhered to it, and some carvings upon it. + +Before we left the wharf we made the acquaintance of a passenger whom we +had seen at the hotel. When we asked him which way he came to +Provincetown, he answered that he was cast ashore at Wood End, Saturday +night, in the same storm in which the _St. John_ was wrecked. He had been +at work as a carpenter in Maine, and took passage for Boston in a +schooner laden with lumber. When the storm came up, they endeavored to +get into Provincetown harbor. "It was dark and misty," said he, "and as +we were steering for Long Point Light we suddenly saw the land near +us,--for our compass was out of order,--varied several degrees [a +mariner always casts the blame on his compass],--but there being a mist +on shore, we thought it was farther off than it was, and so held on, and +we immediately struck on the bar. Says the Captain, 'We are all lost.' +Says I to the Captain, 'Now don't let her strike again this way; head +her right on.' The Captain thought a moment, and then headed her on. The +sea washed completely over us, and wellnigh took the breath out of my +body. I held on to the running rigging, but I have learned to hold on to +the standing rigging the next time." "Well, were there any drowned?" I +asked. "No; we all got safe to a house at Wood End, at midnight, wet to +our skins, and half frozen to death." He had apparently spent the time +since playing checkers at the hotel, and was congratulating himself on +having beaten a tall fellow-boarder at that game. "The vessel is to be +sold at auction to-day," he added. (We had heard the sound of the +crier's bell which advertised it.) "The Captain is rather down about it, +but I tell him to cheer up and he will soon get another vessel." + +At that moment the Captain called to him from the wharf. He looked like +a man just from the country, with a cap made of a woodchuck's skin, and +now that I had heard a part of his history, he appeared singularly +destitute,--a Captain without any vessel, only a great-coat! and that +perhaps a borrowed one! Not even a dog followed him; only his title +stuck to him. I also saw one of the crew. They all had caps of the same +pattern, and wore a subdued look, in addition to their naturally +aquiline features, as if a breaker--a "comber"--had washed over them. As +we passed Wood End, we noticed the pile of lumber on the shore which had +made the cargo of their vessel. + +About Long Point in the summer you commonly see them catching lobsters +for the New York market, from small boats just off the shore, or rather, +the lobsters catch themselves, for they cling to the netting on which +the bait is placed of their own accord, and thus are drawn up. They sell +them fresh for two cents apiece. Man needs to know but little more than +a lobster in order to catch him in his traps. The mackerel fleet had +been getting to sea, one after another, ever since midnight, and as we +were leaving the Cape we passed near to many of them under sail, and got +a nearer view than we had had;--half a dozen red-shirted men and boys, +leaning over the rail to look at us, the skipper shouting back the +number of barrels he had caught, in answer to our inquiry. All sailors +pause to watch a steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a +large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and stood up as high as +any of them, and looked as wise. But the skipper, who did not wish to be +seen no better employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent him +below. Such is human justice! I thought I could hear him making an +effective appeal down there from human to divine justice. He must have +had much the cleanest breast of the two. + +[Illustration: A Provincetown fishing-vessel] + +Still, many a mile behind us across the Bay, we saw the white sails of +the mackerel fishers hovering round Cape Cod, and when they were all +hull-down, and the low extremity of the Cape was also down, their white +sails still appeared on both sides of it, around where it had sunk, like +a city on the ocean, proclaiming the rare qualities of Cape Cod Harbor. +But before the extremity of the Cape had completely sunk, it appeared +like a filmy sliver of land lying flat on the ocean, and later still a +mere reflection of a sand-bar on the haze above. Its name suggests a +homely truth, but it would be more poetic if it described the impression +which it makes on the beholder. Some capes have peculiarly suggestive +names. There is Cape Wrath, the northwest point of Scotland, for +instance; what a good name for a cape lying far away dark over the water +under a lowering sky! + +Mild as it was on shore this morning, the wind was cold and piercing on +the water. Though it be the hottest day in July on land, and the voyage +is to last but four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for you +are about to float over melted icebergs. When I left Boston in the +steamboat on the 25th of June the next year, it was a quite warm day on +shore. The passengers were dressed in their thinnest clothes, and at +first sat under their umbrellas, but when we were fairly out on the Bay, +such as had only their coats were suffering with the cold, and sought +the shelter of the pilot's house and the warmth of the chimney. But when +we approached the harbor of Provincetown, I was surprised to perceive +what an influence that low and narrow strip of sand, only a mile or two +in width, had over the temperature of the air for many miles around. We +penetrated into a sultry atmosphere where our thin coats were once more +in fashion, and found the inhabitants sweltering. + +Leaving far on one side Manomet Point in Plymouth and the Scituate +shore, after being out of sight of land for an hour or two, for it was +rather hazy, we neared the Cohasset Rocks again at Minot's Ledge, and +saw the great Tupelo-tree on the edge of Scituate, which lifts its dome, +like an umbelliferous plant, high over the surrounding forest, and is +conspicuous for many miles over land and water. Here was the new iron +light-house, then unfinished, in the shape of an egg-shell painted red, +and placed high on iron pillars, like the ovum of a sea monster floating +on the waves,--destined to be phosphorescent. As we passed it at +half-tide we saw the spray tossed up nearly to the shell. A man was to +live in that egg-shell day and night, a mile from the shore. When I +passed it the next summer it was finished and two men lived in it, and a +light-house keeper said that they told him that in a recent gale it had +rocked so as to shake the plates off the table. Think of making your bed +thus in the crest of a breaker! To have the waves, like a pack of hungry +wolves, eying you always, night and day, and from time to time making a +spring at you, almost sure to have you at last. And not one of all those +voyagers can come to your relief,--but when your light goes out, it will +be a sign that the light of your life has gone out also. What a place to +compose a work on breakers! This light-house was the cynosure of all +eyes. Every passenger watched it for half an hour at least; yet a +colored cook belonging to the boat, whom I had seen come out of his +quarters several times to empty his dishes over the side with a +flourish, chancing to come out just as we were abreast of this light, +and not more than forty rods from it, and were all gazing at it, as he +drew back his arm, caught sight of it, and with surprise exclaimed, +"What's that?" He had been employed on this boat for a year, and passed +this light every weekday, but as he had never chanced to empty his +dishes just at that point, had never seen it before. To look at lights +was the pilot's business; he minded the kitchen fire. It suggested how +little some who voyaged round the world could manage to see. You would +almost as easily believe that there are men who never yet chanced to +come out at the right time to see the sun. What avails it though a light +be placed on the top of a hill, if you spend all your life directly +under the hill? It might as well be under a bushel. This light-house, as +is well known, was swept away in a storm in April, 1851, and the two men +in it, and the next morning not a vestige of it was to be seen from the +shore. + +A Hull man told me that he helped set up a white-oak pole on Minot's +Ledge some years before. It was fifteen inches in diameter, forty-one +feet high, sunk four feet in the rock, and was secured by four +guys,--but it stood only one year. Stone piled up cob-fashion near the +same place stood eight years. + +When I crossed the Bay in the _Melrose_ in July, we hugged the Scituate +shore as long as possible, in order to take advantage of the wind. Far +out on the Bay (off this shore) we scared up a brood of young ducks, +probably black ones, bred hereabouts, which the packet had frequently +disturbed in her trips. A townsman, who was making the voyage for the +first time, walked slowly round into the rear of the helmsman, when we +were in the middle of the Bay, and looking out over the sea, before he +sat down there, remarked with as much originality as was possible for +one who used a borrowed expression, "This is a great country." He had +been a timber merchant, and I afterwards saw him taking the diameter of +the mainmast with his stick, and estimating its height. I returned from +the same excursion in the _Olata_, a very handsome and swift-sailing +yacht, which left Provincetown at the same time with two other packets, +the _Melrose_ and _Frolic_. At first there was scarcely a breath of air +stirring, and we loitered about Long Point for an hour in company,--with +our heads over the rail watching the great sand-circles and the fishes +at the bottom in calm water fifteen feet deep. But after clearing the +Cape we rigged a flying-jib, and, as the Captain had prophesied, soon +showed our consorts our heels. There was a steamer six or eight miles +northward, near the Cape, towing a large ship toward Boston. Its smoke +stretched perfectly horizontal several miles over the sea, and by a +sudden change in its direction, warned us of a change in the wind before +we felt it. The steamer appeared very far from the ship, and some young +men who had frequently used the Captain's glass, but did not suspect +that the vessels were connected, expressed surprise that they kept about +the same distance apart for so many hours. At which the Captain dryly +remarked, that probably they would never get any nearer together. As +long as the wind held we kept pace with the steamer, but at length it +died away almost entirely, and the flying-jib did all the work. When we +passed the light-boat at Minot's Ledge, the _Melrose_ and _Frolic_ were +just visible ten miles astern. + +Consider the islands bearing the names of all the saints, bristling with +forts like chestnuts-burs, or _echinidoe_, yet the police will not let a +couple of Irishmen have a private sparring-match on one of them, as it +is a government monopoly; all the great seaports are in a boxing +attitude, and you must sail prudently between two tiers of stony +knuckles before you come to feel the warmth of their breasts. + +The Bermudas are said to have been discovered by a Spanish ship of that +name which was wrecked on them, "which till then," says Sir John Smith, +"for six thousand years had been nameless." The English did not stumble +upon them in their first voyages to Virginia; and the first Englishman +who was ever there was wrecked on them in 1593. Smith says, "No place +known hath better walls nor a broader ditch." Yet at the very first +planting of them with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first Governor, +the same year, "built and laid the foundation of eight or nine forts." +To be ready, one would say, to entertain the first ship's company that +should be next shipwrecked on to them. It would have been more sensible +to have built as many "Charity-houses." These are the vexed Bermoothees. + +Our great sails caught all the air there was, and our low and narrow +hull caused the least possible friction. Coming up the harbor against +the stream we swept by everything. Some young men returning from a +fishing excursion came to the side of their smack, while we were thus +steadily drawing by them, and, bowing, observed, with the best possible +grace, "We give it up." Yet sometimes we were nearly at a standstill. +The sailors watched (two) objects on the shore to ascertain whether we +advanced or receded. In the harbor it was like the evening of a holiday. +The Eastern steamboat passed us with music and a cheer, as if they were +going to a ball, when they might be going to--Davy's locker. + +I heard a boy telling the story of Nix's mate to some girls as we passed +that spot. That was the name of a sailor hung there, he said.--"If I am +guilty, this island will remain; but if I am innocent it will be washed +away," and now it is all washed away! + +Next (?) came the fort on George's Island. These are bungling +contrivances: not our _fortes_ but our _foibles_. Wolfe sailed by the +strongest fort in North America in the dark, and took it. + +I admired the skill with which the vessel was at last brought to her +place in the dock, near the end of Long Wharf. It was candle-light, and +my eyes could not distinguish the wharves jutting out towards us, but it +appeared like an even line of shore densely crowded with shipping. You +could not have guessed within a quarter of a mile of Long Wharf. +Nevertheless, we were to be blown to a crevice amid them,--steering +right into the maze. Down goes the mainsail, and only the jib draws us +along. Now we are within four rods of the shipping, having already +dodged several outsiders; but it is still only a maze of spars, and +rigging, and hulls,--not a crack can be seen. Down goes the jib, but +still we advance. The Captain stands aft with one hand on the tiller, +and the other holding his night-glass,--his son stands on the bowsprit +straining his eyes,--the passengers feel their hearts halfway to their +mouths, expecting a crash. "Do you see any room there?" asks the +Captain, quietly. He must make up his mind in five seconds, else he will +carry away that vessel's bowsprit, or lose his own. "Yes, sir, here is a +place for us"; and in three minutes more we are fast to the wharf in a +little gap between two bigger vessels. + +And now we were in Boston. Whoever has been down to the end of Long +Wharf, and walked through Quincy Market, has seen Boston. + +Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, New Orleans, and the rest, +are the names of wharves projecting into the sea (surrounded by the +shops and dwellings of the merchants), good places to take in and to +discharge a cargo (to land the products of other climes and load the +exports of our own). I see a great many barrels and fig-drums,--piles of +wood for umbrella-sticks,--blocks of granite and ice,--great heaps of +goods, and the means of packing and conveying them,--much wrapping-paper +and twine,--many crates and hogsheads and trucks,--and that is Boston. +The more barrels, the more Boston. The museums and scientific societies +and libraries are accidental. They gather around the sands to save +carting. The wharf-rats and customhouse officers, and broken-down poets, +seeking a fortune amid the barrels. Their better or worse lyceums, and +preachings, and doctorings, these, too, are accidental, and the malls of +commons are always small potatoes. When I go to Boston, I naturally go +straight through the city (taking the Market in my way), down to the end +of Long Wharf, and look off, for I have no cousins in the back +alleys,--and there I see a great many countrymen in their shirt-sleeves +from Maine, and Pennsylvania, and all along shore and in shore, and some +foreigners beside, loading and unloading and steering their teams about, +as at a country fair. + +When we reached Boston that October, I had a gill of Provincetown sand +in my shoes, and at Concord there was still enough left to sand my pages +for many a day; and I seemed to hear the sea roar, as if I lived in a +shell, for a week afterward. + +The places which I have described may seem strange and remote to my +townsmen,--indeed, from Boston to Provincetown is twice as far as from +England to France; yet step into the cars, and in six hours you may +stand on those four planks, and see the Cape which Gosnold is said to +have discovered, and which I have so poorly described. If you had +started when I first advised you, you might have seen our tracks in the +sand, still fresh, and reaching all the way from the Nauset Lights to +Race Point, some thirty miles,--for at every step we made an impression +on the Cape, though we were not aware of it, and though our account may +have made no impression on your minds. But what is our account? In it +there is no roar, no beach-birds, no tow-cloth. + +We often love to think now of the life of men on beaches,--at least in +midsummer, when the weather is serene; their sunny lives on the sand, +amid the beach-grass and the bayberries, their companion a cow, their +wealth a jag of driftwood or a few beach-plums, and their music the surf +and the peep of the beach-bird. + +We went to see the Ocean, and that is probably the best place of all our +coast to go to. If you go by water, you may experience what it is to +leave and to approach these shores; you may see the Stormy Petrel by the +way, [Greek: thalassodroma,] running over the sea, and if the weather is +but a little thick, may lose sight of the land in mid-passage. I do not +know where there is another beach in the Atlantic States, attached to +the mainland, so long, and at the same time so straight, and completely +uninterrupted by creeks or coves or fresh-water rivers or marshes; for +though there may be clear places on the map, they would probably be +found by the foot traveller to be intersected by creeks and marshes; +certainly there is none where there is a double way, such as I have +described, a beach and a bank, which at the same time shows you the land +and the sea, and part of the time two seas. The Great South Beach of +Long Island, which I have since visited, is longer still without an +inlet, but it is literally a mere sand-bar, exposed, several miles from +the Island, and not the edge of a continent wasting before the assaults +of the Ocean. Though wild and desolate, as it wants the bold bank, it +possesses but half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the +imagination contented with its southern aspect. The only other beaches +of great length on our Atlantic coast, which I have heard sailors speak +of, are those of Barnegat on the Jersey shore, and Currituck between +Virginia and North Carolina; but these, like the last, are low and +narrow sandbars, lying off the coast, and separated from the mainland by +lagoons. Besides, as you go farther south, the tides are feebler, and +cease to add variety and grandeur to the shore. On the Pacific side of +our country also no doubt there is good walking to be found; a recent +writer and dweller there tells us that "the coast from Cape +Disappointment (or the Columbia River) to Cape Flattery (at the Strait +of Juan de Fuca) is nearly north and south, and can be travelled almost +its entire length on a beautiful sand-beach," with the exception of two +bays, four or five rivers, and a few points jutting into the sea. The +common shell-fish found there seem to be often of corresponding types, +if not identical species, with those of Cape Cod. The beach which I have +described, however, is not hard enough for carriages, but must be +explored on foot. When one carriage has passed along, a following one +sinks deeper still in its rut. It has at present no name any more than +fame. That portion south of Nauset Harbor is commonly called Chatham +Beach. The part in Eastham is called Nauset Beach, and off Wellfleet and +Truro the Back-side, or sometimes, perhaps, Cape Cod Beach. I think that +part which extends without interruption from Nauset Harbor to Race Point +should be called Cape Cod Beach, and do so speak of it. + +One of the most attractive points for visitors is in the northeast part +of Wellfleet, where accommodations (I mean for men and women of +tolerable health and habits) could probably be had within half a mile +of the sea-shore. It best combines the country and the seaside. Though +the Ocean is out of sight, its faintest murmur is audible, and you have +only to climb a hill to find yourself on its brink. It is but a step +from the glassy surface of the Herring Ponds to the big Atlantic Pond +where the waves never cease to break. Or perhaps the Highland Light in +Truro may compete with this locality, for there, there is a more +uninterrupted view of the Ocean and the Bay, and in the summer there is +always some air stirring on the edge of the bank there, so that the +inhabitants know not what hot weather is. As for the view, the keeper of +the light, with one or more of his family, walks out to the edge of the +bank after every meal to look off, just as if they had not lived there +all their days. In short, it will wear well. And what picture will you +substitute for that, upon your walls? But ladies cannot get down the +bank there at present without the aid of a block and tackle. + +Most persons visit the sea-side in warm weather, when fogs are frequent, +and the atmosphere is wont to be thick, and the charm of the sea is to +some extent lost. But I suspect that the fall is the best season, for +then the atmosphere is more transparent, and it is a greater pleasure to +look out over the sea. The clear and bracing air, and the storms of +autumn and winter even, are necessary in order that we may get the +impression which the sea is calculated to make. In October, when the +weather is not intolerably cold, and the landscape wears its autumnal +tints, such as, methinks, only a Cape Cod landscape ever wears, +especially if you have a storm during your stay,--that I am convinced is +the best time to visit this shore. In autumn, even in August, the +thoughtful days begin, and we can walk anywhere with profit. Beside, an +outward cold and dreariness, which make it necessary to seek shelter at +night, lend a spirit of adventure to a walk. + +The time must come when this coast will be a place of resort for those +New-Englanders who really wish to visit the sea-side. At present it is +wholly unknown to the fashionable world, and probably it will never be +agreeable to them. If it is merely a ten-pin alley, or a circular +railway, or an ocean of mint-julep, that the visitor is in search +of,--if he thinks more of the wine than the brine, as I suspect some do +at Newport,--I trust that for a long time he will be disappointed here. +But this shore will never be more attractive than it is now. Such +beaches as are fashionable are here made and unmade in a day, I may +almost say, by the sea shifting its sands. Lynn and Nantasket! this bare +and bended arm it is that makes the bay in which they lie so snugly. +What are springs and waterfalls? Here is the spring of springs, the +waterfall of waterfalls. A storm in the fall or winter is the time to +visit it; a light-house or a fisherman's hut the true hotel. A man may +stand there and put all America behind him. + +[1] It is remarkable that the first, if not the only, part of New +England which Cartier saw was Vermont (he also saw the mountains of New +York), from Montreal Mountain, in 1535, sixty-seven years before Gosnold +saw Cape Cod. _If seeing is discovering_,--and that is _all_ that it is +proved that Cabot knew of the coast of the United States,--then Cartier +(to omit Verrazani and Gomez) was the discoverer of New England rather +than Gosnold, who is commonly so styled. + +[2] "Savage Rock," which some have supposed to be, from the name, the +_Salvages_, a ledge about two miles off Rockland, Cape Ann, was probably +the _Nubble_, a large, high rock near the shore, on the east side of York +Harbor, Maine. The first land made by Gosnold is presumed by experienced +navigators to be Cape Elizabeth, on the same coast. (See Babson's +History of Gloucester, Massachusetts.) + + +The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. + +The End + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod, by Henry D. Thoreau + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD *** + +***** This file should be named 34392.txt or 34392.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/3/9/34392/ + +Produced by Steve Mattern + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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