UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 BROWSING ROOM 
 
 i^#>^
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 BROWSING ROOM 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Dr. Kate Gordon
 
 ^p |)enrp ^, Eliaxtm, 
 
 RIVERSIDE EDITION. 
 
 I. A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRI- 
 MACK RIVERS. 
 II. WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. 
 
 III. THE MAINE WOODS. 
 
 IV. CAPE COD. 
 
 V. EARLY SPRING IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 VI. SUMMER. With a Map of Concord. 
 VII. AUTUMN. 
 VIII. WINTER. 
 IX. EXCURSIONS. 
 X. MISCELLANIES. With a Biographical Sketch 
 by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
 XI. FAMILIAR LETTERS. Edited, with an Intro- 
 duction and Notes, by Frank B. Sanborn. 
 II volumes, crown 8vo, each, with an Index, $1.50; the 
 set, cloth, in box, 516.50; half calf, $33.00; half calf, 
 gilt top, $35.75. 
 
 CAPE COD. Holiday Edition. Illustrated in water- 
 colors by Miss A.melia B. Watson. 2 vols, crown 
 8vo, S5.00. 
 
 WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. Holiday 
 Edition. With an Introduction by Bradford 
 ToRREV, and 28 full-page photogravure illustrations. 
 I vol. i2mo. 
 
 The Same. Cambridge Classics. With a Biographical 
 Sketch by Ralph Waldo Emerson, i vol. crown 
 8vo, $1.00. 
 
 The Same. Riverside Aldine Series. 2 vols. i6mo, 
 52.00. 
 
 POEMS OF NATURE. Selected and edited by Henry 
 S. Salt and Frank B. Sanborn. i6mo, 5i.5o. 
 
 THOREAU'S THOUGHTS. Selections from the Writ- 
 ings of Henry D. Thoreau. Edited by H. G. O. Blake. 
 With Bibliography. i6mo, gilt top, 5ioo. 
 
 THE SUCCESSION OF FOREST TREES AND WILD 
 APPLES. With Biographical Sketch by Emerson. 
 i6ino, paper, 15 cents, ?iet. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 Boston and New York.
 
 iflitjcr^ibc oBtiition 
 
 THE WRITINGS OF 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU 
 
 WITH BIBLIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTIONS 
 AND FULL INDEXES 
 
 VOLUME IV
 
 CAPE COD 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU 
 
 Principiunt crit mirari omnia, etiam tritissima, 
 Medium est calamo committere visa et utilia, 
 Finis erit naturain adcuratius adlineare, quam alius [si possumus]. 
 Linnaus de Peregrinatiotte. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1864, 
 By TICKJSfOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 Copyright, 1893, 
 Br HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, 3fass., U. S. A. 
 Hectrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 8 
 
 o 
 2: 
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 
 PAOB 
 
 Introductory Note 
 
 vii 
 
 I. The Shipwreck 
 
 . 1 
 
 II. Stage-Coach Views 
 
 20 
 
 ni. The Plains of Nauset 
 
 . 34 
 
 IV. The Beach 
 
 65 
 
 V. The WELJ.FLEET Oysterman 
 
 . 92 
 
 VI. The Beach Again .... 
 
 . 120 
 
 \^I. Across the Cape .... 
 
 . 153 
 
 VIII. The Highland Light 
 
 . 179 
 
 IX. The Sea and the Desert 
 
 . 211 
 
 X. Provincetown ..... 
 
 . 255 
 
 189921
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 In the same year as The Maine Woods, but 
 as a Christmas book dated 1865, appeared Cape 
 Cod, also edited by W. E. Channing and pub- 
 lished by Ticknor & Fields. The first four 
 chapters of the book had already been printed 
 by their author in Putnam s Magazine in 1855, 
 and chapters v. and viii. were printed, just in ad- 
 vance of publication in the book, in The Atlantic 
 MontMy in October and December, 1864. 
 
 Thoreau has recorded his adventures in this 
 book, and shows that he enjoyed the humor 
 which attended his intercourse with the inde- 
 pendent, self-reliant folic of what was then more 
 than now a singularly isolated arm of the State. 
 Mr. Channing adds in his book on Thoreau: 
 " One of the old Cod could not believe that Tho- 
 reau was not a pedler ; but said, after explana- 
 tion failed, 'Well, it makes no odds what it is 
 you carry, so long as you carry truth along with 
 
 you.'"
 
 CAPE COD 
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 
 
 Wishing to get a better view than I had yet 
 had of the ocean, which, we are tokl, 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, an- 
 other 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 Provincetown 
 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
 
 52 CAPE COD 
 
 been accustomed to make excursions to the ponds 
 within ten miles of Concord, but hitterly 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 cctp ; which is from the Latin ca^put^ 
 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 cod-fish" 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 sjjawn it contains; whence also, 
 perhaps, codling {'"'' pomiim coctile^^?} and 
 coddle, — to cook green like peas. ( V. Die.) 
 
 Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of 
 Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzard's 
 Bay; the elbow, or crazy -bone, at Cape Malle- 
 barre ; the wrist at Truro ; and the sandy fist at 
 Provincetown, — behind which the State stands 
 on her giiard, with her back to the Green Moun- 
 tains, and her feet planted on the floor of the
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 3 
 
 ocean, like an athlete protecting her Bay, — 
 boxing with northeast storms, and, ever and 
 anon, heaving np her Atlantic adversary from 
 the lap of earth, — ready to thrust forward her 
 other fist, which keeps guard the while upon lier 
 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 ac- 
 count 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 9, 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 no- 
 ticed in the streets a handbill headed, "Death! 
 one hundred and forty-five lives lost at Cohas- 
 set," we decided to go by way of Cohasset. 
 We found many Irish in the cars, going to iden- 
 tify 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
 
 4 CAPE COD 
 
 at Coliasset, it appeared that nearly all the pas- 
 sengers 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 hvindreds 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-rig- 
 gings 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 
 Kantasket 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 SHIPWRECK 6 
 
 The brig St. John, from Gal way, 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 sur- 
 rounded by a crowd. The bodies which had 
 been recovered, twenty-seven or eight in all, had 
 been collected there. Some were rapidly nail- 
 ing 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 
 2)ut. 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 pro- 
 bably had intended to go out to service in some 
 American family, — to which some rags still ad- 
 hered, with a string, haK concealed by the flesh, 
 about its swollen neck; the coiled -up wreck of 
 a human hidk, gashed by the rocks or fishes, so 
 that the bone and muscle were exposed, but quite
 
 6 CAPE COD 
 
 bloodless, — merely red and white, — with wide- 
 open and stai'ing eyes, yet lustreless, dead- 
 lijihts : 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 super- 
 scription I have quoted — her child in her sis- 
 ter'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 seaweed, 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 tradi- 
 tion about it in the neighborhood. I asked a
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 7 
 
 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 rub- 
 bish 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 
 seaweed which the storm had cast up, and con- 
 veying 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.
 
 8 CAPE COD 
 
 About a mile south we could see, rising above 
 the rocks, the masts of the British brijr 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 to- 
 gether. It was, perhaps, forty feet long, by 
 fourteen wide. I was even more surprised at 
 the power of the waves, exhibited on this shat- 
 tered fragment, than I had been at the sight of 
 the smaller fragments before. The largest tim- 
 bers 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 lit-
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 9 
 
 tie further on a crowd of men was collected 
 around the mate of the St. John, who was tell- 
 ing 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 inter- 
 est 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 vise 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,
 
 10 CAPE COD 
 
 which he answered ; but he seemed unwilling to 
 talk about it, and soon walked away. By his 
 side stood one of the life-boat men, 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 pre- 
 vented 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 re- 
 covering 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 pro- 
 montory 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 seaweed 
 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
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 11 
 
 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 con- 
 cerned him most, rock-weed, kelp, and sea- 
 weed, as he named them, which he carted to his 
 barnyard; 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 sur- 
 vivors. 
 
 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 sym- 
 pathized 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 
 61ighted prospects of individuals. I saw that 
 corpses might be multiplied, as on the field of 
 battle, till they no longer affected us in any de- 
 gree, as exceptions to the common lot of human- 
 ity. Take all the graveyards together, they are
 
 12 CAPE COD 
 
 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 sympa- 
 thies would supply the place of mourners far 
 away, who as yet knew not of the wreck. Many 
 days after this, something white was seen float- 
 ing 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 liad 
 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 
 subliraer beauty still. 
 
 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
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 13 
 
 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 seaweed, 
 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 Bos- 
 ton Harbor the better place ; though perhaps in- 
 visible 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 hal- 
 cyon 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
 
 1-4 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Colimabus, 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."
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 15 
 
 One summer clay, 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 stramo- 
 nium, 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 inno- 
 cent plant; it suggests not merely commerce, 
 but its attendant 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 be- 
 tween the sails. It was a purely rural sound. 
 As I looked over the water, I saw the isles 
 rapidly wasting away, the sea nibbling vora- 
 ciously at the continent, the springing arch of a 
 hill suddenly interrupted, as at Point Allerton, 
 — what botanists might call premorse, — show- 
 ing, 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
 
 16 CAPE COD 
 
 everytliing seemed to be gently lapsing into 
 futurity. This isle had got the very form of a 
 rij^ple, — 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,^ springing from its edge. The most in- 
 teresting thing which I heard of, in this town- 
 ship of Hull, was an unfailing spring, whose lo- 
 cality 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 tlu-ough Rome, it would be some spring on 
 the CajDitoline Hill I should remember the long- 
 
 ^ 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 comer 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. In- 
 deed, they were not very cleanly. A thousand such simple 
 tricks they played, and after eleven days returned to them- 
 selves again, not remembering anything that had passed." — 
 Beverly's History of Virginia, p. 120.
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 17 
 
 est. 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 col- 
 lecting 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 cap- 
 sized in the bay, and several others dragged 
 their anchors, and were near going ashore. 
 The sea-bathing at Cohasset Kocks 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
 
 18 CAPE COD 
 
 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 gi-avel. 
 The water held in their little hollows, on the re- 
 ceding 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
 
 THE SHIPWRECK 19 
 
 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 stopi^ed up its outlet, and 
 now the alewives were dving by thousands, and 
 the inhabitants were apprehending a pestilence 
 as the water evaporated. It had five rocky 
 islets in it. 
 
 This rocky 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. John. The 
 ocean did not look, now, as if any were ever 
 shipwrecked in it ; it was not grand and sublime, 
 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.
 
 n 
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 
 
 After spending the night in Briclgewater, 
 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 Raih-oad," 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.
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 21 
 
 We were now fairly on the Cape, which ex- 
 tends 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
 
 22 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Histori- 
 cal Society, printed in 1802, which contains 
 some short notices of the Cape towns, and be- 
 gan to read up to where I was, for in the cars I 
 could not read as fast as I traveled. 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 
 traveler." 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 heau- 
 tiful villages, embellished, perchance, with a 
 "fulling-mill," "a handsome academy," or a 
 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 traveler, or the returning native, 
 — or, perchance, the repentant misanthrope; 
 not to him who, with unprejudiced senses, has
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 23 
 
 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 almshouse. 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 opportu- 
 nity to test the truth of this statement. It may 
 have referred, however, to the quantity "of oil 
 they would yield." It further said, "The in- 
 habitants of Sandwich generally manifest a fond 
 and steady adherence to the manners, employ- 
 ments 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 re- 
 semblance, which, at this day, will constitute no
 
 24 CAPE COD 
 
 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. 
 
 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
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 25 
 
 appeared as if this use must absorb the greater 
 part of the old clothes of the Cape, leaving but 
 few rags for the peddlers. The windmills 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 roadside was par- 
 tially covered with bunches of a moss-like plant, 
 Hudsonia tomeiitosa, which a woman in the 
 stage told us was called "poverty grass," be- 
 cause 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 aa 
 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
 
 26 CAPE COD 
 
 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. Eetired sea- 
 captains, in easy circumstances, who talked of 
 farming as sea-captains are wont; an erect, I'e- 
 spedtable, 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, perchance, 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 hus- 
 bands, 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
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 27 
 
 that writing letters, and sorting them against 
 our arrival, must be the principal employment 
 of the inhabitants o£ 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 
 travelers, while he retailed some piece of gossip 
 to the driver, really as indifferent to the pres- 
 ence of the former as if they were so much bag- 
 gage. In one instance, we understood that a 
 woman was the post-mistress, and they said that 
 she made the best one on the road ; but we sus- 
 pected that the letters must be subjected to a 
 very close scrutiny there. While we were 
 stopping, for this purpose, at Dennis, we ven- 
 tured 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 exceed- 
 ingly barren and desolate country, of a char-
 
 28 CAPE COD 
 
 acter which I can find no name for ; such a sur- 
 face, perhaps, as the bottom of the sea made 
 dry land day before j^esterday. 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 j^ainted, though the rest 
 of the house was not, — standing bleak and 
 cheedess, yet with a broad foundation to the 
 land, where the comfort must have been all in- 
 side. 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 cor- 
 ners as square; but, if I do not mistake, every 
 one of them was dead. I could not help think- 
 ing that they needed a revival here. Our book 
 said that, in 1795, thei*e was erected in Dennis,
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 29 
 
 " 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 de- 
 scribed as a " neat building ; " but of the meet- 
 ing-house in Chatham, a neighboring town, for 
 there was then but one, nothing is said, except 
 that it " is in good repair," — both which re- 
 marks, 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 Nobscus- 
 set, in my estimation, belong to the same cate- 
 gory 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 de- 
 light 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 unob- 
 structed sea-breeze answers the purpose of a fan. 
 The historian of Chatham says further, that " in 
 many families there is no difference between the
 
 30 CAPE COD 
 
 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. 
 
 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 sum- 
 mit of this hill, our guide says, " The view has 
 not much of the beautiful in it, but it commu- 
 nicates a strong emotion of the sublime." That 
 is the kind of communication which we love to 
 have made to us. We passed through the vil- 
 lage 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 
 person 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
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 31 
 
 1776, at which time, on account of the war, salt 
 was scarce and dear. The Historical Collec- 
 tions contain an interesting account of his ex- 
 periments, 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 un- 
 able to compete with the importers of salt and 
 the manufacturers of it at the West, and, ac- 
 cordingly, her salt-works are fast going to de- 
 cay. 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 do- 
 mestic manufactures which are nearly the same 
 all the world over. 
 
 Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brews- 
 ter, so named after Elder Brewster, for fear he 
 would be forgotten else. Who has not heard 
 of Elder Bi-ewster? Who knows who he was? 
 This appeared to be the modern-built town of
 
 32 CAPE COD 
 
 the Cape, the favorite residence of retired sea- 
 captains. It is said that "there are more mas- 
 ters 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 re- 
 moved from lumber; only Eastern stuff dis- 
 guised 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 CambridgejDort car- 
 penter to build their floating houses, and for 
 their houses on shore, if they must co])j 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 Wellfleet 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
 
 STAGE-COACH VIEWS 83 
 
 road." This we were pleased to imagine, as we 
 had not seen the sun for twenty-four hours. 
 
 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 Hig- 
 gins'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 svirf must be rare. Thus the 
 great civilizer sends out his 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.
 
 in 
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 
 
 The next morning, Thursday, October 11, it 
 rained as hard as ever; but we were determined 
 to proceed on foot, nevertheless. We first 
 made some inquiries, with regard to the practi- 
 cability of walking up the shore on the Atlantic 
 side to Provincetown, whether we should meet 
 with any creeks or marshes to trouble us. Hig- 
 gins 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 inconven- 
 ient and even dangerous walking under the 
 bank, when there was a great tide, with an east- 
 erly 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
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 35 
 
 Harbor, in Orleans, on our right. We found 
 the traveling- good enough for walkers on the 
 sides of the roads, though it was "heavy" for 
 horses in the middle. We walked with our um- 
 brellas 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 be- 
 tween, besides being small and rusty, though 
 they appeared to be kept in good repair, and 
 their door-yards, 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 firm- 
 ness of the land, without studying their postures 
 or habiliments. To them it was merely terra 
 firma and cognita, not yet fertilis a,ndjiccunda. 
 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.
 
 3G CAPE COD 
 
 For birds there were giills, and for carts in the 
 fiekls, boats turned bottom upward against the 
 houses, and sometimes the rib of a whale was 
 woven into the fence by the roadside. 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 ac- 
 quire 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 canker-worms, 
 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
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 37 
 
 that fall. If they had been placed close to- 
 gether, 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 invari- 
 ably 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. 
 
 In one yard I observed a single, very healthy- 
 looking tree, while all the rest were dead or dy- 
 ing. 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 traveling practitioners have ad- 
 vised. In 1802 there was not a single fruit-tree 
 in Chatham, the next town to Orleans, on the 
 
 189921
 
 38 CAPE COD 
 
 south; and the ohl 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." 
 V^e noticed that they were often covered with a 
 yellow lichen like rust, the Parmelia pai^ietina. 
 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 weather- 
 cock. They looked loose and slightly locomo- 
 tive, like huge wounded birds, trailing a wing 
 or a leg, and reminded 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 com- 
 monly, 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,
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 39 
 
 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 i^laster, 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 inhabi- 
 tants 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 
 liistory, "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
 
 40 CAPE COD 
 
 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, Jlya arenar'ia^ 
 was not so plenty here as formerly. Probably 
 the clam-ground has been stirred too frequently, 
 after all. Nevertheless, one man, who com- 
 plained 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. 
 
 We crossed a brook, not more than fourteen 
 rods long between Orleans and Eastham called 
 Jeremiah's Gutter. The Atlantic is said some- 
 times 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.
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 41 
 
 to judge from appearances, no farmer in the in- 
 terior would think of cultivating, or even fenc- 
 ing. 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 distin- 
 guish 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 ap- 
 pearance of a soil beginning to be formed. It 
 is styled douhtful^ because it would not be ob- 
 served by every eye, and perhaps not acknow- 
 ledged 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 town- 
 ship, 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 ex
 
 42 CAPE COD 
 
 isted. 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 sui'prised to hear of the great crops 
 of corn which are still raised in Eastham, not- 
 withstanding the real and apj)arent 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 corn- 
 fields 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.^ "In 1667 the 
 
 ^ 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 Re- 
 lation, " he came safely home, though wearj^ and surbated," 
 that is, foot-sore. (Ital. sobattere, Lat. sub or solea battere, to 
 bruise the soles of the feet; v. Die. Not " from acerbatus, em.'
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 43 
 
 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. 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 ac- 
 count of Eastham, in the "Historical Collec- 
 tions," 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 
 
 bittered or aggrieved," as one commentator on this passage 
 supposes.) This word is of very rare occurrence, being ap^jlied 
 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.
 
 44 CAPE COD 
 
 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 excej^tion 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 croj^s 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 inhabi- 
 tants 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 PLAINS OF NAUSET 45 
 
 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 moi-e 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 be- 
 fore 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
 
 46 CAPE COD 
 
 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 con- 
 versed 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 rasfed when we traversed
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 47 
 
 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 con- 
 cealed by mist, we did not know whether it was 
 high or low. A solitary traveler, whom we saw 
 perambulating in the distance, loomed like a 
 giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as i£ 
 held up from above by straps under his shoul- 
 ders, 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 traveler. I was glad to have got out 
 of the towns, where I am wont to feel unspeak- 
 ably mean and disgraced, — to have left behind 
 me for a season the bar-rooms of Massachusetts, 
 where the full-grown are not weaned from sav- 
 age 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.
 
 48 CAPE COD 
 
 As we thus skirted the hack-side of the 
 towns, for we did not enter any vilhige, till we 
 got to Provincetown, we read their histories un- 
 der 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 con- 
 sist, in a great measure, of quotations, acknow- 
 ledged 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 faithfidly 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 fellow- 
 ship, 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 com- 
 posed 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.
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 49 
 
 When the committee from Plymouth had pur- 
 chased the territory of Eastham of the Indians, 
 "it was demanded, who hiid claim to Billings- 
 gate?" 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 them- 
 selves 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 practiced, and are still 
 practicing so extensively. Not Any seems to 
 have been the sole proprietor of all America be- 
 fore 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
 
 50 CAPE COD 
 
 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 bronght from England, and planted 
 there by him, abont two hnndred 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 excel- 
 lent; and it yielded on an average fifteen bush- 
 els. Some appropriate lines have been ad- 
 dressed 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 re- 
 memb.er 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 hand long since have passed away. 
 And still, old Tree ! 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 our 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. 
 ********
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 51 
 
 " 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 com- 
 panions, by the rhyme. When one ox will lie 
 clown, the yoke bears hard on him that stands 
 up. 
 
 One of the first settlers of Eastham was Dea- 
 con 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 in- 
 vulnerable, 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 inter- 
 ested 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 foi 
 the support of the ministry." No doubt there 
 seemed to be some propriety in thus leaving the
 
 52 CAPE COD 
 
 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 accept- 
 able. 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 uj) 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, com- 
 monly, that it is "very like a whale." Never- 
 theless, 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 whale 
 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 I 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. Gener- 
 ous as it seems, this condition would empty most 
 country pulj^its 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
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 53 
 
 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 con- 
 strained 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 dur- 
 ing 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 unhealth- 
 ful development of the religious sentiment here, 
 was the fact that a large portion of the popula- 
 tion 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
 
 64 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ridi- 
 cule and threats would have a tendency to pre- 
 vent 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 hyster- 
 ics, 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 shout- 
 ing to you through a breaker; who looked as if 
 it made her head ache to live ; hard enough for 
 any enornlit}^ I looked upon her as one who 
 had committed infanticide; who never had a 
 brother, unless it were some wee thing 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-meet- 
 ings 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
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 55 
 
 was so backward that straw would not have been 
 ready for them ; for they lie 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, bv 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 furni- 
 ture 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 pre- 
 vious 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. 
 
 The first minister settled here was the Kev. 
 Samuel Treat, in 1672, a gentleman who is said 
 to "be entitled to a distinguished rank among 
 the evangelists of New England." He con-
 
 56 CAPE COD 
 
 verted many Indians, as well as white men, in 
 his day, and translated the Confession of Faith 
 into the Nauset language. These were the In- 
 dians 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 expres- 
 sions," 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 heart-breaking- 
 sorrow." Mr. Treat is described as a Calvinist 
 of the strictest kind, not one of those who, by 
 giving up or exj)laining 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, "ai3pear to have been de- 
 signed 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 re- 
 ceive thee. There is room enough for thy en- 
 tertainment. . . . 
 
 " Consider, thou art going to a place prepared 
 by God on pui-j^ose to exalt his justice in, — a 
 place made for no other employment but tor- 
 ments. Hell is God's house of correction: and.
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 57 
 
 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 pleas- 
 ant 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
 
 68 CAPE COD 
 
 make tliee miserable. He shall have monu- 
 ments enough of that precious attribute, shining 
 like stars in the place of glory, and singing 
 eternal hallelujahs to the praise of Him that re- 
 deemed 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 ven- 
 toso gloriae curru orator, qui pectus angit, ir- 
 ritat, 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 dis- 
 cordant 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 w^re 
 cheerful, his conversation pleasant, and some-
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 59 
 
 times 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 repu- 
 tation by his 'Body of Divinity,' which is fre- 
 quently 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 dis- 
 courses to the congregation of his father-in- 
 law, in his usual unhappy manner, excited uni- 
 versal 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
 
 60 CAPE COD 
 
 him, he delivered it without alteration to his 
 people a few weeks after. They ran to Mr. 
 AVillard and requested a copy for the press. 
 'See the difference,' they cried, 'between your- 
 self 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.' " ^ 
 
 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 body to the grave. 
 
 The reader will imagine us, all the while, 
 steadily traversing that extensive plain in a di- 
 rection 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 anni- 
 versary of Mr. Treat's funeral. We fancied 
 that it was such a moor as that on which some- 
 
 1 Lib. V. Fab. 5.
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 61 
 
 body 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 vir- 
 tue," 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 improve- 
 ments 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 him- 
 self; 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
 
 62 CAPE COD 
 
 in public and in private, asserted that there are 
 no promises in the Bible but what are condi- 
 tional, which we think, also, to be an error, and 
 do say that there are promises which are abso- 
 lute 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 de- 
 clared, that obedience is a considerable cause of 
 a person's justification, which, we think, con- 
 tains 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 Worshijjers of the Devil, 
 so-called, the Chaldaeans, and others, accord- 
 ing to the testimony of travelers, you may still 
 hear these remarkable disputations on doctri- 
 nal 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 j^ears 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 his- 
 torian says, that, —
 
 THE PLAINS OF NAUSET 63 
 
 "As he spent his days in the uniform dis- 
 charge 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 se- 
 rene as the sky in a mild evening in June, when 
 the moon shines without a cloud. Name any 
 virtue, and that virtue he practiced; name any 
 vice, and that vice he shvmned. 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 in- 
 structed 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 be- 
 low; and though of the same religious senti- 
 ments as Mr. Treat, yet his attention was turned 
 to those glad tidings of great joy which a Sav- 
 iour 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, doetus, et
 
 64 CAPE COD 
 
 auctor elegantium verborum, facetus, et dulcis 
 festique sermonis." And, again, on that of the 
 Rev. Nathan Stone, of Dennis: "Vir humilis, 
 mitis, blandus, advenarura hospes; (thei-e 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, sej^oemese^ wechelcum^''^ 
 — which not being interpreted, we know not 
 what it means, though we have no doubt it oc- 
 curs 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 tid- 
 ings " 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.
 
 IV 
 
 THE BEACH 
 
 At length we reached the seemingly retreat- 
 ing boundary of the plain, and entered what had 
 apj)eared at a distance an upland marsh, tut 
 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 
 hounded scarcely louder than before, and we 
 were prepared to go half a mile farther, we sud- 
 denly 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 drop- 
 ping 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
 
 66 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 ^he water as we could, where the sand was the 
 f'lardest, leaving the Nauset Lights behind us, 
 we began to walk leisurely up the beach, in 
 a northwest direction, toward Provincetown, 
 w^hich 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, — 
 
 7roTo/zo?o fjifya aBivos TiKeavoTo. 
 
 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 be- 
 hind 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-
 
 THE BEACH 67 
 
 weed was tossed up from time to time, like the 
 tails of sea-cows sporting in the brine. 
 
 There was not a sail in sight, and we saw 
 none that day, — for they had all sought har- 
 bors 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 dis- 
 honorable for him to have so many scars behind,
 
 68 CAPE COD 
 
 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 cen- 
 turies 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 stick- 
 ing two sticks into the ground crosswise above 
 it. Some rotten trunk, which in Maine cum- 
 bers the ground, and is, perchance, thrown into 
 the water on purpose, is here thus carefully 
 picked up, split and dried, and husbanded. Be- 
 fore 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 dis- 
 pute," and he is as much identified with it as a 
 beach-bird.
 
 THE BEACH 69 
 
 Crantz, In his account of Greenland, quotes 
 Dalagen's relation of the ways and usages of 
 the Greenlanders, and says, "Whoever finds 
 drift-wood, 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 in- 
 stinctive law of nations. We have also this ac- 
 count 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, etc.,) 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
 
 70 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 (i. e. , of Greenland) ; also large trunks of asi^en- 
 trees, which must come from a gi'eater 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 
 zirhel, that have the smell of cedar, and grow on 
 the high Grison hills, and the Switzers wain- 
 scot their rooms with them." The wrecker di- 
 rected 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 account 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,
 
 THE BEACH 71 
 
 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 fore-arm 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. Hei-e, 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
 
 72 CAPE COD 
 
 towards the ocean, then stooping to the beach, 
 by as steep a slope as sand couki lie on, and as 
 regular as a military engineer could desire. It 
 was like the escarped ramj^art 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 bril- 
 liancy, 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.
 
 THE BEACH 73 
 
 For sixteen miles, commencing at the Nauset 
 Lights, the bank hekl 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, point- 
 ing out the spots on which the Trustees of the 
 Humane Society have erected huts called Char- 
 ity 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 melan- 
 choly 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 ap- 
 proaches 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
 
 74 CAPE COD 
 
 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 com- 
 paratively 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 stage-coach; 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
 
 THE BEACH 75 
 
 more like it, no truer picture or account ; which 
 you cannot go farther and see. I cannot remem- 
 ber 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 
 sand-hill, on the bank, that we might gaze stead- 
 ily 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
 
 76 CAPE COD 
 
 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 beau- 
 tiful, 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 dis- 
 tinctly 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 
 traveler 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 ab- 
 sorbed by this spectacle and tumult, and like 
 Chr3^ses, though in a different mood from him, 
 we walked silent along the shore of the resound-
 
 THE BEACH 77 
 
 B^ S' ciKeaiu napa Olva iroKv(pKoL(r^oio OoXaffffijs.^ 
 
 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 rock-weed 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 
 
 ^ We have no word in English to express the sound of many 
 •waves dashing at once, whether gently or violently iro\v<p\oi(r' 
 fioios to the ear, and, in the ocean's gentle moods, an avapid/xof 
 'y4\aafia to the eye.
 
 78 CAPE COD 
 
 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 was some treasure buoyed 
 up by it ; but we were always surprised and dis- 
 appointed at the insignificance of the mass 
 which had attracted us. As we looked out over 
 the water, the smallest objects floating on it ap- 
 peared 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 la- 
 bored, that we began to doubt whether the At- 
 lantic itself would bear a still closer inspection, 
 and would not turn out to be but a small pond, 
 if it should come ashore to us. This kelp, oar- 
 weed, tangle, devil's apron, sole-leather, or rib- 
 bon-weed, — as various species are called, — 
 apjoeared to us a singularly marine and fabulous 
 product, a fit 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 in- 
 habitant of the land, and all its products have a 
 certain fabulous quality, as if they belonged to 
 another planet, from seaweed to a sailor's yarn, 
 or a fish story. In this element the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms meet and are strangely min-
 
 THE BEACH 79 
 
 gletl. 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.^ 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 oppor- 
 tunity 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 car- 
 ried 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 
 ^ See Harvey on Algce.
 
 80 CAPE COD 
 
 about it. One who is weather-wise 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, 
 In some far-off bright Azore ; 
 From Bahama and the dashing, 
 
 Silver-flashing 
 Surges of San Salvador : 
 
 '' From the tumbling 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 gro- 
 tesque and fabulous thoughts which have not 
 yet got into the sheltered coves of literature.
 
 THE BEACH 81 
 
 " Ever driftiiij^, 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 un- 
 dertake 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 dis- 
 coloring the waters far and wide, so that I 
 seemed to be sailing through a mere sun-fish 
 soup. They say that when you ende»vor 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
 
 82 CAPE COD 
 
 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 adajited 
 to their circumstances rather by their spirits 
 than their bodies. Theirs must be an essen- 
 tially wilder, that is less human, nature, than 
 that of larks and robins. Their note was like 
 the sound of some vibrating metal, and harmon- 
 ized 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 re- 
 membrance of which most perfectly revives the 
 impression which the beach has made, it would 
 be the dreary peep of the piping plover {Cha- 
 radrius 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 un- 
 qualified strain of eternal melody, for always 
 the same strain which is a dirge to one household 
 is a morning song of rejoicing to another.
 
 THE BEACH 83 
 
 A remarkable method of catching gulls, de- 
 rived from the Indians, was practiced in Well- 
 fleet in 1794. "The Gull House," it is said, 
 " is built with crotches, fixed in the ground on 
 the beach," poles being stretched across for the 
 top, and the sides made close with stakes and sea- 
 weed. " 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 mallemuche, 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 havhesf,, 
 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
 
 84 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 31actra soUdissbna, 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 experi' 
 ment 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 shij) Franklin, which was 
 wrecked here in the spring, at which time nine 
 or ten lives were lost. The reader may remem- 
 ber 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
 
 THE BEACH 85 
 
 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 excur- 
 sion. 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 tJie uihole 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 svigar-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. Keep- 
 ing 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 fire-place to
 
 86 CAPE COD 
 
 keep him alive. Perhaps this hut has never 
 been required to shelter a shipwrecked man, 
 and the benevolent person who promised to in- 
 spect 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 fami- 
 lies which alone would ever occupy or had oc- 
 cupied 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 memor- 
 able night. Houses of entertainment for ship- 
 wrecked men ! What kind of sailor's homes 
 were they? 
 
 "Each hut," says the author of the "Descrip- 
 tion 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
 
 THE BEACH 87 
 
 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 va- 
 ried 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 exces- 
 sive fuiy, it would be almost impossible to dis- 
 cover 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 a body of 
 salt marsh." To him cast ashore in Eastham,
 
 88 CAPE COD 
 
 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, ap- 
 pear 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 im- 
 proper 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 foun- 
 dation, and the weight of the chimney brought 
 it to the ground ; so that in January of the pres- 
 ent 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
 
 THE BEACH 89 
 
 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 oppor- 
 tunity, we put our eyes, by turns, to a knot- 
 hole in the door, and, after long looking, with- 
 out 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 look- 
 ing inward, — by steadily keeping our other ball 
 covered from the light meanwhile, putting the 
 outward world behind us, ocean and land, and 
 tlie 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 no- 
 thing 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
 
 90 CAPE COD 
 
 we were ready to exclaim with the blind bard of 
 "Paradise Lost and Kegained,"^ — 
 
 '• 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 fire-place 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 Hu- 
 mane 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 difficidt to keep in repair, 
 withal, it is so uncertain whether any will ever 
 gain the beach near you. So we shivered round
 
 THE BEACH 91 
 
 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 seaside 
 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 abso- 
 lute 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 senti- 
 ment. But I did not intend this for a senti- 
 mental journey.
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 
 
 HAvmG walked about eight miles since we 
 struck tlie beach, and passed the boundary be- 
 tween Wellfleet and Truro, a stone post in the 
 sand, — for even this sand comes under the ju- 
 risdiction 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, uncom- 
 monly 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 posi- 
 tion, here and elsewhere on the Cape, struck us
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 93 
 
 agreeably, — as if each of the various occupants 
 who had their cunahula behind had punched a 
 hole where his necessities required it, and ac- 
 cording 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 an- 
 other 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 traveler 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. 
 
 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 numer- 
 ous than herrings soon. We knccked at the
 
 94 CAPE COD 
 
 door of the first house, but its inhabitants were 
 all gone away. In the mean while, we saw the 
 occupants of the next one looking out the win- 
 dow at us, and before we reached it an old 
 woman came out and fastened the door of her 
 bidkhead, 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 in- 
 quired. 
 
 "Twenty miles by railroad." 
 "Twenty miles by railroad," he repeated. 
 "Didn't you ever hear of Concord of Revo- 
 lutionary fame? " 
 
 "Did n't I ever hear of Concord? Why, I 
 heard guns fire at the battle of Bunker Hill. 
 [They hear the sound of hea\';y^ 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 '11 leave it to the women," 
 said he.
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 95 
 
 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 fire-place, — 
 
 "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 en- 
 tered, 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
 
 96 CAPE COD 
 
 with a sense of his own nothingness, and wouUl 
 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 hav- 
 ing 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 black-fish, 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 disap- 
 pearance 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
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 97 
 
 Providence caused them to disappear. A few 
 years ago sixty thousand bushels were annually 
 brought from the South and planted in the har- 
 bor of Wellfleet till they attained "the proper 
 relish of Billingsgate;" but now they are im- 
 jiorted 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 in- 
 tense 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 an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Can the oysters move? " 
 
 "Just as much as my shoe." 
 
 But when I caught him saying that they 
 "bedded themselves down in the sand, flat side
 
 98 CAPE COD 
 
 lip, round side down," I told him that my shoe 
 coiihl not do that, without tlie 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 coidd have been no mo- 
 tion for five or six years at least. And Buck- 
 land 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, neverthe- 
 less, 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 mov- 
 ing 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 no-
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 99 
 
 thing 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 Massachu- 
 setts Bay, in latitude 42°, about five leagues 
 south, one point west of Caj) Blanc (Cape 
 Cod), and there they found many good oysters, 
 and they named it "Ze Port aux Huistres'''' 
 [sic] (Oyster Harbor). In one edition of his 
 map (1632), the "^. aux Escailles^'' Is drawn 
 emptying into the same part of the bay, and on 
 the map '''' Novi Belgii,^'' in Ogilby's America
 
 100 CAPE COD 
 
 (1G70), the words "Por< aiix IJuistres" are 
 placed against the same phiee. 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 
 ''/hich obstructed the navigation of its river. 
 'The oysters," says he, "be great ones in form 
 of a shoe-horn; 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. ^ 
 
 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 fisher- 
 man 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 
 1 Also, see Thomas Morton's New English Canaan, p. 90.
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 101 
 
 {SaUcomid) and other weeds along the river- 
 side at low tide that morning, at length he no- 
 ticed 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-squawl 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
 
 102 CAPE COD 
 
 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 fatlier "took right o^t into the 
 back side before daylight, and walked to Prov- 
 incetown and back to dinner." 
 
 When I asked what they did with all that 
 barren-looking land, where I saw so few culti- 
 vated fields, — "Nothing," he said. 
 
 "Then why fence your fields? " 
 
 "To keep the sand from blowing and cover- 
 ing 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
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 103 
 
 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 dis- 
 tance and would fall short, — though I found 
 afterwarci 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 Mississijipi, 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 de- 
 scribed ; 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
 
 104 CAPE COD 
 
 proper length, which should be the chord of an 
 arc, measuring his jumping ability on horizontal 
 surfaces, — assuming one leg to be a perpendic- 
 ular to the plane of the horizon, which, how- 
 ever, 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 hand- 
 some 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 re- 
 member 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 Eng- 
 lish robbed their nests far in the north, where 
 they breed. He remembered well when gulls
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 105 
 
 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 
 dai-k 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 observed that many 
 horses were still turned out to pasture all sum- 
 mer 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 mmitimus)^ 
 cooked green, as well as the cultivated. He 
 had seen it growing very abundantly in New- 
 foundland, 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
 
 106 CAPE COD 
 
 abundance on the sea-coast. Cows, horses, 
 sheep, and goats eat it." But the writer who 
 quoted this coukl not learn that they had ever 
 been used in Barnstable County. 
 
 He had been a voyager, then? Oh, he had 
 been about the world in his day. He once con- 
 sidered 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 Sum- 
 mer 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 '11 shoot 'em. Got a doctor 
 down here. Damn him, I '11 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 '11 do, — •
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 107 
 
 your bark is worse than your bite." But, with- 
 out 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. 
 
 When I approached this house the next sum- 
 mer, over the desolate hills between it and the 
 shore, which are worthy to have been the birth- 
 place of Ossian, I saw the wizard in the midst 
 of a cornfield on the hillside, hut, 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 Hffimonian hills the Thraciari bard, 
 Nor awful Phcebus was on Phidus 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 remem- 
 bered when Napoleon and the moderns generally
 
 108 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Donne, an 
 old Toi-y, 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 Col- 
 onies to undertake to gain their independence." 
 He remembered well General Washington, and 
 how he rode his horse along the streets of Bos- 
 ton, 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 offi- 
 cer, 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 ac- 
 count agreed with the written. 
 
 "Oh," 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. Oh, I know! "
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 109 
 
 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
 
 110 CAPE COD 
 
 ashore alive. There were the rest of them all 
 crowded together on the forecastle, the other 
 parts of the ship beiug 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 get- 
 ting aground on this 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 hiU 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 travelers 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 f Why repeat what he told us ? 
 
 " Awt Seyllam Nisi, quam fama secuta est, 
 Candida succinetam 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
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 111 
 
 answered, that he was a plain-spoken man, and 
 he conkl tell me that it was all imagination. 
 At any rate, it proved an emetic in my case, 
 and I was made qnite 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 Har- 
 bor, 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 con- 
 firmation 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 dus: 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 am 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
 
 112 CAPE COD 
 
 had any learning, only what I got by natur." 
 — It was in vain that we remincletl him that he 
 conld quote Joscplms 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 sj^elt, and what it means? ^la'y," 
 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. 
 
 A
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 113 
 
 I also heard of such names as Zoheth, Beriah, 
 Amaziah, Bethuel, and Shearjashub, here- 
 abouts. 
 
 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 retir- 
 ing, discoursing meanwhile with Panurgic plain- 
 ness 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? " 
 
 "Oh, no," said I, "I am in no hurry. I be- 
 lieve I have weathered the Clam cape."
 
 114 CAPE COD 
 
 "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 1. 
 
 At last we cut him short in the midst o£ 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 case- 
 ments 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, ex- 
 pecting to see one of the Atlantic steamers thus
 
 THE WELL FLEET OYSTERMAN 115 
 
 far out of her course, but there was nothing un- 
 usual 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 ordi- 
 nary roar of the sea, — I immediately descended 
 again, to see if I lost hearing of it; but, with- 
 out 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 mur- 
 muring of the winds in the woods, without ap- 
 parent 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
 
 116 CAPE COD 
 
 the wind. Also the captain of a packet between 
 this country and England told nie that he some- 
 times 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 blow- 
 ing from an opposite quarter, but the undula- 
 tion had traveled 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 traveled many 
 hundred, and sometimes even two or three thou- 
 sand miles. 
 
 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, bare-headed, tripping about like 
 a young girl, and driving up the cow to milk. 
 She got the breakfast with dispatch, and with- 
 out noise or bustle ; and meanwhile the old man 
 resumed his stories, standing before us, who were 
 sitting, with his back to the chimney, and eject- 
 ing his tobacco-juice right and left into the fire 
 behind him, without regard to the various dishes 
 which were there j^reparing. 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
 
 THE WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 117 
 
 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 detri- 
 ment from the old man's shots, bvit my compan- 
 ion 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 ex- 
 posed, 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 there- 
 fore 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 be- 
 longed. He said that he had been to hear thir- 
 teen 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 compan- 
 ion to what sect he belonged, to which he an- 
 swered, —
 
 118 C^iPE COD 
 
 "Oh, I belong to the Universal Brotherhood." 
 "What 's that? " he asked, "Sons o' Temper- 
 ance?" 
 
 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 out 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 j^arsley. 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, 
 hyssoj), 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 WELLFLEET OYSTERMAN 119 
 
 the bushes, it fell to the ground, and we did not 
 see that he recovered it. That is not their prac- 
 tice. 
 
 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 at- 
 tracted 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. 
 Kobert 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 trans- 
 parent. Of this they make candles, which are 
 never greasy to the touch nor melt with lying in
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 121 
 
 the hottest weather; neither does the snnff 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 pleas- 
 ant f ragrancy to all that are in the room ; inso- 
 much that nice people often put them out on pur- 
 pose 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 Eng- 
 land, 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 
 j)rominences 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
 
 122 CAPE COD 
 
 about a quarter of a pound weight from my tliree 
 pints, and more yet remained within the berries. 
 A small portion cooled in the form of small flat- 
 tish hemispheres, like crystallizations, the size of 
 a kernel of corn (nuggets I called them as I 
 picked them out from amid the berries). Lou- 
 don says, that " cultivated trees are said to yield 
 more wax than those that are found wild." ^ If 
 you get any pitch on your hands in the pine- 
 woods you have only to rub some of these ber- 
 ries between your hands to start it off. But the 
 ocean was the grand fact there, which made us 
 forget both bayberries 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 
 
 ^ See Duplessv, Vi'gctaux Besirieux, vol. ii., p. 60.
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 123 
 
 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 snow- 
 storm they must undoubtedly perish." This is 
 still a true description of the country, except 
 that there is not much high wood left. 
 
 There were many vessels, like gulls, skim- 
 ming over the surface of the sea, now half con- 
 cealed in its troughs, their dolphin -strikers 
 ploughing the water, now tossed on the top of
 
 124 CAPE COD 
 
 the billows. One, a Larque standing down ])ar- 
 alk'l 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 com- 
 municate with us, and perhaps we did not re- 
 gard 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 
 afPord 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 meanwhile 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 125 
 
 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 bar- 
 rens 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 an- 
 other 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 ex- 
 pectation, and yet when hours had elapsed we 
 could see no difference. But there it was, bal- 
 ancing 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 in- 
 deed 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 fre- 
 quently to empty our shoes of the sand which 
 one took in in climbing or descending the bank.
 
 126 CAPE COD 
 
 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 inani- 
 mate things, look not only exceedingly gro- 
 tesque, but much larger and more wonderful 
 than they actually are. Lately, when approach- 
 ing the sea-shore 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 direc-
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 127 
 
 tion from a light-house : I should find it a mile 
 or two distant over the sand, a dozen rods fi'om 
 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 aboiit them, and they were singu- 
 larly inoffensive both to the senses and the im- 
 agination. 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.
 
 128 CAPE COD 
 
 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, haK a dozen bolts at a 
 time. 
 
 We eagerly filled our pockets with the smooth 
 round pebbles which in some places, even here, 
 were thiidy sprinkled over the sand, together 
 with flat circular shells {Sciitellce ?y, 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 drojii^ed, 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, discharg- 
 ing 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 ^Dockets in the clothing
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 129 
 
 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 evajjorated, 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 solldlssima), 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, leav- 
 ing 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 clam-shells filled with sand; and some- 
 times one valve was separately filled exactly 
 even, as if it had been heaped and then sci^aped.
 
 130 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ray hands in num- 
 bers on the bars, and which is sometimes eaten 
 by the inhabitants, in the absence of the Mya 
 arcnaria, 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 
 hyssus. 
 
 The ScoUoj) Shell (Pecten concentricus), used 
 for card-racks and pin-cushions. 
 
 Cockles, or Cuckoos (JVatica 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 flar- 
 ing dickey made of sand-paper. Also, — 
 
 Cancellaria Couthouyi (J\ and — 
 
 Periwinkles (?) (^Fusiis decemcostatus). 
 
 We afterward saw some other kinds on the 
 Bay side. Gould states that this Cape "has 
 hitherto proved a barrier to the migrations of 
 many species of Mollusca." — "Of the one hun- 
 dred and ninety-seven species [which he de-
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 131 
 
 scribed 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 {Am- 
 jihijwda); and the cases of the Horse-shoe 
 Crab, or Saucepan Fish (^Limulus Polyphe- 
 mus), 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 f) covered with chocolate-colored spines, 
 but becoming smooth and white, with five petal- 
 like figures; a few Star-fishes or Five-fingers 
 (Asterias nibens); and Sun-fishes or Sea-jellies 
 {Aurelice). 
 
 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 Atnef'icajia), Saltwort 
 (Salsola kali), Sea Sandwort {Honhenya pep- 
 loides), Sea Burdock (^XantMum echinaturn). 
 Sea-side Spurge {Euphorhia polygonifolia)\ 
 also, Beach Grass {Arundo, Psamma, or
 
 132 CAPE COD 
 
 Calamagrostis arenaria). Sea-side Golden-rod 
 {SoUdago seynjiervirens), and the Beach Pea 
 (^Lathyvus mai'ltimus). 
 
 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 af- 
 terward told, no bathing on the Atlantic side, 
 on account of the undertow and the rumor of 
 sharks. At the light-house 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 some- 
 times 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.
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN . 133 
 
 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 col- 
 ored 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 ex- 
 jjloring 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 yoving salmon, and 
 the expectation of encountering a shark did not
 
 134 CAPE COD 
 
 subtract anything from its life-giving quali- 
 ties. 
 
 Sometimes we sat on the wet beach and 
 watched the beach birds, sand-pipers, and oth- 
 ers, trotting along close to each wave, and wait- 
 ing for the sea to cast up their breakfast. The 
 former (^CharadHus 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 made 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 — woidd alight on the tur- 
 bulent 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 foam- 
 ing crest of each breaker, but sometimes outrid- 
 ing 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 135 
 
 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 Wilsonli), 
 which is seen in the Bay as well as on the out- 
 side. " 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 rea- 
 son, 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 ob- 
 tain great part of it. They dash along till they 
 have loaded their feathers and then they pause 
 upon the waves 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 sidewalk, 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 ves- 
 sel, probably the Franklin, a large piece fifteen 
 feet square, and still freshly painted. With a
 
 136 CAPE COD 
 
 grapi)le and a line we could have saved it, for 
 the waves repeatedly washed it within cast, but 
 thej'^ 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 cap- 
 tain'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 labeled, 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 inhab- 
 itants 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 ad- 
 vertised, yet undoubtedly a great deal of value 
 is secretly carried off. But are we not all
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 137 
 
 wreckers contriving that some treasure may be 
 washed np 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 nut- 
 meg-trees into the ocean, and let all nations who 
 stand in need of them pick them up? How- 
 ever, 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 camo 
 across the following scrap in a newspaper.
 
 138 CAPE COD 
 
 '■ A Religious Fish. — A short time ago, mine host Stewart, 
 of the Denton Hotel, piirchiised a rock-fish, weigliing about 
 sixtj' pounds. On opening it he found in it a certificate of 
 membersliip 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 aiHiction, which is but for a moment, worketh for ua 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 ap- 
 propriated it witli crossed sticks ; and it wiU 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 valu- 
 able 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 person- 
 age 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 139 
 
 red ale, which still smacked o£ 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, pre- 
 serving 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 sev- 
 eral small frogs in a bunch, for want of squid. 
 They followed a retiring wave, and whirling 
 their lines round and round their heads with in- 
 creasing 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 liter- 
 ally (or Uttorally) 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 pidled in your-
 
 140 CAPE COD 
 
 self. And they kuew by experience that it 
 would be a Strii^ed 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 those which require their ser- 
 vices. These had been waiting for fair weather, 
 and had come out of Boston Harbor together. 
 The same is the case when they have been as- 
 sembled 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 to- 
 ward some distant foreigner who had just fired 
 a gun, the echo of which along the shore
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 141 
 
 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 communi- 
 cates with him alongside, — sends some import- 
 ant message to the owners, and then bids fare- 
 well to these shores for good and all; or, per- 
 chance a propeller passed and made fast to some 
 disabled craft, or one that had been becalmed, 
 whose cargo of fruit might spoil. Though si- 
 lently, 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. 
 
 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 contin- 
 ually 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 shift- 
 ing into each other in all the vivid splendor of
 
 142 CAPE COD 
 
 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 gen- 
 erally 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 show- 
 ing which way the wind sets. 
 
 Thus we sat on the foaming shore, looking on 
 the wine-colored ocean, — 
 
 0iV' €<J)' aAbs iroKiTJs, dpSuov e'lrl oJvoira •ir6vT0v. 
 
 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 143 
 
 shadows of clouds. Sometimes the sea was 
 spotted with them far and wide, such is its in- 
 exhaustible 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 dis- 
 tant sails steering for half fabulous ports, whose 
 very names are a mysterious music to our ears ; 
 Fayal, and Babel-mandel, 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 al- 
 ways insane. Even savages have indirectly sur- 
 mised as much. Humboldt, speaking of Colum- 
 bus approaching the New World, says: "The
 
 144 CAPE COD 
 
 grateful coolness of the evening air, the ethereal 
 purity of the starry firmament, the bahny fra- 
 grance of flowers, wafted to him by the land 
 breeze, all led him to suppose (as we are told by 
 Herrera, in the Decades) that he was approach- 
 ing 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 ven- 
 erable 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 favor- 
 able 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 145 
 
 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 an- 
 thracite 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 be- 
 come visible, by the dense columns of black 
 smoke pouring out of their chimneys, and trail- 
 ing along the horizon." 
 
 Thouo'h there were numerous vessels at this 
 
 ID 
 
 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
 
 146 CAPE COD 
 
 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 mo- 
 ments, but the sailor's only hope is that he may 
 reach the distant shore. I could then appre- 
 ciate 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 northeast- 
 ward 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 147 
 
 an island once, and in their accounts they grad- 
 ually 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 
 %aw it variously shaded with seaweed, 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 hun- 
 dred 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
 
 148 CAPE COD 
 
 those of Sweden," and "the Adriatic between 
 Venice and Trieste has a depth of only one hun- 
 dred 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 midsum- 
 mer 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 sailor's 
 call "slicks," says: "We met with them yester- 
 day, 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 '."
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 149 
 
 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 seaweed, 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 weep- 
 ing to the unheard-of shore, and now stand un- 
 certain where a sailor has recently been buried 
 amid the sand-hills. 
 
 It is generally supposed that they who have 
 long been conversant with the Ocean can fore- 
 tell, 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,
 
 150 CAPE COD 
 
 science; and possibly they have not always 
 looked over the gunwale so long in vain. Kiilm 
 repeats a stoiy which was told him in Philadel- 
 phia 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 woidd 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 be- 
 come clear all of a sudden, which he looked upon 
 as a certain sign of an im23ending hurricane in 
 the sea." The sequel of the story is, that by 
 good fortvme, and by dint of rowing, they man- 
 aged 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
 
 THE BEACH AGAIN 151 
 
 drpuycTos, or unfruitful, though it does not pro- 
 duce 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. Dar- 
 win 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 hav- 
 ing lived in its lower stage on dry land," but as 
 in the case of the tadj)ole, "the progress invari- 
 ably 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
 
 152 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 drpvyero?, or unfruitful, but as it has been more 
 truly called, the "laboratory of continents." 
 
 Though we have indulged in some placid re- 
 flections 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 notwith- 
 standing that it was very cold and windy to-day, 
 it was such 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 drjmess of the 
 soil. Yet the author of the old " DescrijDtion of 
 Wellfleet" says, "The atmosphere is very much 
 impregnated with saline particles, which, per- 
 haj)s, 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."
 
 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 traveler does not look at 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 exceed- 
 ingly 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 vaUeys, now wearing an autumnal tint. 
 You would frequently think, from the character 
 of the surface, the dwarfish trees, and the bear- 
 berries 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 were 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 East-
 
 154 CAPE COD 
 
 ham, near the Camp Ground, we saw, the next 
 summer, some quite rural, and even sylvan re- 
 treats, 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 nat- 
 urally about the houses there, appeared to flour- 
 ish 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 shrub- 
 bery nine or ten feet high, and we could fre- 
 quently 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 bay- 
 berry, 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 abun- 
 dant, and the next summer they bore a remark- 
 able quantity of that kind of gall called Huckle-
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 155 
 
 berry-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. 
 
 The inhabitants of these towns have a great 
 regard for a tree, though their standard for one 
 is necessarily neither lai'ge 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 gen- 
 eration. Their "brave old oaks," of which 
 they speak with so much respect, and which 
 they will point out to you as relics of the primi- 
 tive forest, one hundred or one hundred and 
 fifty, ay, for aught they know, two hundred 
 years old, have a ridiculously dwarfish appear- 
 ance, 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 tim-
 
 156 CAPE COD 
 
 ber which grew in AYellfleet. The old houses 
 also are built of che 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 im2oorted 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) 2i\m(\. the shrubbery, and 
 in the open land the Upland Plover (Totanus 
 Sartramlus), 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 
 to\\Ti of about eiofhteen hundred inhabitants. 
 We had already come to Pamet River, which
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 157 
 
 empties into the Bay. This was the limit of the 
 Pilgrims' journey up the Cape from Province- 
 town, when seeking a place for settlement. It 
 rises in a hollow within a few rods of the Atlan- 
 tic, 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 stead- 
 ily driven westward butt-end foremost, — foun- 
 tain-head, channel, and light-house, at the 
 mouth, all together. 
 
 Early in the afternoon we reached the High- 
 land Light, whose white tower we had seen ris- 
 ing 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 differ- 
 ence in the soil, for there was an interruption of 
 the desert, and a slight appearance of a sod un- 
 der 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 covintry, 
 consisting of rounded hills and hollows, called 
 by geologists diluvial elevations and depressions,
 
 158 CAPE COD 
 
 — a kind of scenery which has been compared 
 to a chopped sea, though this suggests too sud- 
 den 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 soiithward from the light- 
 house, the Cape appeared like an elevated pla- 
 teau, sloping very regidarly, 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 hol- 
 lows 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 circu- 
 lar, 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
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 159 
 
 either hand. When approaching it, we had 
 mistaken the belfry for a summer-house on the 
 ph^in. We began to think that we might tum- 
 ble 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 ob- 
 jects 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 bar- 
 ren, heath -like plain, and perhaps one third of 
 it lies in common, though the property of indi- 
 viduals. The author of the old "Description of 
 Truro," sj)eaking of the soil, says, "The snow, 
 which woidd be of essential service to it pro- 
 vided it lay level and covered the ground, is 
 blown into drifts and into the sea." This pecu- 
 liar 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 im- 
 pression as being at sea, and he finds it impos- 
 sible 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 sum- 
 mer, I saw a family a-blueberrying a mile off,
 
 100 CAPE COD 
 
 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 sim- 
 ilar 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, bearberry, etc. 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 tomen- 
 tosa and ericoides), which deserA^e a better 
 name, reign for miles in little hemispherical 
 tufts or islets, like moss, scattered over the 
 wast^. They linger in bloom there till the mid-
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE IGl 
 
 die of July. Occasionally near the beach these 
 rounded beds, as also those of the sea-sandwort 
 (Jrlonhenya 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 some- 
 times 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 sahleux. I should be proud of it. Here 
 and there were tracts of beach-grass mingled 
 with the seaside golden - rod and beach - pea, 
 which reminded us still more forcibly of the 
 ocean. 
 
 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 emp- 
 tying into the south side of Pamet River, though 
 I was so heedless as not to taste it. At any
 
 162 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ahnost universal bare- 
 ness and smoothness of the landscajje were as 
 agreeable as novel, making it so much the more 
 like the deck of a vessel. We saw vessels sail- 
 ing 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, com- 
 monly without any fences to confine it, and con- 
 tinually 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 shud- 
 dered 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
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 163 
 
 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 Prai- 
 ries — 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 blacldish. The farmers are fisher- 
 men-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 occa- 
 sionally rotting on the shore. Between the 
 Pond and East Harbor Village there was an in- 
 teresting 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, etc., 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
 
 16-4 CAPE COD 
 
 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 vortical, spiral 
 manner, which produced a very singular effect, 
 as if you were looking into the reverse side of a 
 vast banded shield. This exj^eriment, so im- 
 portant 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-for- 
 est, 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 
 cabled pig7iad as, and according to Loudon "con- 
 stitute 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. 
 
 A few years ago Truro was remarkable among 
 the Cape towns for the nimiber 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 imfenced lands or general fields, but now 
 the owners were more particular to assert their 
 rights, and it cost too much for fencing. The
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 165 
 
 rails are cedar from Maine, and two rails will 
 answer for ordinary purposes, but four are re- 
 quired 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 vil- 
 lages 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 sell- 
 ing 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 news-boys, I did not see what they 
 would do for waste paper. 
 
 The objects around us, the makeshifts of fish- 
 ermen 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
 
 166 CAPE COD 
 
 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 thou- 
 sand 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 uj) against an outhouse. I saw fastened 
 to a shed near the light-house 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 coidd 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 thi-ough 
 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 chil- 
 dren, 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 Doffra- 
 field Mountains, as if the land were a boat turned
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 167 
 
 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 morn." 
 
 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 team- 
 ing 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
 
 168 CAPE COD 
 
 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 float- 
 ing, 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 every- 
 body's) Uncle Bill, one day over on the Ply- 
 mouth 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 rock- 
 weed, lighters vessels, and saves wrecks. I still
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 169 
 
 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 seashore. A 
 frequent answer is, "Well! you can't start for 
 two hours yet." It is something new to a lands- 
 man, 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. 
 
 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 Sam- 
 phire, Rosemary, and other plants new to us in- 
 landers. 
 
 In the summer and fall sometimes, hundreds
 
 170 CAPE COD 
 
 of blackfish (the Social Whale, Glohicephalus 
 7nclas of De Kay ; called also Black Whale-fish, 
 Howling Whale, Bottle-head, 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 
 light-house arriving early in the morning re- 
 marked 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 
 large carcass whose head was gone and whose 
 blubber had been stripped off some weeks be- 
 fore; 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
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 171 
 
 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 fisher- 
 man 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,
 
 172 CAPE COD 
 
 worth fifteen or twenty dollars, to a fish. There 
 wei'e 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 fisher- 
 men, 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 "an- 
 other school," and we could see their black 
 backs and their blowing about a mile north- 
 ward, 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
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 173 
 
 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 him- 
 self 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 com- 
 jjelled 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 whal- 
 ing which I have seen, and a fishei'man 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 nev- 
 ertheless had thrust it quite through his fish. 
 
 I learned that a few days before this one hun- 
 dred and eighty blackfish had been driven ashore 
 in one school at Eastham, a little farther south, 
 and that the keeper of Billingsgate Point light
 
 174 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Hol- 
 low. 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 gener- 
 ally 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
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 175 
 
 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 au- 
 thorized 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 apart 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 poison- 
 ing the air of one county for more than thirty
 
 17G CAPE COD 
 
 miles, — T 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 apj)earance 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 Atlan- 
 tic Ocean. 
 
 On our way back to the light-house, by whose 
 whitewashed 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 ; how-
 
 ACROSS THE CAPE 177 
 
 ever, 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 quad- 
 rupeds). He was a large, plump, shaggy fel- 
 low, like a yellow dog, with, as usual, a white 
 tip to his tail, and looked as if he had fared well 
 on the Cape. He cantered away into the shrub- 
 oaks and bay berry bushes which chanced to 
 grow there, but were hardly high enough to con- 
 ceal him. I saw another the next summer leap- 
 ing 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, atid added the skull to my collection. 
 Hence, I concluded that they must be plenty 
 thereabouts ; but a traveler 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
 
 178 CAPE COD 
 
 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 crow-ber- 
 ries, mussels, crabs, and what the sea casts up." 
 Just before reaching the light-house, we saw 
 the sun set in the Ba}^ — 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 set- 
 ting behind our native hills, which were just be- 
 low 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, — 
 
 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 quadi'ant, with pins for sights and pivots, 
 and got the angle of elevation of the Bank op- 
 posite 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
 
 180 CAPE COD 
 
 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 fif- 
 teen or twenty-five feet higher, and that ap- 
 peared 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 in- 
 tervals of two or three rods, have left the inter- 
 mediate 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 semi-cixcular crater. 
 
 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
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 181 
 
 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 con- 
 clusions 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 every- 
 where, for one man told me of a vessel wrecked 
 long ago on the north of Provincetown whose 
 "Sowes" (this was his word) are still visible 
 many rods within the present line of the beach, 
 half buried in sand. Perchance they lie along- 
 side the timbers of a whale. The general state- 
 ment 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
 
 182 CAPE COD 
 
 Chatham and Monomoy Beaches, and at Bil- 
 lingsgate, Long, and Race Points. James Free- 
 man 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 ex- 
 tending as fast as ever. A writer in the Massa- 
 chusetts 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 Webb's Island, con- 
 taining 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 en- 
 trance to Nauset Harbor, which was once in 
 Eastham, has now traveled 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 car- 
 ried off by currents, but the sand in blown from 
 the beach directly up the steep bank, where it is 
 one hundred and fifty feet high, and covers the
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 183 
 
 original surface there many feet deep. If you 
 sit on the edge you will have ocular demonstra- 
 tion of this by soon getting your eyes full. 
 Thiis the bank preserves its height as fast as it 
 is worn away. This sand is steadily traveling 
 westward at a rapid rate, "more than a hundred 
 yards," says one writer, within the memoiy 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 Billingsgate 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 ex- 
 tremely narrow, appeared at length on the At-
 
 184 CAPE COD 
 
 lantic 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 be- 
 fore, 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 un- 
 dertow, but when we were there last, the sea 
 had, three months before, cast up a bar near this 
 light-house, two miles long and ten rods wide, 
 over which the tide did not flow, leaving a nar- 
 row cove, then a quarter of a mile long, between 
 it and the shore, which afforded excellent bath- 
 ing. This cove had from time to time been 
 closed up as the bar traveled northward, in one 
 instance imprisoning four or five hundred whit- 
 ing 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 HIGHLAND LIGHT 185 
 
 The light-bouse keej)er 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 uj) 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 what- 
 ever else was in the way, and left the beach 
 hard to walk on ; but in the latter case the un- 
 dertow 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
 
 186 CAPE COD 
 
 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 cur- 
 rent, 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 
 coidd get off on a plank. Champlain and Pour- 
 trincourt could not land here in 1606, on ac- 
 count of the swell (la houUe), 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 over- 
 turns canoes. Lames a la mer are the long 
 vague s 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,
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 187 
 
 however little wind thei-e may be, a shallop or 
 a canoe could hardly land {ahorder terre) with- 
 out tui-ning 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. Com- 
 monly 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 skillfully 
 you steer it, for it will often be completely cov- 
 ered 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 di- 
 rectly 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
 
 188 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 opi^ortunity, and succeeded, by skill and good 
 luck, in reaching the land, but they were unwill- 
 ing to take the responsibility of telling the 
 others when to come in, and as the other helms- 
 man 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 beinsf "gfreater or more dangerous than 
 any other," after quoting Ovid, — 
 
 " Qui venit hie fluctiis, fluctus supereminet omnes 
 Posterior none est, undecimo que prior," — 
 
 says, "Which, notwithstanding, is evidently 
 false ; nor can it be made out either by observa- 
 tion 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
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 189 
 
 of the sea, or in the particular motions thereof, 
 as we may in its general reciprocations, whose 
 causes are constant, and effects therefore corre- 
 spondent; whereas its fluctuations are but mo- 
 tions 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 sur- 
 face ; 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 light-house 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.
 
 190 CAPE COD 
 
 It was said in 1794 that more vessels were 
 cast away on the east shore of Truro than any- 
 where in Barnstable County. Notwithstanding 
 that this light-house has since been erected, after 
 ahnost every storm we read of one or more ves- 
 sels 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 Danger- 
 field. This was a very appropriate name, for I 
 afterward read on a monument in the grave- 
 yard, near Pamet Kiver, the following inscrip- 
 tion : — 
 
 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
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 191 
 
 back side 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 inhab- 
 itants 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 wid- 
 ows," was the reply. The stranger and the in- 
 habitant view the shore with very different eyes. 
 The former may have come to see and acbiiire 
 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 sup- 
 posed 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.
 
 192 CAPE COD 
 
 In the year 1717, a noted pirate named Bel- 
 lamy was led on to the bar off AVellfleet by the 
 captain of a S7iow 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 pi- 
 rates followed it. A storm coming on, their 
 whole fleet was wrecked, and more than a hun- 
 dred dead bodies lay along the shore. Six who 
 escaped shipwreck were executed. "At times 
 to this day," (1793), says the historian of Well- 
 fleet, "there are King William and Queen 
 Mary's coj)pers 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, Bel- 
 lamy's] at low ebbs has been seen." Another 
 tells us that, " For many years after this ship- 
 wreck, a man of a very singular and frightful 
 aspect used every spring and autumn to be seen 
 traveling on the Cape, who was supposed to 
 have been one of Bellamy's crew. The pre- 
 sumption 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. 
 
 As I was walking on the beach here in my
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 193 
 
 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 one 
 dollar and six cents, near high-water mark, on 
 the still moist sand, just under the abrupt, cav- 
 ing 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 Benedictuni (Blessed be the 
 Name of the Lord), a pleasing sentiment to read 
 in the sands of the seashore, 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 sil- 
 ver. Afterward, rambling on the bars at low 
 tide, I cheated my companion by holding up 
 round shells (^Scutellce) 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
 
 194 CAPE COD 
 
 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 off 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 in- 
 dustry, 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 fisher- 
 man, 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 shal- 
 lower, and alternately covered and uncovered 
 by the sand, perchance with a small length of 
 iron cable still attached, — to which where is
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 195 
 
 the other end ? So many unconcluded tales to 
 be continued another time. So, if we had div- 
 ing-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 repre- 
 sented it as a sea-monster with open jaws, more 
 terrible than Scylla and Charybdis. An inhabi- 
 tant of Truro told me that about a fortnight af- 
 ter the St. John was wrecked at Cohasset he 
 found two bodies on the shore at the Clay 
 Povmds. They were those of a man and a cor- 
 pulent 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
 
 196 CAPE COD 
 
 at first may they have been associated In their 
 drifting. Some of the bodies of those passen- 
 gers 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 rid- 
 dles 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 I 
 There were many young birds on the clay be- 
 neath, 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 esfo-s there. This Is also a favor- 
 ite resort for gunners In the fall to shoot the 
 Golden Plover. As around the shores of a
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 197 
 
 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 proportion ably- 
 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 va- 
 rious kinds as strewed the beach. They had 
 apparently flown over the bank in the night, 
 and could not get up again, and some had per- 
 haps 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 remark- 
 ably 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 
 (Ajnelanchier)^ Beach Plums, and Blueberries 
 (^Vaccinium Pennsylvanicurn), like the apple- 
 trees and oaks, were very dwarfish, spreading 
 over the sand, but at the same time very fruit- 
 ful. The blueberry was but an inch or two 
 high, and its fruit often rested on the ground.
 
 198 CAPE COD 
 
 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 mois- 
 ture in the atmosphere, for I observed that what 
 little grass there was was remarkably laden with 
 dew in the morning, and in summer dense im- 
 prisoning fogs frequently last till midday, turn- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 ceedingly damj) at that season, and writing- 
 paper lost all its stiffness in it. It was imjjos- 
 sible 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 seaside 
 golden-rod, standing in the sand early in July,
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 199 
 
 and also how turnips, beets, carrots, etc., flour- 
 ished even in pure sand. A man traveling 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 ap- 
 proaching found it to be a bed of beets flourish- 
 ing vigorously, probably from seed washed out 
 of the Franklin. Also beets and turnips came 
 up in the seaweed 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
 
 200 CAPE COD 
 
 originally from seeds which perhaps were cast 
 on the waters for this end, thongh we do not 
 know the Franldin which they came out of ? In 
 ancient times some Mr. Bell ( ?) was sailing this 
 way in his ark with seeds of rocket, saltwort, 
 sandwort, beach-grass, samphire, bayberry, pov- 
 erty-grass, etc. , all nicely labeled 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 sum- 
 mer the pretty Poly gala polygama, spreading 
 ray-wise flat on the ground, white pasture this- 
 tles (Cirsium pumilum), and amid the shrub- 
 bery 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 crowberry {Empetrum Conradii), for 
 which Plymouth Is the only locality in Massa- 
 chusetts 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 ar";ensis), greets you 
 in fair weather on almost every square yard of 
 sand. From Yarmouth, I have received the 
 Chryso2:)sis falcata (golden aster), and Vacci- 
 nium stamineiun (Deerberry or Squaw Huckle-
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 201 
 
 berry), with fruit not edible, sometimes as large 
 as a cranberry (Sept. 7). 
 
 The Highland Light-house,^ 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 there- 
 fore told our host that we would like to accom- 
 pany 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 bed- 
 room, 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 ar- 
 ranged around; thence we ascended by a wind- 
 ing 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 every- 
 thing in apple-pie order, and no danger of any- 
 
 ^ The light-house has since heen rebuilt, and shows a Fres' 
 nel light.
 
 202 CAPE COD 
 
 thing 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 sur- 
 rounded, 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 com- 
 monly once in the course of the night. He com- 
 plained of the quality of the oil which was fur- 
 nished. This house consumes about eight hun- 
 dred 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-
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 203 
 
 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 reflec- 
 tors, — 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. A govern- 
 ment 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 enter- 
 tained me the next year, stated that one ex- 
 tremely cold night, when this and all the neigh- 
 boring lights were burning summer oil, but he 
 hiid been provident enough to reserve a little
 
 204 CAPE COD 
 
 winter oil against emergencies, he was waked up 
 with anxiety, and found that his oil was con- 
 gealed, and his lights almost extinguished ; and 
 when, after many hours' exertion, he had suc- 
 ceeded 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 Bil- 
 lingsgate Lights also had been extinguished. 
 
 Our host said that the frost, too, on the win- 
 dows 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 w^ere 
 found on the ground beneath in the morning 
 with their necks bi-oken. 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.
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 205 
 
 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 newsjjaper when they are noisy down be- 
 low." 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 Uni- 
 versity 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, abovxt 
 nine miles distant, and also the light on Long
 
 20G CAPE COD 
 
 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 lan- 
 tern, who was afraid of being rvm 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 cot- 
 tager 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
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 207 
 
 a regiment stationed here to attend to tliem, 
 there is one requiring the keeper to keep an ac- 
 count 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 direc- 
 tions, 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 haK an hour 
 before sunrise, and having a little time to spare, 
 for his custom was to extinguish his lights at 
 svmrise, 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 astonish- 
 ment, 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 hori- 
 zon. He showed me where its rays fell on the
 
 208 CAPE COD 
 
 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 trust- 
 ing 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 in- 
 visible to him, which rose with the sun, and his 
 clock was only as accurate as the average; or 
 J3erhaps, 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 be- 
 hooves us old stagers to keep our lamps trimmed
 
 THE HIGHLAND LIGHT 209 
 
 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 morn- 
 ing, 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 lamp 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 com- 
 pletely deceived by it, and I could then under- 
 stand 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,
 
 210 CAPE COD 
 
 that the first warning was my hearing the sound 
 of the surf under my elbow. I coukl almost 
 have jumped ashore, and we were obliged to go 
 about very suddenly to prevent striking. The 
 distant light for which we were steering, sup- 
 jjosing 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, rang as clear as a bell in 
 response. The light-house lamp a few feet dis- 
 tant shone full into my chamber, and made it as 
 bright as day, so I knew exactly how the High- 
 land 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.
 
 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 coun- 
 terbalance this, I have remarked that the sea- 
 shore, even where muddy, as it is not here, is
 
 212 CAPE COD 
 
 singularly clean ; for, notwithstanding the spat- 
 tering 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. In- 
 deed, 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 well-nigh 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 oc- 
 curred, all their suspicions seem to have at once 
 centred on us two travelers 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 Coimty who traveled 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 213 
 
 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 i-e- 
 counding 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 coun- 
 tryman. We still thought that we could see the 
 other side. Its surface was still more sparkling 
 than the day before, and we beheld "the count- 
 less 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 
 e)i,tre 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
 
 214 CAPE COD 
 
 • 
 
 loomed to our imaginations by a common mi- 
 rage, — 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 Co- 
 lumbus 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 iVe 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, cw Trepa? 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 j)lant 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 leav- 
 ings 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 215 
 
 we approached its wrist between Truro and 
 Provincetown and the shore inclined more de- 
 cidedly to the west. At the head of East Har- 
 bor 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 dis- 
 tance 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 in- 
 terrupt it. Also the sands began to invade the 
 land more and more, until finally they had en- 
 tire 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 fif- 
 teen 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
 
 216 CAPE COD 
 
 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; notwith- 
 standing 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 "re- 
 nowned sires" with their "peerless dames" 
 stepped on Plymouth Rock, he wrote, "New- 
 foundland doth yearly freight neir eight hun- 
 dred sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, 
 poor-John, and cor fisU," though all their sup- 
 plies 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 217 
 
 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." Al- 
 ready 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. 
 
 All this has been accomplished, and more, 
 and where is Holland now ? Verily the Dutch 
 have taken it. There was no long interval be- 
 tween 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 inter- 
 est. 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 ap- 
 peared as if every able-bodied man and helpful 
 boy in the Bay had gone out on a pleasure ex- 
 cursion 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
 
 218 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Con- 
 cord who are engaged during the summer in 
 the perch, pickerel, bream, horn-jiout, and 
 shiner fishery, of which no one keeps the statis- 
 tics, — 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-fish- 
 ing, 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 se- 
 rious business men make of getting their din- 
 ners, and how universally shiftlessness and a 
 e:rovelin<T taste take refuge in a merelv ant-like 
 industry. Better go without your dinner, 1 
 thought, than be thus everlastingly fishing for
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 219 
 
 it like a cormorant. Of course, vieioed 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 vei-y 
 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 mackereling 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 man- 
 ner, 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
 
 220 CAPE COD 
 
 1 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 vernaUs. The crew proceeded lei- 
 surely 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 thunder-showers, 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 lines hung 
 ready, two to a man. The boom swung round 
 once or twice, and Winsor cast overboard the 
 fold 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 de- 
 grees. There was one among us just returned 
 from California, who was now going as pas- 
 senger for his health and amusement. They 
 expected to be gone about a week, to begin fish- 
 ing the next morning, and to carry their fish 
 fresh to Boston. They landed me at Clark's 
 Island, where the Pilgrims landed, for my com-
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 221 
 
 panlons 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 ele- 
 ments 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 mo- 
 ment 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
 
 222 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ele- 
 ments. 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 At- 
 lantic ! 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 223 
 
 liatchetl, 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 cir- 
 cumstances 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 car- 
 cass of a horse or ox which lay on the beach
 
 224 CAPE COD 
 
 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 seashore is a sort of neutral groimd, a 
 most advantageous point from which to contem- 
 plate this world. It is even a trivial place. 
 The waves forever rolling to the land are too 
 far-traveled and untamable to be familiar. 
 Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun- 
 squawl 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 flat- 
 tery 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 pit- 
 tance 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. 
 
 AVe 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 225 
 
 been washed up some months before. It 
 chanced that this was the most conclusive evi- 
 dence 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 ap- 
 pears that after they had left the Cape and ex- 
 plored the country about Straum-Fiordr (Buz- 
 zard's Bay!), Thorhall, who was disappointed 
 at not getting any wine to drink there, deter- 
 mined to sail north again in search of Vinland. 
 Though the antiquaries have given us the origi- 
 nal 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 : 
 E6 redeainus, uLi eonterranei 
 sunt nostri ! f aciamus aliter, 
 expansi arenosi peritmn, 
 lata navis explorare curricula ; 
 dum procellam incitantes gladii 
 morse impatientes, qui terrain 
 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^ skillful to fly through the 
 
 ^ P. e., a vessel.
 
 226 CAPE COD 
 
 heaven of sand,^ to explore the broad track of 
 ships ; while warriors who impel to the tempest 
 of swords, 2 who praise the land, inhabit Won- 
 der Strands, a7id 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 asj)ect 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 
 seaside 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 ti- 
 gers, in this respect. The Boston paj^ers had 
 never told me that there were seals in the har- 
 
 1 The sea, -which is arched over its sandy bottom like a 
 heaven. 
 
 2 Battle.
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 227 
 
 bor. 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 pro- 
 prietor 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 or- 
 der that they might have the control of it so far 
 as to defend themselves against the encroach- 
 ments 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 sleep- 
 ers placed transversely. 
 
 After we had been walking many hours, the 
 mackerel fleet still hovered in the northern hori- 
 zon nearly in the same direction, but farther off, 
 hull down. Though their sails were set they
 
 228 CAPE COB 
 
 never sailed away, nor yet came to anchor, but 
 stood on various tacks as close together as ves- 
 sels in a haven, and we, in our ignorance, 
 thought that they were contending patiently 
 with adverse winds, beating eastward; but w(. 
 learned afterward that they were even then on 
 their fishing-ground, and that they caught mack- 
 erel without taking in their mainsails or coming 
 to anchor, "a smart breeze" (thence called a 
 mackerel breeze) "being," as one says, "con- 
 sidered 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 south- 
 ward. 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 229 
 
 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 di- 
 rection 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
 
 230 CAPE COD 
 
 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 men- 
 tioned 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 expedi- 
 tion 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 North- 
 men themselves 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 Buz- 
 zard's Bay along the coast, you would get sight 
 of a good many sandy beaches. But whether 
 Thor-finn saw the mirage here or not, Thor-eau, 
 one of the same family, did; and perchance it 
 was because Lief the Luck}^ had, in a previous 
 voyage, taken Thor-er and his people off the
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 231 
 
 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 walk- 
 ing 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 de- 
 scended the bank, though the shaded outlines 
 left by the waves of a previous tide but halfway 
 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 Vine- 
 yard, the water about them appeared perfectly 
 smooth, so that they were reflected in it, and 
 yet their full sails proved that it must be rip- 
 pled, and they who were with him thought that 
 it was a mirage, I. e., a reflection from a haze.
 
 232 CAPE COD 
 
 From the above-mentioned sand-liill we over- 
 looked Provincetown and its harbor, now emp- 
 tied of vessels, and also a wide expanse of 
 ocean. As we did not wish to enter Province- 
 town 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 in- 
 fluence. 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 mack- 
 erel 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 extrem- 
 ity of the toA\'n. From the first high sand-hill, 
 covered with beach-gi-ass and bushes to its top, 
 on the edge of the desert, we overlooked the 
 shrubby hill and swamj) country which surrounds 
 Provincetown on the north, and protects it, in 
 some measure, from the invading sand. Not- 
 withstanding the universal barrenness, and the 
 contiguity of the desert, I never saw an au- 
 tumnal 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 233 
 
 of any loom, could ever match it. There was 
 the incredibly bright red of the Huckleberry, 
 and the reddish bi-own of the Bayberry, mingled 
 with the bright and living green of small Pitch- 
 Pines, and also the duller green of the Bay- 
 berry, 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 fig- 
 ure, 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;. Com- 
 ing from the country as I did, and many au- 
 tumnal 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 be- 
 ing 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 man- 
 tel-piece. 
 
 The peculiarity of this autumnal landscape 
 consisted in the lowness and thickness of the
 
 234 CAPE COD 
 
 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 tasseled 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 Pro- 
 vincetown street. This, which is the last town 
 on the Cape, lies mainly in one street along the 
 curvinsr beach fronting- the southeast. The 
 sand-hills, covered with shrubbery and inter-
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 235 
 
 posed 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 fisher- 
 man'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 car- 
 riage could pass another, if there was more than 
 one carriage in the town, looked much "heav- 
 ier " 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 trav- 
 eler. 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
 
 236 CAPE COD 
 
 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 sur- 
 plus 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 inhabi- 
 tants 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.
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 237 
 
 Though he had little woodcraft, he was not the 
 less weatherwise, and gave us one piece of in- 
 formation, viz., he had observed that when a 
 thunder-cloud came up with a flood-tide it did 
 not rain. This was the most completely mari- 
 time 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 com- 
 monly 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 des- 
 ert was claiming it. They are now turning 
 some of their swamps into Cranberry Meadows 
 on quite an extensive scale. 
 
 Yet far from being out of the way, Province- 
 town 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.
 
 238 CAPE COD 
 
 The mackerel fleet had nearly all got in be- 
 fore 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 rovind 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 unex- 
 pectedly black-looking vessels, ixikaivai vrje<s. A 
 fisherman told us that there were fifteen hun- 
 dred vessels in the mackerel fleet, and that he 
 had counted three Tiundred and fifty in Province- 
 town 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 seem- 
 ingly for our entertainment, while we were walk- 
 ing northwestward along the Atlantic, so now 
 we found them flocking into Provincetown Har- 
 bor at night, just as we arrived, as if to meet 
 us, and exhibit themselves close at hand. Stand-
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 239 
 
 ing 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 by-stander cried out, " Oh, how 
 she scoons/^^ whereat Robinson replied, "J. 
 schooner let her he!'''' "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." ^ Yet I can hardly believe this, for 
 a schooner has always seemed to me — the typi- 
 cal vessel. 
 
 According to C. E. Potter of Manchester, 
 New Hampshire, the very word schooner is of 
 New England origin, being from the Indian 
 
 ^ See Mass. Hist. Coll., vol. ix., 1st aeries, and vol. i., 4th 
 series.
 
 240 CAPE COD 
 
 schoon or scoot, meaning to rush, as Sehoodic, 
 from scoot and anlce, a place where water rushes. 
 N. B. Somebody of Gloucester was to read a 
 paper on this matter before a genealogical soci- 
 ety 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 south- 
 west end of the town, west of the Shank-Painter 
 Swamp, whose expressive name — for we under- 
 stood it at first as a landsman naturally woidd 
 — gave it importance in our eyes, we crossed 
 the sands to the shore south of Race Point and
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 241 
 
 three miles distant, and thence roamed round 
 eastward through the desert to where we had 
 left the sea the evenijig before. We traveled 
 five or six miles after we got out there, on a curv- 
 ing 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 ex- 
 tremity 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, notwith- 
 standing 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 (^Calama- 
 grostis arenarici), and also Sea-lyme grass {Ely- 
 vius arenarius), seigle de mer; and he adds, "I 
 have been assured that these plants grow in 
 great plenty in Newfoundland, and on other
 
 242 CAPE COD 
 
 North American shores ; the places covered with 
 them looking, at a distance, like cornfields; 
 which might explain the passage in our north- 
 ern 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 sea-green 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 exj^ress 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 com- 
 passes. 
 
 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.
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 243 
 
 We were surprised to see spider-holes in that 
 flowing sand with an edge as firm as that of a 
 stoned well. 
 
 In Jvine 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 terrcejilius who has a 
 "farm" on the edge of the desert, and is fami- 
 liar 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, how- 
 ever long afterward. He also said that minks, 
 muskrats, foxes, coons, and wild mice were 
 found there, but no squirrels. We heard of 
 sea-turtles 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
 
 244 CAPE COD 
 
 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 locali- 
 ties. 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 shad-bush 
 or Amelajichiet\ which the inhabitants call 
 Josh-pears (some think from juicy?), is very 
 abundant on the hills. I fell in with an oblig- 
 ing 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 uninter- 
 rupted 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 ;
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 245 
 
 it was too wintry for such as had seen the Back- 
 side 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 al- 
 ways out on the Back-side night and day in se- 
 vere 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 inhabi- 
 tants 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 Eng- 
 land 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 cut- 
 ting 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
 
 246 CAPE COD 
 
 face a migrating sand-bar in the air, which has 
 picked lip its duds and is off, — to be whijiped 
 with a cat, not o' nine-tails, but of a myriad of 
 tails, and each one a sting to it. A Mr. Whit- 
 man, 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 outside 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 Bis- 
 cay, 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 Province-
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 247 
 
 town and the extremity of the Cape. I talked 
 with some who had been employed in the plant- 
 ing. In the "Description of the Eastern 
 Coast," which I have already referred to, it is 
 said : " Beach-grass during the spring and sum- 
 mer grows about two feet and a half. If sur- 
 rounded 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 sprouts 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 pvJled up with it from still deeper 
 in the sand, with their own more decayed shoot
 
 248 CAPE COD 
 
 attached, — so that the age of a sand-hill, and 
 its rate of increase for several years, is pretty 
 accurately recorded in this way. 
 
 Old Gerard, the English herbalist, says, p. 
 1250: "I find mention in Stowe's Chronicle, in 
 Anno 1555, of a certain pidse or pease, as they 
 term it, wherewith the jjoor people at tliat 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 jjlace suddenly to spring up with- 
 out any tillage or sowing, great abundance of 
 peason, whereof the poor gathered (as men 
 judged) above one hundred quarters, yet re- 
 mained 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 
 fomid 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
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 249 
 
 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 for- 
 merly regularly warned under the authority of 
 law in the month of April yearly, to plant 
 beach-grass, as elsewhere they are warned to re- 
 pair the highways. They dug up the grass in 
 bunches, which were afterward divided into sev- 
 eral smaller ones, and set about three feet apart, 
 in rows, so arranged as to break joints and ob- 
 struct the passage of the wind. It spread itself 
 rapidly, the weight of the seeds when ripe bend- 
 ing the heads of the grass, and so dropping di- 
 rectly 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
 
 250 CAPE COD 
 
 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 beach-grass on the banks 
 in regialar 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 ex- 
 amine the premises. They reported in June, 
 1825, that, owing to "the trees and brush hav- 
 ing been cut down, and the beach-grass de- 
 stroyed on the seaward side of the Cape, oppo- 
 site the Harbor," the original surface of the 
 ground had been broken up and removed by 
 the wind toward the Harbor, — during the pre- 
 vious 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 imless some
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 251 
 
 measures were adoj)ted 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 inhabi- 
 tants from cutting the br.ush. 
 
 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 it 
 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 coun- 
 try, but probably we have as much as the Hol- 
 landers. 
 
 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
 
 252 CAPE COD 
 
 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 
 Provineetown, and I was told by a Truro man 
 that his townsmen talked of petitioning the legis- 
 lature to set off the next mile of their territory 
 also to Provineetown, 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 to- 
 gether, and even this it has not always done. 
 But Provineetown strenuously declines the gift. 
 
 The wind blowed so hard from the northeast, 
 that, cold as it was, we resolved to see the break- 
 ers 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 Provineetown, 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 break- 
 ers, 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 di- 
 rectly on the land: a strong current sets along
 
 THE SEA AND THE DESERT 253 
 
 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 ship- 
 wreck is inevitable. Accordingly, the strand is 
 everywhere covered with the fragments of ves- 
 sels." 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. 
 
 This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed, 
 — more timiultuous, my companion affii*med, 
 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 con- 
 siderable 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, hav- 
 ing 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
 
 254 CAPE COD 
 
 bank, but the sea following fast at their heels, 
 caused the bank to cave and bury them alive. 
 It was the roaring sea, OaXaao-a y]x^i.crcra^ — 
 
 a.ix(p\ Se t' &Kpai 
 'H'iSvei fio6wffiv, (pfxj-yOfxevtis a.\hs t|a>. 
 
 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 mack- 
 erel, 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 Pro- 
 vincetown and the Bay again, having now more 
 than doubled the Cape.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 
 
 Earlt 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 cod-fish. 
 Timothy Dwight says that, just before he ar- 
 rived at Provincetown, "a schooner came 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.
 
 256 CAPE COD 
 
 "How long does it take to cure these fish?" I 
 asked. 
 
 "Two good drying days, sir," was the an- 
 swer. 
 
 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 pro- 
 portion 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, travelers 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. 
 
 A great many of the houses here were sur- 
 rounded 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 257 
 
 to be least like a flower-garden in a good dry- 
 ing day in midsummer. 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 fish- 
 ery 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 mis- 
 took 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
 
 258 CAPE COD 
 
 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 rajiidly dimin- 
 ished, 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 exporta- 
 tion. 
 
 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 ! to be craunched by cows ! 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 inhabi- 
 tant assured me that they did not make a prac- 
 tice 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.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 259 
 
 This he would have me believe was the founda- 
 tion of this fish-story. 
 
 It has been a constant traveler's tale and per- 
 haps 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 CElian and Pliny, but 
 in the Journal of Nearchus, who was Alexan- 
 der'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 travelers, — Braybosa, Niebidir, 
 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 head, entrails, and back- 
 bones 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.
 
 260 CAPE COD 
 
 As we are treating of fishy matters, let me 
 insert what Pliny says, — that " the command- 
 ers 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 build- 
 ings." ^ 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. "Oh, 
 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 dis- 
 proved. You might meet a lady daintily 
 
 ^ Bohn's ed. trans, of Pliny, vol. ii. p. 361.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 261 
 
 dressed in the Sabbath morning, wading in 
 among the sand-hills, from church, where there 
 apj)eared 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 disap- 
 pointed by discovering the intelligence of rough, 
 and what would be considered unpromising, 
 specimens. Nay, I ventured to call on one citi- 
 zen the next summer, by special invitation. I 
 foimd 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 fisher- 
 men feared that it would not be so good a dry- 
 ing day as the cold and windy one which pre- 
 ceded it. There could hardly have been a 
 greater contrast. This was the first of the In- 
 dian Summer days, though at a late hour in the 
 morning we found the wells in the sand behind
 
 262 CAPE COD 
 
 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. Af- 
 ter 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 over- 
 looking 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 w^e could out of the boys in the 
 mean while. 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 Har- 
 bor, 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 263 
 
 her come in," said he. When I expressed sur- 
 prise that he could distinguish her from other 
 vessels so far, he said that there were not so 
 many of those two-toi3sail schooners about but 
 that he could tell her. Palfrey said, in his ora- 
 tion at Barnstable, the duck does not take to 
 the water with a surer instinct than the Barn- 
 stable 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 leav- 
 ing their roosts in the morning to disperse them- 
 selves 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 wind-mills 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 inter-
 
 264 CAPE COD 
 
 esting 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 pot- 
 ash 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 Irish- 
 men 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 emp- 
 tying into the harbor, the same number of su- 
 perficial feet yields more salt here than in any 
 other part of the country. A little rain is con- 
 sidered 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 coiald overlook the 
 operations of the inhabitants almost as com- 
 pletely 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 al- 
 most every yard we detected some little build-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 265 
 
 ing from which these treasures were being trun- 
 dled 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 practiced. 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 dry- 
 ing 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^a^'es. 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 inclosed and a board 
 put up forbidding all persons entering the in- 
 closure, lest their feet should disturb the sand, 
 and set it a-blowing or a-sliding. The inhabi- 
 tants are obliged to get leave from the authori- 
 ties 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 some- 
 times the lower story of a house is concealed by 
 it, though it is kept off by a wall. The houses
 
 2G6 CAPE COD 
 
 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 u]) to the tops of the desks, and of 
 course the master and scholars had fled. Per- 
 haps 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 ex- 
 tremity of the planking, steering and tacking 
 for it in a sort of snow-shoes, but I may have 
 been mistaken. In some j^ictures of Province - 
 town the persons of the inhabitants are not 
 drawn below the ankles, so much being suj^ijosed 
 to be buried in the sand. Nevertheless, natives
 
 PROVINCETOWN 267 
 
 of Provlncetown 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 gen- 
 erally on the Cape are an inch or two wider, as 
 the sand is an inch or two deeper than else- 
 where. 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 3^oke of oxen here in 1791, and 
 we were told that there were several more when 
 we were there, beside the stage team. In Bar- 
 ber's Historical Collections, it is said, "so
 
 268 CAPE COD 
 
 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 surj)rise 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 coimted 
 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 hoitses, gave 
 the town a less cheerful and hospitable apj^ear-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 269 
 
 ance 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 be- 
 ing 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 
 und improvement, and they are still transferred 
 by quit-claim 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. 
 
 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 Or- 
 leans. Yet I saw one man underpinning a new 
 house in Eastham with some "rocks," as he 
 called them, which he said a neighbor had col- 
 lected with great pains in the course of years.
 
 270 CAPE COD 
 
 and finally made over to him. This I thought 
 was a gift worthy of being recorded, — equal to 
 a transfer of California "rocks," almost. An- 
 other 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 neighbor- 
 hood which was "forty -two paces in circumfer- 
 ence 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 min- 
 eralogy, but where he j^ieked it up I couxd 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 cel- 
 lars 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 271 
 
 to hold your roots. In Provincetown, when 
 formerly they suffered the sand to drive under 
 their houses, obliterating all rudiment 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 any- 
 where 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
 
 272 CAPE COD 
 
 fall on them, and which, by capillary attraction, 
 are prevented from mingling with the surronnd- 
 ing brine. 
 
 The Harbor of Provincetown — which, as 
 well as the greater part of the Bay, and a wide 
 exj3ause 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. Gra- 
 ham, who has made a very minute and thorough 
 survey of this harbor and the adjacent waters, 
 states that "its capacity, depth of water, excel- 
 lent 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 fisher- 
 men 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 Massa- 
 chusetts Bay that of Stuard's Bay. His High- 
 ness Prince Charles changed the name of Cape 
 Cod to Cape James ; but even princes have not
 
 PROVINCETOWN 273 
 
 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 high- 
 est hills." 
 
 Many an early voyager was unexpectedly 
 caught by this hook, and found himself em- 
 bayed. 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 an- 
 other 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,
 
 274 CAPE COD 
 
 and the next year was further explored by Poi- 
 triiu'ourt and Champlain. The hitter has given 
 a particular account of these explorations in his 
 "Voyages," together with separate charts and 
 soundings of two of its harbors, — Halle 
 Barre, the Bad Bar (Nauset Harbor?), a name 
 now applied to what the French called Cap 
 Baturler, — and Port Fortune, apparently 
 Chatham Harbor. Both these names are copied 
 on the map of "Novi Belgii," in Ogilby's 
 America. He also describes minutely the man- 
 ners 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 
 Poyal. 
 
 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 perma- 
 nent Euroj)ean 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 ac- 
 counted for partly by the fact that the early 
 edition of Champlain's "Voyages " had not been
 
 PR VINCE TOWN 275 
 
 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, extend- 
 ing 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' 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 lead- 
 ing spirit, as well as the historian of the expe- 
 dition. Holmes, Hildreth, and Barry, and 
 apparently all our historians who mention Cham- 
 plain, 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' 
 expedition, says that " he looked into the Penob- 
 scot [in 1605], which Pring had discovered two 
 years before," saying nothing about Cham- 
 plain's extensive exploration of it for De Monts 
 in 1604 (Holmes says 1608, and refers to Pur- 
 chas); also that he followed in the track of 
 Pring along the coast "to Cape Cod, which he 
 called Malabarre." (Haliburton had made the
 
 276 CAPE COD 
 
 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 discov- 
 ered it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges says, in his 
 narration,^ 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 discovered more western riv- 
 ers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, 
 however, must have been the discoverer of dis- 
 tances on this river. ^ Pring was absent from 
 England only about six months, and sailed by 
 this part of Cape Cod (Malebarre) because 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 har- 
 bors. 
 
 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 Cham- 
 plain's "Voyages," edition 1613 (and Lescarbot, 
 in 1612, quotes a still earlier account of his 
 
 1 Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii. p. 19. 
 ^ bee Belknap, p. 147.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 211 
 
 voyage), there is a map of it made when it was 
 known to Christendom as New France, called 
 Carte Geographique de la Nouvelle Franse 
 f alette "par le Sleur de Champlain Saint 
 Tongois Capp'itaine ordinaire pour le roi en la 
 Marine, — faict Ven 1612, from his observa- 
 tions between 1604 and 1607 ; a map extending 
 from Labrador to Cape Cod and westward to 
 the Great Lakes, and crowded with informa- 
 tion, 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 to- 
 gether with the many separate charts of harbors 
 and their soundings on a large scale, which this 
 volume contains, — among the rest. Qui ni he 
 quy (Kennebec), Chouacoit R. (Saco R.), Le 
 Beau port, Port St. Louis (near Cape Ann), 
 and others on our coast, — but tohich 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 ; al- 
 most, we might be allowed to say, till another 
 Frenchman, Des Barres, made another for us, 
 which only our late Coast Survey has super- 
 seded. Most of the maps of this coast made for 
 a long time after betray their indebtedness to 
 Champlain. He was a skillful navigator, a 
 man of science, and geographer to the King of
 
 278 CAPE COD 
 
 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 to- 
 day; 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, observ- 
 ing the land and its inhabitants, and making a 
 map of the coast, from May, 1604, to Septem- 
 ber, 1607, or ahout three and a half years, and 
 he has described minutely his method of survey- 
 ing 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 fin- 
 ish 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 discov- 
 ered within the last ten years." 
 
 It is not generally remembered, if known, by
 
 PROVINCETOWN 279 
 
 the descendants of the Pilgrims, that when their 
 forefathers were spending their first memorable 
 winter in the New World, they had for neigh- 
 bors 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 His- 
 tory of Maine does considerably), while the 
 trials which their successors and descendants 
 endured at the hands of the English have fur- 
 nished a theme for both the historian and poet.^ 
 The remains of their fort at St. Croix were dis- 
 covered at the end of the last century, and 
 helped decide where the true St. Croix, our 
 boundary, was. 
 
 ^ See Bancroft's History and Longfellow's Evangeline.
 
 280 CAPE COD 
 
 The very gravestones of those Frenchmen are 
 probably older than the oldest English monu- 
 ment in New England north of the Elizabeth 
 Islands, or perhaps anywhere in New England, 
 for if there are any traces of Gosnold's store- 
 house left, his strong works are gone. Bancroft 
 says, advisedly, in 1834, "It requires a believ- 
 ing 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 sav- 
 ages 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 ac- 
 cording 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.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 281 
 
 ludeed, 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, Cham- 
 plain, 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 ex- 
 tending at least to the thirty-fifth and thirty- 
 sixth degrees of latitude, as appears by the 
 maps of the world printed in Spain, Italy, Hol- 
 land, Flanders, Germany, and England, until 
 they possessed themselves of the coasts of New 
 France, where are Arcadie, the Etchemins 
 (Maine and New Brunswick), the Almouchicois 
 (Massachusetts ?), and the Great River St. Law- 
 rence, where they have imposed, according to 
 their fancy, such names as New England, Scot- 
 land, and others ; but it is not easy to efface the 
 memory of a thing which is known to all Chris- 
 tendom." 
 
 That Cabot merely landed on the uninhabita- 
 ble 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
 
 282 CAPE COD 
 
 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 Verraz- 
 zani's tarrying fifteen days at one place on the 
 New England coast, and making frequent ex- 
 cursions 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 be- 
 gan to be called La Terra Francese, or French 
 Land. A part of it was called New Holland be- 
 fore it was called New England. The English 
 were very backward to explore and settle the 
 continent which they had sttunbled upon. The 
 French preceded them both in their attempts to 
 colonize the continent of North America (Caro- 
 lina and Florida, 1562-64), and in their first 
 permanent settlement (Port Royal, 1605) ; and 
 the right of possession, naturally enough, was 
 the one wliich 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 re-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 283 
 
 markably accurate charts of that river as far up 
 as Montreal. It is almost all of the contiuent 
 north of Florida that you recognize on charts 
 for more than a generation afterward, — though 
 Verrazzani's rude plot (made under French aus- 
 pices) 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 explo- 
 rations. 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 Portu- 
 guese. 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 voyagetir or coiirextr de hois is still our 
 conductor there. Prairie is a French word, as 
 Sierra is a Spanish one. Augustine in Florida
 
 284 CAPE COD 
 
 and Santa Fe in New Mexico (1582), both built 
 by the Spaniards, are considered the oklest 
 towns in the United States. Within the mem- 
 ory of the oldest man, the Anglo-Americans 
 w^ere confined between the Apalachian Moun- 
 tains and the sea, "a space not two hundred 
 miles broad," while the Mississippi was by 
 treaty the eastern boundaiy of New France.^ 
 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 enter- 
 prise the enterjirise 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 disappoint- 
 ment 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 pat- 
 ent of it, and possessed it some years; and 
 
 ^ See the pamphlet on settling the Ohio, London, 1763, 
 bound up with the travels of Sir John Bartram.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 285 
 
 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 hav- 
 ing 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 "Poto- 
 mack" took their rise; and among the memora- 
 ble 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 west- 
 ward 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 coun- 
 try a hundred miles inland, which was a terra 
 incognita to them, — or rather many years be- 
 fore the earliest date referred to, — Champlain, 
 the^rs^ Governor of Canada, not to mention 
 the inland discoveries of Cartier,^ Roberval, 
 
 ^ It is remarkable that the iirst, 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
 
 286 CAPE COD 
 
 and otliers, of the preceding century, and his 
 own earlier voyage, had ah-eady 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 arainst the 
 Iroquois, near the south end of Lake Cham- 
 plain, 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."^ 
 Thomas Morton has a chapter on this "Great 
 Lake." In the edition of Champlain's map 
 dated 1632, the Falls of Niagai'a appear; and 
 in a great lake northwest of Jie?' Douce (Lake 
 Huron) there is an island rejiresented, over 
 which is written, "/sZe ou il y d une mine de 
 
 1535, sixty-seven years before Gosnold saw Cape Cod. If see- 
 ing is discovering, — and that is all that it is proved that Cabot 
 knew of the coast of the United States, — then Cartier (to 
 omit Verrazzani and Gomez) was the discoverer of New Eng- 
 land rather than Gosnold, who is commonly so styled. 
 
 •^ Sir Ferdinand Gorges, in Maine Hist. Coll., vol. ii. p. 68.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 287 
 
 ciiivre,^^ — "Island where there is a mine of 
 copper." This will do for an offset to our Gov- 
 ernor's "Muscovy glass." Of all these adven- 
 tures 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 
 traveler'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° 40', 
 (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 accord- 
 ing to Verrazzani's plot, which last is j)raised 
 for its accuracy by Hackluyt, but I cannot dis- 
 tinguish 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 Kibeiro, a Spanish cosmogra- 
 pher, has preserved the memory of the voyage
 
 288 CAPE COD 
 
 of Gomez [a Portuguese sent out by Charles the 
 Fifth]. One reads in it under (a?« dessous) the 
 place occupied by the States of New York, 
 Connecticut, and Rhode Island, Terre cV Etienne 
 Gomez, quil 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 skillful 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 ex- 
 plored 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 sgais 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 jjiven
 
 PROVINCETOWN 289 
 
 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 "Norum- 
 bega " 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 laud by its inhabi- 
 tants, 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 fre- 
 quently spoken of by old writers as a country of 
 indefinite extent, between Canada and Florida, 
 and it appears as a large island with Cape Bre- 
 ton 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 Norum- 
 bega 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
 
 290 CAPE COD 
 
 stopped by the falls. He says: "I think that 
 this river is that which many pilots and histo- 
 rians call Norembegue, 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 tliat "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 de- 
 scription. 
 
 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] w^e found a cross, which was 
 very old, covered with moss and almost all de- 
 cayed, which was an evident sign that there had 
 formerly been Christians there." 
 
 Also the following passage from Lescarbot 
 wdll show how much the neighboring coasts were 
 frequented by Europeans in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. Speaking of his return from Port Royal 
 to France in 1607, he says: "At last, within 
 four leagues of Campseau [the Gut of Caiiso], 
 we arrived at a harbor [in Nova Scotia], where 
 a worthy old gentleman from St. John de Lus, 
 named Captain Savale, was fishing, who re^
 
 PROVINCETOWN 291 
 
 ceived 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 Cham- 
 plain'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 Newfound- 
 landers \_Terre 7ieuviers] 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."^ They dried their fish on the rocks on 
 shore. 
 
 The "Isola della Rena" (Sable Island?) ap- 
 pears 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 pas- 
 tured by oxen (boeufs) and cows which the Por- 
 tuguese 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 
 
 1 Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1612.
 
 292 CAPE COD 
 
 men, who were left on this island seven years 
 from 1598, lived on the flesh of these cattle 
 which they found "e^i quantie,^'' and built houses 
 out of the wrecks of vessels which came to the 
 island ("perhaps Gilbert's"), thei-e being no 
 wood or stone. Lescai-bot 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 
 tiuote. 
 
 Cape Cod is commonly said to have been dis- 
 covered in 1602. We will consider at length 
 under what circumstances, and with what obser- 
 vation and expectations, the first Englishmen 
 whom history clearly discerns approached the 
 coast of New England. According to the ac- 
 counts 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
 
 PR VINCE TO WN 293 
 
 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 un- 
 known coast," they were not "over-bold 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,
 
 294 CAPE COD 
 
 which seemed to have their movable course 
 towards the northeast." On the 13th they ob- 
 served "great beds of weeds, much wood, and 
 divers things else floating by," and "had smell- 
 ing 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 ^ 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 ket- 
 tle 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 tha.n we," say the 
 English, "for want of language, could compre- 
 hend." But they soon "set sail westward, leav- 
 
 ^ History of Maine.
 
 PROVINCETOWN 295 
 
 ing them and their coast." (This was a remark- 
 able 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 be- 
 tween 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 herring, mackerel, and other small 
 fish, in great abundance. This is a low, sandy 
 shoal, but without danger ; also we came to an- 
 chor 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 tlie captain, armed with his bow and ar- 
 rows, 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,
 
 29G CAPE COD 
 
 which was all champaign and full of grass, but 
 the islands somewhat woody." 
 
 Or, according to the account of John Brere- 
 ton, "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 af- 
 ternoon we weighed, and standing southerly off 
 into sea the rest of that day and the night fol- 
 lowing, with a fresh gale of wind, in the morn- 
 ing 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 af- 
 ternoon 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 stat- 
 ure, 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 297 
 
 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, espe- 
 cially in Wellfleet, — the fort of the land de- 
 fending itself against the encroachments of the
 
 298 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ab- 
 ruptly 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."! 
 
 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 an- 
 other 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 
 
 ^ " Savage Roek," -which some have supposed to be, from 
 the name, the Salvages, a ledge about two miles off Rockport, 
 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 His- 
 tory of Gloucester, Massachusetts.)
 
 PROVINCETOWN 299 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 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 accounts 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 Grinolf- 
 son, and Thorhall Garnlason, distinguished 
 Norsemen, in three ships containing "one hun- 
 dred and sixty men and all sorts of live stock"
 
 300 CAPE COD 
 
 (probably the first Norway rats among the rest), 
 having the land "on the right side "of them, 
 "roved ashore," and found " Or-cefi (trackless 
 deserts)," and ^^ St7'a7icl-ir lang-ar oh sand-ar 
 (long, narrow beaches and sand-hills)," and 
 "called the shores Furdu-strand-ir (Wonder 
 Strands), because the sailing by them seemed 
 long." 
 
 According to the Icelandic manuscripts, 
 Tlioriccdd 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 preced- 
 ing 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 301 
 
 to have been "tlie 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 skillful and adventurous navigators, we must 
 for the present remain in doubt as to what capes 
 they did see. We think that they were consid- 
 erably further north. 
 
 If time and space permitted, I could present 
 the claims of several other worthy persons. 
 Lescarbot, in 1609, asserts that the French sail- 
 ors had been accustomed to frequent the New- 
 foundland 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 j)iscationis utili- 
 tatem summa litterarum memoria a Gallis adiri 
 solita, et ante mille sexcentos annos frequentari 
 solita est; sed eo quod sit urbibus inculta et
 
 302 CAPE COD 
 
 vasta, spreta est." "This land, on acconnt of 
 its very lucrative fishery, was accustomed to be 
 visited by the Gauls from the very dawn of his- 
 tory, 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. Con- 
 sider 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 num- 
 ber of Persians at Salamis? The historian 
 whom I read knew as much about the position 
 of the parties and their tactics in the last-men-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 303 
 
 tioned affair, as tliey who describe a recent bat- 
 tle in an article for tlie press nowadays, 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 civ- 
 ilized world, thovigh 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 Massa- 
 chusetts, 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 "Mourt's 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, com-
 
 304 CAPE COD 
 
 passed about to tlie 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 
 Puller'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 re- 
 freshed 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 ue; " 
 and no doubt it led to the death of some at Ply- 
 mouth. 
 
 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 305 
 
 boat in a cart as much as thirty rods in shallow 
 water, while a troop of little boys kept us com- 
 pany, 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 hwnanum 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 re- 
 marked 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 man paint, for all us. It was 
 not noisy work, and would not disturb our devo- 
 tions. But a young man in the company, tak- 
 ing 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 Sab-
 
 30G CAPE COD 
 
 bath 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 inter- 
 rupted by the noise of a preacher who shouted 
 like a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmo- 
 sphere, and who, I fancied, must have taken 
 off his coat. Tew things could have been more 
 disgusting or disheartening. I wished the tith- 
 ing-man would stop him. 
 
 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 ob- 
 served 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 bar- 
 renness and desolation of the land. They found
 
 PROVINCETOWN 307 
 
 "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, indeed, 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 des- 
 ert 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 pass- 
 ing 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."
 
 308 CAPE COD 
 
 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 sor- 
 rel . enough to color the surface. I suppose, 
 then, by wood-gaile they mean the bayberry. 
 
 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 re- 
 spects, 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 figura- 
 tively, but one side of the Cape. They natu- 
 rally exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness 
 of the land, for they were glad to get to any 
 land at all after that anxious voyage. Every- 
 thing 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 ac- 
 count given by Captain John Smith, who was 
 on this coast six years earlier, and speaks like 
 au old traveler, voyager, and soldier, who had
 
 PROVINCETO WN 309 
 
 seen too much of the workl 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 pre- 
 sents itself, which is only a headland of high 
 hills of sand, overgrown with shrubby pines, 
 hwts \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 gi*eat 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 
 dimes) 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, — "ex- 
 cellent black mould and fat in some places." 
 However, according to Bradford himself, whom 
 some consider the author of part of "Mourt's 
 Relation," they wli£» 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, v/lien they
 
 310 CAPE COD 
 
 were full}-^ 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 agi-eed to remove all to- 
 gether to Naiiset, 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 accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 It must be confessed that the Pilgrims pos- 
 sessed 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 East- 
 ham, 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 Ply- 
 mouth harbor, the 9th of December (O. S.)i 
 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 magnifi- 
 cent pond or lake now called "Billington Sea,"
 
 PROVINCETOWN 311 
 
 about two miles distant, which he had discov- 
 ered 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 coun- 
 try. It is true they ^qyq 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 in- 
 terview 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 pio- 
 neers, and the ancestors of pioneers, in a far 
 grander enterprise. 
 
 By this time we saw the little steamer Nau- 
 shon 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.
 
 312 CAPE COD 
 
 very much. They were particularly do^\Tiright 
 aud good-humored. The old people appeared 
 remarkably well preserved, as if by the saltness 
 of the atmosphere, and after having once mis- 
 taken, 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 purel}' 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 313 
 
 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 hold- 
 ing by his teeth to the shattered mast of a pipe 
 alone, and only gets half-seas-over in a figura- 
 tive 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 acquain- 
 tance 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.
 
 314 CAPE COD 
 
 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 on, 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 mar- 
 iner 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 Cap- 
 tain, '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 well-nigh 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 mid- 
 night, wet to our skins, and haK 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 adver-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 315 
 
 tised it.) "The Captain is rather clown 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 wood- 
 chuck'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 com- 
 monly 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
 
 316 CAPE COD 
 
 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 sail- 
 ors pause to watch a steamer, and shout in wel- 
 come 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 jus- 
 tice! I thought I could hear him making an 
 effective appeal down there from human to di- 
 vine justice. He must have had much the clean- 
 est breast of the two. 
 
 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 ap- 
 peared 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 sug-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 317 
 
 gests a homely truth, but it would be more 
 poetic if it described the impression which it 
 makes on the beholder. Some capes have pe- 
 culiarly suggestive names. There is Cape 
 Wrath, the northwest point o£ Scotland, for in- 
 stance ; 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 um- 
 brellas, 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 Province- 
 town, I was surprised to perceive what an influ- 
 ence 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 pene- 
 trated into a sultry atmosphere where our thin 
 coats were once more in fashion, and found the 
 inhabitants sweltering.
 
 318 CAPE COD 
 
 Leaving far on one side Manomet Point in 
 Plymouth and the Seituate shore, after being 
 out of sight of hind 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 re- 
 lief, — but when yon light goes out, it will be a 
 sign that the light of your life has gone out
 
 PROVINCETOWN 319 
 
 also. What a place to compose a work on 
 breakers I 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 gaz- 
 ing 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 week-day, 
 but as he had never chanced to emjDty 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 man- 
 age to see. You would almost as easil}^ 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
 
 320 CAPE COD 
 
 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. 
 
 AVhen 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 original- 
 ity as was possible for one who used a borrowed 
 expression, "This is a great country." He had 
 been a timber merchant, and I afterward saw 
 him taking the diameter of the main mast 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 com-
 
 PROVINCETOWN 321 
 
 pany, — with our heads over the rail watching 
 the great sand-circles and the fishes at the bot- 
 tom 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 re- 
 marked, 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 chestnut- 
 burs, or echmidce, yet the police will not let a 
 couple of Irishmen have a private sparring- 
 match on one of them, as it is a government
 
 322 CAPE COD 
 
 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 discov- 
 ered by a Spanish ship of that name which was 
 Vv'recked 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 j)lanting of them 
 with some sixty persons, in 1612, the first Gov- 
 ernor, the same year, "built and laid the foun- 
 dation of eight or nine forts." To be ready, 
 one would say, to entertain the first ship's com- 
 pany that should be }ie.rt shipwrecked on to 
 them. It would have been more sensible to 
 have built as many "Charity -houses." These 
 are the vexed Bermoothes. 
 
 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,
 
 PROVINCETOWN 323 
 
 observed, with the best possible grace, "We 
 give it up." Yet sometimes we were nearly at 
 a stand-still. The sailors watched (two) objects 
 on the shore to ascertain whether we advanced 
 or receded. In the harbor it was like the even- 
 ing 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 onvjortes, 
 but ouv 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 toward us, but it appeared like an 
 even line of shore densely crowded with ship- 
 ping. You could not have guessed within a 
 quarter of a mile of Long Wharf. Neverthe- 
 less, we were to be blown to a crevice amid 
 them, — steering right into the maze. Down
 
 324 CAPE COD 
 
 goes the maiusail, and only the jib draws us 
 along. Now we are within four rods of the 
 shipping, having already dodged several outsid- 
 ers; 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, 
 a,nd the other holding his night-glass, — his son 
 stands on the bowsprit straining his eyes, — the 
 passengers feel their hearts half-way 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 Bos- 
 ton. 
 
 Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Charleston, 
 New Orleans, and the rest, are the names of 
 wharves projecting into the sea (surrounded b}^ 
 the shops and dwellings of the merchants), good 
 places to take in and to discharge a cargo (to 
 land the jjroducts of other climes and load the 
 exports of our own). I see a great many bar- 
 rels and fig-drums, — piles of wood for um-
 
 PR O VINCE TO WN 325 
 
 brella-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 bar- 
 rels, the more Boston. The museums and 
 scientific societies and libraries are accidental. 
 They gather around the sands to save carting. 
 The wharf-rats and custom-house officers, and 
 broken-down poets, seeking a fortune amid the 
 barrels. Their better or worse lyceums, and 
 preachings, and doctorings, these, too, are acci- 
 dental, and the malls of commons are always 
 small potatoes. When I go to Boston, I natu- 
 rally 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.
 
 326 CAPE COD 
 
 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 ad- 
 vised 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 
 drift-wood 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 prob- 
 ably 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, Oa\aa-(To8p6fxa,
 
 PROVINCETOWN 327 
 
 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 trav- 
 eler 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, ex- 
 posed, several miles from the island, and not 
 the edge of a continent wasting before the as- 
 saults 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 sail- 
 ors speak of, are those of Barnegat on the Jer- 
 sey shore, and Currituck between Virginia and 
 North Carolina; but these, like the last, are low 
 and narrow sand-bars, lying off the coast, and
 
 328 CAPE COD 
 
 separated from the mainland by lagoons. Be- 
 sides, as you go farther south the tides are fee- 
 bler, 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 traveled 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 Backside, 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
 
 PR VINCETO WN ^ 329 
 
 is in the northeast part of Wellfleet, where ac- 
 commodations (I mean for men and women of 
 tolerable health and habits) could probably be 
 had within half a mile of the seashore. 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 seaside in warm 
 weather, when fogs are frequent, and the atmo- 
 sphere is wont to be thick, and the charm of the 
 sea is to some extent lost. But I suspect that
 
 330 CAPE COD 
 
 the fall is the best season, for then the atmo- 
 sphere 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 calcu- 
 lated 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 seaside. 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 rail- 
 way, 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 New- 
 port, — 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
 
 PROVINCETOWN 331 
 
 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 wa- 
 terfalls? 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.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Across the Cape, 153-178. 
 
 Atphouse, Jean, " Routier," quoted, 
 288. 
 
 Anchors, dragging for, 194. 
 
 Apple-trees, Cape Cod, 36-38. 
 
 Archer, Gabriel, quoted, 295. 
 
 Architecture, American, 32. 
 
 Autumn landscape near Province- 
 town, 232-234. 
 
 Axy, a Bible name, 112. 
 
 Bank swallow, the, 196. 
 
 Barber's Historical Collections, 
 quoted, 267. 
 
 Barnstable (Mass.), 24. 
 
 Bascom, the Rev. Jonathan, C3. 
 
 Bayberry, the, 120-122. 
 
 Beach, The, C5-91. 
 
 Beach Again, The, 120-152. 
 
 Beaches, Cape Cod the best of At- 
 lantic, 326-328. 
 
 Beach-grass, 241, 242, 246-251. 
 
 Beach-pea, the, 105, 248, 249. 
 
 Bellamy, the pirate wrecked off 
 Wellfleet, 192. 
 
 Beverly, Robert, " History of Vir- 
 ginia," quoted, 16, 120, 121. 
 
 Billingsgate, part of Wellfleet called, 
 96. 
 
 Billingsgate Island, 105. 
 
 Birds on Cape Cod, 134, 135, 156, 
 196. 
 
 Blackfish driven ashore in storm, 
 170-176. 
 
 Borde, Sieur de la, Relatiot des 
 Cdraibes, quoted, 186. 
 
 Boston, a big wharf, 325. 
 
 Boys, Provincetown, 262. 
 
 Breakers, 66, 252. 
 
 Brereton, John, quoted, 296. 
 
 Brewster (Mass.), 24, 31, 32. 
 
 Bridgfiwater (Mass.), 20. 
 
 Brook Island in Cohasset, 4. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, quoted, 188. 
 
 Buckland, Curiosities of Natural 
 History, 98. 
 
 Cabot, the discoveries of, 281. 
 
 Cambria, the steamer, aground, 110. 
 
 Camp-meetings, Eastham, 53-55, 
 versus Ocean, 77. 
 
 Cape Cod, T.'s various visits to, 1 ; 
 derivation of name of, 2 ; forma- 
 tion of, 2, 3, 21 ; barrenness of, 
 40-42 ; the real, 74 ; houses, 93 ; 
 landscape, a, 157-163 ; men, the 
 Norse quality of, 166, 167 ; west- 
 ern shore of, 169 ; changes in the 
 coast-line of, 180-185 ; clothes- 
 yard, a, 265 ; and its harbors, va- 
 rious names for, 273, 276 ; Gos- 
 nold's discovery of, 292-299 ; 
 people, 311, 312. 
 
 " Cape Cod Railroad," the, 20. 
 
 Champlain, " Voyages," quoted, 99 ; 
 records and maps of, 274-282. 
 
 Charity, cold, 90. 
 
 Chatham (Mass.), described, 29. 
 
 Cigar-smoke, the gods not to be 
 appeased with, 47. 
 
 Cities as wharves, 324. 
 
 Clams, Cape Cod, 39, 40 ; large, 84 ; 
 or quahogs, catching birds, 100, 
 101 ; stones shaped like, 129. 
 
 Clay Pounds, the, 157 ; why so 
 called, 189 ; the Somerset wrecked 
 on, 193. 
 
 Cohasset (Mass.), the wreck at, 3- 
 14 ; Rocks, sea-bathing at, 17, 18. 
 
 Corn, great crops of, 42-45. 
 
 Cows fed on fishes' heads, 258. 
 
 Crautz, account of Greenland, 
 quoted, 69, 178. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, quoted, 144, 145. 
 Dead body on the shore, a, 126, 
 
 127. 
 De Monts, Champlain and, 275. 
 Dennis (Mass.), 24 ; described, 27- 
 
 29. 
 Doane, Heman, verses by, on 
 
 Thomas Prince's pear-tree, 50, 51. 
 Doane, John, 51.
 
 334 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Dogs on the seashore, 222-224. 
 DrStwood, Cape Cod and Green- 
 laud, 68-70. 
 Dwight, Timotliy, quoted, 255, 272. 
 
 East Harbor Village, in Truro, 163. 
 
 Eastham (Mass.), the history of, 48- 
 ()4 ; ministers of, 51-64 ; Table 
 Lands of, 71 ; the Pilgrims, 310. 
 
 Fences in Truro, 164, 165. 
 " Fish, A Religious," newspaper 
 clipping, 138 ; uses of, in Prov- 
 iucetown, 255-259. 
 Fish stories, ancient, 259, 260. 
 Fishes driven ashore by storm, 170- 
 
 176. 
 Fishing for bass, 139 ; mackerel, 
 
 215-221, 227-229. 
 Fox, starting up a, 177. 
 Franklin, wreck of the ship, 84, 
 109; wreckage from the, 135, 
 136. 
 French, coin found on beach at 
 Wellfleet, 193 ; explorers in and 
 about New England, 274-292. 
 Fruit-trees, paucity of, in Cape 
 
 towns, 38. 
 " Furdustrandas," 225, 230. 
 
 Galway, Ireland, the wrecked brig 
 
 from, 5. 
 Gazetteer, the, 28, 31. 
 Gerard, the English herbalist, 
 
 quoted, 248. 
 Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 146. 
 Gilpin, William, quoted, 141. 
 GoBnold, Captain Bartholomew, 2 ; 
 
 discovery of Cape Cod by, 292- 
 
 299. 
 Grampus Rock, in Cohasset, 7, 9. 
 Graveyard, a Cape Cod, 176. 
 Greenland, driftwood in, 69. 
 Gulls, methods of catching, 83. 
 
 Herring River, 93. 
 
 Highland Light, The, 179-210. 
 
 Highland Light, 157, 179 ; descrip- 
 tion and stories of, 201-210. 
 
 Hog Island, Inside of Hull, 15. 
 
 HuU (Mass.), 15. 
 
 Humane Society, huts of the, 73, 
 85-91. 
 
 Humboldt, Alex, von, quoted, 143. 
 
 Huts for shipwrecked sailors, 73, 
 85-91. 
 
 Indian habitation, signs of previous, 
 
 99. 
 Italian discoverers, 283. 
 
 Jeremiah's Gutter, 40. 
 Jerusalem Village (Mass.), 17. 
 Jesuits, early, in New England, 
 
 280. 
 Josselyn, John, quoted, 115. 
 
 Kalm, Travels in North America, 
 
 quoted, 150, 241. 
 Kelp, 77-80. 
 
 Legs, the, as compasses, 103. 
 Lescarbot, quoted, 290, 301. 
 Long Wharf, taking a place at, 323. 
 
 Mackerel, fishing for, 215-221, 227- 
 
 229 ; fleet, the, 238, 315, 316. 
 Maps of Cape Cod and New England, 
 
 274-278, 282, 283. 
 Massachusetts Bay, shallovpness of, 
 
 147. 
 Massachusetts Historical Society, 
 
 Collections of the, 22. 
 Menhaden, schools of, 142. 
 Ministers, salaries of country, 52 ; 
 
 some old Cape Cod, 55-64. 
 Minot's Ledge, the light on, 318, 
 
 319. 
 Mirages in sand and sea, 229-231. 
 Moisture in Cape Cod air, 198. 
 Mount Ararat in Provincetown, 229. 
 Mourt's Relation, quoted, 42, 111, 
 
 303. 
 
 Nantasket (Mass.), 17. 
 
 Nauset Harbor, in Orleans, 34, 74. 
 
 Nauset Lights, 46. 
 
 Nix's mate, story of, 323. 
 
 Northeaster, a, 245, 252-254. 
 
 Norumbega, 289. 
 
 Ocean, calm, rough, and fruitful, 
 148-152 ; beaches across the, 213, 
 214. 
 
 October, the best season for visiting 
 the Cape, 330. 
 
 Olata, the swift-sailing yacht, 320. 
 
 Organ-grinders on the Cape, 33. 
 
 Orleans (Mass.), 24; Higgins's tav- 
 ern at, 33. 
 
 Osbom, the Rev. Samuel, 61, 62. 
 
 Pamet River, 156. 
 
 Pear-tree, the, planted by Thomas 
 
 Prince, 50. 
 Penhallow, Samuel, History, quoted, 
 
 284. 
 Petrel, the storm, 135. 
 Pilgrims, arrival of the, 303-311. 
 Pitch-pine, tracts of, 24. 
 Plains of Nausbt, The, 34-64.
 
 INDEX 
 
 335 
 
 Plants, on Cape Cod beach, 131 ; 
 about Highland Light, 160, 200 ; 
 about the Clay Pounds, 197. 
 
 Pleaaant Cove, in Cohasaet, 19. 
 
 Plover, the piping of, 82. 
 
 Point AUerton, 15. 
 
 Pohiphloisboios Thalassa, the Rev., 
 77. 
 
 Pond Village, 169. 
 
 Ponds in Wellfleet, 105. 
 
 Post-office, the domestic, 27. 
 
 Postel, Charle Geographique, 
 quoted, 301. 
 
 Poverty-grass, 25 ; as the Barnsta- 
 ble coat-of-arms, 160, 161. 
 
 Prince, Thomas, 49. 
 
 Prinp, Martin, New England dis- 
 coveries of, 275, 276, 298, 299. 
 
 Provincetown, 255-331. 
 
 Provincetown (Mass.), walking to, 
 34, 66 ; Bank, suspected of rob- 
 bing, 212 ; approach to, 232 ; de- 
 scribed, 234-237 ; fish, 256-259 ; 
 boys, 262 ; Harbor, 272. 
 
 Purple Sea, the, 141. 
 
 Race Point, 74, 232, 240. 
 " Rut," the, a sound before a change 
 of wind, 114, 115. 
 
 St. George's Bank, 146, 147. 
 
 St. John, the wrecked t)rig, 5. 
 
 Salt, as manufactured by Capt. John 
 Sears, 30, 31 ; works, 263, 264. 
 
 Sand, blowing, 245 ; inroads of the, 
 250, 251 ; Provincetown, 265-268. 
 
 Sandwich (Mass.), 20 ; described, 
 22-24. 
 
 Schooner, origin of word, 239. 
 
 Sea and the Desert, The, 211- 
 254. 
 
 Sea, the roar of the, 45, 76 ; re- 
 moteness of the bottom of the, 
 146. 
 
 Sea-bathing, 17, 18. 
 
 Sea fleas, 134. 
 
 Sears, Capt. John, and salt manu- 
 facture, 30, 31. 
 
 Shank-Painter Swamp, 240, 262. 
 
 Sharks, 132-134. 
 
 Shell-fish on Cape Cod beach, 130, 
 131. 
 
 Shipwreck, The, 1-19. 
 
 Signals, old clothes as, 24. 
 
 Simpkins, the Rev. John, quoted, 
 33. 
 
 Smith, Capt. John, quoted, 216, 
 309; map of New England by, 
 276. 
 
 Smoothness of ocean, 148. 
 
 Snow's Hollow, 70. 
 
 Somerset, British ship of war, 
 
 wrecked on Clay Pounds, 193. 
 Spanish discoverers, 283. 
 Staoe-Coach Views, 20-33. 
 Stone, the Rev. Nathan, 64. 
 Stones, rarity of, on Cape Cod, 269- 
 
 271. 
 Suet, in Dennis (Mass.), 30. 
 Sunday in Provincetown, 305. 
 Sun-squall, sea-jellies called, 81. 
 
 Table Lands of Eastham, 71. 
 
 Thor-finn andThor-eau, 230 ; voyage 
 of, 299. 
 
 Thoreau, Henry David, various vis- 
 its to Cape Cod, 1 ; starts for Cape 
 Cod, Oct. 9, 1849, 3 ; goes on a 
 mackerel cruise, 219 ; takes leave 
 of Cape Cod, 311. 
 
 Thorhall, the disappointment of, 
 225. 
 
 Thorn-apple, the, 15, 16. 
 
 Thorwald, voyage of, 299, 300. 
 
 Travelers, good humor of, 25. 
 
 Treat, the Rev. Samuel, 55-60. 
 
 Trees on Cape Cod, 153-156 ; disap- 
 pearance of, 308. 
 
 Truro (Mass.), 123, 163-165; the 
 wreck of, 190. 
 
 Turtles, land and sea, 243. 
 
 " Uncle Bill," somebody's (or every- 
 body's), 168. 
 
 Vegetables in the oysterman's gar- 
 den, 118. 
 
 Vessels seen from Cape Cod, 123- 
 125, 140, 143-146. 
 
 Water, Cape Cod, 271. 
 
 Waves on the shore, 186-189. 
 
 Webb, the Rev. Benjamin, 62, 63. 
 
 Webb's Island, the lost, 182. 
 
 Webster, Daniel, quoted, 148. 
 
 Wellfleet Oysterman, The, 92- 
 119. 
 
 Wellfleet (Mass.), oysters, 96; Bel- 
 lamy wrecked off, 192 ; a good 
 headquarters for visitors to the 
 Cape, 329. 
 
 " When descends on the Atlantic," 
 Longfellow, quoted, 80. 
 
 Whitehead, near Cohasset, 10. 
 
 Wind-mills, Cape Cod, 38, 39. 
 
 Windows in Cape Cod houses, 93. 
 
 Winthrop, Gov., quoted, 285. 
 
 Women, pinched-up, 26. 
 
 Wood, William, quoted, 100. 
 
 Wood End, wreck at, 313-315.
 
 336 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Wreck of the Franklin, 84 ; of Bel- 
 lamy the pirate, 192 ; of the Brit- 
 ish ship of war Somerset, 193 ; 
 story of a man from a, 313-315. 
 
 Wreck^e, 137-139. 
 
 Wrecker, a Cape Cod, 67, 68. 
 Wrecks, Truro, 190 ; the 
 qiiences of, 195, 196. 
 
 Yarmouth (Mass.), 24.
 
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