LIBRARY OF HENRY C. FALL- AND KATHARINE A. FALL Slumber I & d> (~ Date of Purchase, Place Cost t?'<3 SUMMER CRUISE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. BY ROBERT CARTER. " They are becalmed in clearest days, And in rough weather tost ; They wither under cold delays, Or are in tempests lost. One while they seem to touch the port, Then straight into the main, Some angry wind, in cruel sport, The vessel drives again.*' ' How sweet it was Eating the lotos day by day, To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, And tender curving lines of creamy spray.** TEKUTSOW. BOSTON: CROSBY AND NICHOLS. NEW YORK : OLIVER S. FELT. 1864. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by CROSBY AND NICHOLS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. UNIVERSITY PRESS , BIGEI.OW, AND C CAMBRIDGE. PREFACE. THE fishing voyage of which this book is a record was made in 1858, during my summer vacation from the arduous duties of a Washing- ton Correspondent of the. New York Tribune, and the narrative originally appeared in the form of letters to that journal. In that shape it met with considerable favor, especially from sportsmen and naturalists ; and its publication in a permanent form, at this late day, is due, in part, to the assurances I have received from high scientific authority that its sketches of the fishes of our Northern seas, of their habits and resorts, and of the methods of taking them, are not without value as contributions to Natural History. I can only say upon this point, that I have spared no pains to make my statements accurate, not only by careful personal observa- tions, but by freely consulting and using the writings of our best American ichthyologists. R. C. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGB PLAN OF THK CRUISE 1 CHAPTER II. FROM BOSTON TO SWAMPSCOTT. A DEVIL'S- APRON AND ITS CONTENTS CHAPTER III. THE CUNNEK. THE SCULPIN. A SCIENTIFIC SHOEMAKER 16 CHAPTER IV. OFF BOSTON LIGHT. POLLACK. SUN-SQUALLS. BLUE- FISHING .23 CHAPTER V. A MIDNIGHT WATCH. RUNNING DOWN THE SOUTH SHORE. PLYMOUTH. THE ASSYRIAN 86 CHAPTER VI. PROVINCETOWN. SAND-DABS. COCKTAILS . . 45 CHAPTER VII. PROVINCETOWN. THE SANDS OF CAPE COD . . .63 v [ CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. FROM PROVINCE-TOWN TO SWAMPSCOTT. MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE. THE SKATE AND THE KRAKEN . . 69 CHAPTER IX. THE HELEN'S CABIN. HARDHEADS. DREAD LEDGE FISH- ING 66 CHAPTER X. DREDGING OFF NAHANT. MISADVENTURES. A NIGHT Row , 76 CHAPTER XI. SHROWDEN'S BANK A SEA- WOLF. A SEA-RAVEN. A HEMDURGAN. HOPE OF HALIBUT 80 CHAPTER XII. TINKER'S ISLAND. THE TAUTOG. MARBLEHEAD. SKIP- PER IRESON'S RIDE . 87 CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT THUNDER-STORM. FROM MARBLEHEAD TO GLOUCESTER. MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS. A SKIP- PER LOST .93 CHAPTER XIV. A MARINE MUNCHAUSEN. RATTLESNAKE SOUP. A BIG SNAKE. HELEN'S GROTTO 103 CHAPTER XV. IOCKPORT HARBOR. THE KING OF THE GUNNERS. LOB- STER-FISHING. THE ASSYRIAN STARTLED . . . lia CONTENTS. vii CHAPTER XVI. PIGEON- COVE. CAMPHENE COCKTAILS. MUSICAL FISH- ERMEN . . 127 CHAPTER XVII. CONGEE-EELS. FOR THE ISLES OF SHOALS. THE VIKINGS 138 CHAPTER XVIII. THE ISLES OF SHOALS. THE PRINCE OF APPLEDORE. NIGHT ON THE WATER 148 CHAPTER XIX. THB E PLURIBUS UNUM. A BAIT-MILL. THE MONK- FISH. To PORTSMOUTH AND PORTLAND .... 148 CHAPTER XX. CASCO BAY. THE POWER OF MELODY. THE HADDOCK. JEWELL'S ISLAND 167 CHAPTER XXI. To HARPSWELL POINT. ON A REEF. A COLD BATH . 167 CHAPTER XXII. SUCCESSFUL FISHING. WHITING, HAKE, AND COD. A CHOWDER-PARTY 176 CHAPTER XXIII. THE SEA-CUCUMBER. JAQUISS AND BAILEY ISLANDS. MACKEREL COVE. THE MAINE LAW . . . .186 CHAPTER XXIV. FLOUNDER-FISHING. CATCHING A HALIBUT viii . CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXV. A STORM OFF CAPE SEQUIN. BOOTHBAY. THE COAST- SURVEY SCHOONER 203 CHAPTER XXVI. FROM BOOTHBAY EASTWARD. MACKEKKL AND MACKEREL- FISHING . . 212 CHAPTER XXVII. THE ISLAND OF MONHEGAN. OWL'S HEAD. FLAT BUR- CHAPTER XXVIII. FIRE AND WATER. PULPIT HARBOR. THE CUSK. A STRANGE FISH CHAPTER XXIX. FLAPJACKS. DEER ISLAND. A DRUNKEN PILOT. To MOUNT DESERT . 244 CHAPTER XXX. MOUNT DESERT. BASS HARBOR. AN UNBENDING DEA- CON. BAR HARBOR. FAREWELL TO EDEN. END OF THE CRUISE .262 A SUMMER CRUISE. CHAPTER I. THE PLAN OF THE CRUISE. ON one of the hottest evenings of the hot month of June, 1858, I paid a visit to my friend Professor , at his residence on G. Street, Washington. I do not know that my friend had any regular or official claim to the title of Professor. It was conferred upon him, like so many of our Ameri- can titles, as a matter of conversational conven- ience by the officers of the North Pacific Exploring Expedition, of which he was Naturalist. They dubbed him Professor of Marine Zoology, in rec- ognition of his skill in the knowledge of all that pertains to the creatures that inhabit the great deep, but especially of the mollusks, Crustacea, and invertebrates generally, a knowledge abundantly shown in his various treatises on the marine zoology, not only of New England, but of the Chinese and Japanese seas. The study of the 2 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ocean and its inhabitants had been a passion with him from early boyhood, and was pursued with such success, that, in 1849, while yet a youth, he had discovered the principle of the aquarium, and had a number of aquariums in successful opera- tion long before anything was heard of the kin- dred experiments of the Englishman Warrington. It was a fearfully hot night; one of a long succession of hot nights and days through which I had patiently sweltered and sweated, in the vain expectation that time and endurance would gradu- ally accustom me to being broiled and parboiled, as they are said to render eels tolerant of, if not acquiescent in, the process of being skinned alive. But a frame acclimated to the moderate heats and invariably cool nights of the sea-coast of Massachusetts, could not readily become insensi- ble to the influence of an atmosphere which at midnight, as well as at noonday, maintained a heat greater than the average heat of the torrid zone. I sought refuge at the Professor's, because his house, though not materially cooler than the rest of the city, was intellectually and imaginatively cooler. It abounded in objects suggestive of re- freshing ideas. There were crabs and shells that had been dragged from the sunless depths of the Arctic Ocean ; fishing-lines and dredges that had explored the cool abysses of Kamtchatkan and Siberian seas ; drawings of icebergs and glaciers ; and, what particularly was wont to give an agreea- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 3 ble chill to my fancy, a picture of the prodigious snowy cone of the great Japanese volcano, Fusi- Yama, made by a native artist at Sirnoda, where the Professor himself purchased it. The Professor, with nothing on but a shirt and the thinnest of pantaloons, was stretched on a sofa, with a cigar in his mouth, languidly smoking, and contemplating through his gold spectacles the ungainly proportions of a monstrous dor-bug he had just captured. Our conversation opened, of course, on the weather. " I cannot stand it any longer," he said ; " I shall start on a cruise on the coast of Maine next week, and you had better come along, if you do not want to die of a fever. You look horribly bilious already, and a few days more of this heat will use you up entirely. Let us go and . cool off at Grand Manan. I spent two months there some summers ago, fishing and dredging, and can assure you that it is the finest place on our whole coast." " For crabs, I suppose, Professor. All places are classified by you for good or bad with relation to their production or non-production of crabs." "For crabs, yes, but not alone for crabs. The scenery is superb, grander than anything you will see this side of the Saguenay. Huge, rocky cliffs, a thousand feet high, rise right out cf deep water, and are broken into the wildest and most romantic caves and inlets. They are the haunt of nearly all kinds of sea-birds, from 4: A SUMMER CRUISE ON the herring-gull down to Mother Carey's chick- ens. We shall catch there and on our way down the coast every species of fish that swims in our seas." " Including the whale ? " " The whale is not a fish," responded the Pro- fessor, gravely, overlooking the levity of my inter- ruption in his scientific sense of its zoological inaccuracy, " but I promise you we shall see whales in abundance. We shall also catch sharks, and kill seals and porpoises. But, in short, if you will come along, we will run into every harbor from Provincetown to Eastport, and fish and dredge till you have seen at least one specimen of every creature that swims the sea or dwells on the bottom. Then, if you will, you can write a book about the aquarium which shall be a little more reliable than that trumpery thing of Ed- wards's which you sent me yesterday." "What is the matter with that?" I asked. " It seemed to me a clever and entertaining book." The Professor launched into an elaborate and energetic criticism, the details of which I cannot now recall, and to which I must confess I paid little attention, for the amount of it seemed to be that Mr. Edwards had transferred a few species of mollusks from the English seas to ours, and was not very careful in the spelling of his scien- tific names. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 5 I intimated that the orthography of these un- couth appellations was of little consequence. The Professor shook his head. The young men and maidens who were going with such enthusiasm into the formation of aquariums would be led into a shocking confusion of names and species. Besides, some of the plates were wrong. " On plate No. 5, for example, a species of Lymnea is figured as Physa heterostropha, and on " " That will do. I give up Edwards, on condi- tion that you do not utter another of those jaw- breakers during the entire evening. But how shall we go to the Grand Manan ? " The Professor's hint about my bilious appear- ance had privately decided me to take an abrupt leave of the national capital. I already felt a fever in my veins. " I have written to my friend Tufts, the aqua- rium maker and stocker at Swampscott, you have heard me speak of him ? to engage me a good, clean, stout fishing-smack of from ten to twenty tons,* and also two experienced boatmen, one of them, if possible, old Captain Widger, who went with me on my cruise last year. I shall hear from Tufts in a day or two, and you had better get ready at once, for I shall be off like a flash the moment I can get away." In reply to my inquiries into the nature and extent of the requisite preparations for a cruise of a month's duration, the Professor said : 6 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " Put two pairs of pantaloons, two thick coats, and a vest or two, the oldest and worst you have, into a bag, a gunny-bag or a potato-sack will do. Put in, also, a couple of flannel shirts and drawers, and half a dozen or a dozen of thick woollen socks, and an old felt hat. Buy a couple of the thickest red-flannel shirts you can find, a pair of thick-soled cowhide boots, a tight-fitting cloth cap, a cheap straw hat, and a pair of oilskin or India-rubber pantaloons, oilskin is best, for it does n't smell so abominably as India-rubber. Put these, with two or three pairs of old slippers, in the bag, and tie it up tight. Put a couple of linen shirts, more or less, as you please, and a decent suit of light summer clothes, in a valise, so that you can go ashore at Salem, Portland, Eastport, and other civilized places, and see your friends if you have any. That is all the outfit you will need. I will look out for supplying the vessel with provisions and table-ware. I will also provide pens, ink, paper, pencils, and envelopes. If you want to take notes, put in your valise two or three blank-books, loose sheets of paper are always getting lost." " And the damage ? " The Professor has an abhorrence of slang phrases, except those which he uses himself. " I suppose you mean the expense," he replied. " I cannot exactly tell till I hear from Tufts what sort of craft he has engaged, and on what terms ; THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 7 but if we get one or two others to go and share expenses, the ' damage,' as you call it, will be from $ 50 to $ 100 apiece." This was satisfactory, and I made my prepara- tions accordingly. I put nothing in the. bag be- yond what, the Professor indicated, except a pair of India-rubber overshoes, which I subsequently found of essential service when the deck was too wet for slippers, as was frequently the case. Two or three days later the Professor came to see me in high glee, intense delight gleaming through the perspiration that rolled down his face from the heat of a walk in the sunshine. He flourished an open letter in his hand. " Tufts writes that he has engaged the sloop Helen and her owner, Captain Gurney, and that Captain Widger will go if we want him. The sloop was built for a yacht, is stout and tight and roomy, with four berths. She measures seventeen tons, and draws five and a half feet of water ; has not been much used for fishing, and is conse- quently clean and in good condition." " The price ? " I suggested. " Seven dollars and a half a day, including the two men. I shall write to have her brought to Boston on Friday next, and we will start the next day." A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER II. FROM BOSTON TO SWAMPSCOTT. A DEVIL'S-APRON AND ITS CONTENTS. I WAS in Boston on the day indicated, Saturday, July 3, and after making purchase of an outfit in nearly literal compliance with the Professor's ad- vice, I found myself at five o'clock in the afternoon on board the sloop, which was moored on the north side of Long Wharf. I do not know that I can write a better descrip- tion of the vessel than that given yi her fishing license, which, duly signed and countersigned by the Collector and Surveyor of the Port of Lynn, was kept on board in a tin case. It read thus : " District of Marblehead : In pursuance of an act of Congress entitled 'An Act for enrolling and licensing ships or vessels to be employed in the coasting trade and fisheries, and for regulating the same,' John Gor- ham and William G. Gurney, fishermen of Swampscott, in the State of Massachusetts, having given bond that the sloop called the Helen, whereof the said Gurney is master, burden 16 92-95 tons, as appears by the cer- tificate of admeasurement, dated at Marblehead, the 22d day of May, 1856, by which certificate it appears that her length is 32 feet and 7 inches ; breadth, 12 feet and 5 inches ; depth, 5 feet and 2 inches ; square stern and THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 9 billet heads, shall not be employed in any trade, while this license shall continue in force, whereby the revenue of the United States shall be defrauded, and having also sworn that this license shall not be used for any other vessel or for any other employment than is here- in specified, license is hereby granted for the said sloop, called the Helen of Swampscott, to be employed in carrying on the cod-fishery for one year from the date hereof, and no longer. May 7, 1858." The Professor was on board, in a state of keen impatience, accompanied by his friend Tufts, the aquarium stocker of Swampscott, to which port we had decided first to direct our course, to make certain necessary arrangements. The fasts were cast off as soon as I touched her deck, and in a few minutes she was going with wind and tide down Boston Harbor, accompanied by a crowd of other craft, of all classes and dimensions, including two or three steamers bound for Baltimore and Philadelphia. We had gone but five or six miles when the breeze died away and we threw over a cod-line, baited with a clam, in hope of catching something for supper. But we pulled up only a sea-weed, consisting of a long, cylindrical, hollow stem, gradually expanding into a leaf some ten inches in breadth. This plant is the Laminaria saccka- rina, and is called by our fishermen and sailors the " Devil's-Apron." On the coasts of England, its vulgar name is " Oarweed," a term exactly i* 10 A SUMMER CRUISE ON descriptive of its shape, which is that of an oar or paddle. Clinging to the roots of this weed was a horse-muscle, as large as a man's hand, which, to- gether with small pebbles, had served as an anchor to keep it at the bottom. The Professor grasped with avidity the roots of the weed. After looking at it attentively a few minutes, he pointed out to me about a dozen snake-armed starfish (Ophiopholis scoloiwndrica), wound around the tendrils of the roots. " This species," he said, " is found only in deep water, and can only be got by dredging. It con- sists, vou will observe, of a small central disk of about the size of a ten-cent piece, and five long, slender, spiny arms, which twine like serpents among the roots of the sea-weed. They are often very brilliant, and beautifully variegated in color. Most commonly the disk is red, with a pentagonal white spot in the middle, while the arms are ringed with red and brown." The Professor next pointed out upon the drip- ping mass something that looked like a large drop of blood. This, he said, was an ascidian, the Cyn~ tlda gutta. It was a small, flat, leathery disk of a red color, of little thickness, but still sufficient to hold a variety of organs, gills, liver, stomach, intestines, &c., which may be seen upon upturn- ing the envelope of the sac. On the upper sur- face there are two apertures, one for the admission, the other for the expulsion of the water which passes over the gills. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 11 We found also another ascidian, Cynthia echi- nata, a sort of ball, half an inch in diameter, of similar structure with the other, except that it is globular in shape and covered with radiating tufts of filaments. These ascidians depend for food on what the water floats into their mouths. They pass their old age in a quiet, sedentary way, attached to sea-plants, from which they never separate except by force. In youth, on the contrary, while in the tadpole state, they are continually swimming about tiJl they find a place in which to fix their permanent abode, when the tail of the tadpole disappears and the creature assumes its proper form and leads its proper life. While I was looking at the ascidians, the Pro- fessor exclaimed, " Here 's a gasteropod mollusk." This was a limpet with a broad shell, in shape like a depressed cone, and not spirally twisted like most other univalves. It creeps about on the bottom with its oval, flat foot, and when dis- turbed can adhere so strongly to the rock, upon the same principle that a boy's round leather sucker clings to a stone or a brick, that its de- struction is the certain consequence of an attempt to remove it. The specimen we caught, Tec- tura testudinalis, was ver-y pretty, being externally brown, with whitish rays, and internally blue, with a brown margin. This species is also found on rocks near low-water mark. 12 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " What do you think that is ? " said the Pro- fessor, handing me a pebble which he detached from the roots of the sea-weed. I looked at it carefully, and replied, " A pebble curiously coated with lime." " What you take for lime is a vegetable, the nullipore, much of whose fabric, however, is really composed of carbonate of lime." We found about twenty species of marine ani- mals, and several marine plants besides, on this one piece of sea-weed, accidentally pulled from the bottom by a fish-line. It was thrown over- board, after we had sufficiently examined it, and, as we floated slowly toward the 'Outer Light of Boston Bay, Mr. Tufts, sitting watchful on the vessel's side, grasped with a boathook a piece of eel-grass floating by. " Give me that," said the Professor ; " it shows fructification, and is the first specimen I have ever seen. It is very rarely found in this condition." The prize, which he put for preservation in a jar of alcohol, was a piece of common eel-grass, Zostera marina. The seeds are arranged obliquely in two rows, for a short distance, on one side of the long linear leaf. They are in shape like grains of rice, but much smaller. They may often be seen, thrown up on the beaches, just sprouting, but are very seldom found in situ on the leaf, so that most sea-side observers are ignorant of this plant's mode of fructification. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 13 The wind was so light that at 8 P. M. we were only ten miles from Boston, off Nahant. A thick fog coming in from the ocean shut out everything from view. We stood on, however, through a heavy rolling sea, which our Pilot, as we called Captain Widger, said was caused by the fog, though he could not tell why. The Nahant steamboat, the Nelly Baker, was also caught in the fog, and was blowing a horn at intervals of three or four minutes, and was answered by a horn on shore to direct her to the landing-place. Pres- ently we heard the breakers on Nahant Point, and hauling up to the northward, we soon saw the red light on Egg Rock feebly glimmering through the gloom before us at no great distance. We slowly passed close to the rock, of whose light we lost sight when we were about an eighth of a mile from it, so dense was the fog ; and soon after 9 P. M., the wind ceasing entirely, we came to anchor in the bay of Swampscott, about a mile from the shore, in six fathoms water. We could see nothing and hear nothing but the roar of the breakers on Egg Rock and the rocky headland near the Ocean House. The sloop lay in the trough of the sea, which the Professor de- fined as the trough out of which the sea-horses took their food. That gentleman, in spite of the seasoning of his four years' voyage round the world, and of many other cruises, began to feel internal qualms as the vessel pitched about, and 14 A SUMMER CRUISE ON presently turned in, protesting that, in all his voyagings he had never experienced a more de- testable specimen of the " doldrums " than that in which we now lay. I, too, for the first time in my life, felt slightly sea-sick, and also turned in, after turning myself inside out over the vessel's side. The sloop's cabin, which was low, but suf- ficiently broad, contained four berths, two on each side. The Professor and myself took one side, the two seamen turned in on the other, while Mr. Tufts kept watch on deck, as there was some reason to apprehend that the sloop might drift, the only anchor we had ready for use being a small one. At midnight he was relieved by the Skipper, and with the first dawn of morning the anchor was raised, and with a light breeze the sloop slowly moved in to her moorings near the shore of Swampscott, said moorings consisting of a chain fastened to a rock weighing two or three tons, which, years ago, had been brought off from the beach and dropped to the bottom of the bay, its position being indicated on the surface by a cask attached to a stout rope, which cask was hauled aboard and made fast on deck when the sloop reached her moorings. There are fifty or sixty fishing sloops and schooners belong- ing to Swampscott, each of which has her own moorings indicated by a cask or some sort of buoy, fastened generally to two old, large ship's anchors. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 15 CHAPTER III. THE GUNNER. THE SCULPIN. A SCIENTIFIC SHOEMAKER. THE Fourth of July morning opened with un- wonted stillness. Nothing could be heard in the fog but the light washing of the waves against the sides of the sloop, and the low roar of the surf breaking on Nahant and the rocky shore of the mainland. About six o'clock the Pilot arranged an iron furnace on deck, just in front of the cabin door, in the cockpit as it is called, and began prepara- tions for breakfast. His first preparation, which, throughout the cruise, he never neglected, was slowly to fill and light a short black pipe, with which stuck in his mouth, he went about the more direct duties of getting ready the meal, such as cutting up kindlings and bringing forth charcoal from the dim recesses of the forepeak. Presently he intimated that we had better have some fish for breakfast, and producing a line from a locker well stored with fishing-tackle, directed me to bait with clams, of which we had a pailful on board. I reminded him that it was the Sab- bath. He replied, with due gravity, that fishing for food on the Sabbath was perfectly lawful. 16 A SUMMER CRUISE ON He would not fish for gain or for sport on that day, but if we wanted fish for breakfast we might take them with a clear conscience. Perceiving this to be orthodox doctrine, I baited and dropped a line over the side, letting it go to the bottom. In a quarter of an hour I had caught a dozen cunners, enough for breakfast. They are a species of perch, the sea-perch, but the fishermen of this region seldom call them perch, terming them indifferently cunners or nippers. Our Skip- per and the Pilot generally gave them the latter name, which is obviously derived from their nip- ping bite. In New York the cunner is called the " bergall," a Dutch name, and is known also by its Indian name " chogset." Mr. Perley of St. John, whose " Report on the Sea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick," printed at Freder- ickton in 1852, is the best work yet published on American fish and fisheries, says that at Boston it is called "blue perch." But I have never heard that name given to it in Massachusetts, where it is universally known along the shore. The dozen that I caught that morning varied greatly in size and color. They were from five to ten inches in length, and in color no two were exactly alike. The general color was black mixed with brown, with faint transverse bars of an un- certain dusky hue. One or two of the largest exhibited a light orange tint throughout the whole body, with the head and gill-covers of a chocolate THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 17 color mixed with light blue, and with blue fins ; on the back is a long stiff fin with eighteen spines, which is erected or laid back at the will of the fish. Later in the cruise I caught specimens of the cunner thirteen inches in length, weighing a pound, so black as to be hardly distinguishable at first glance from the tautog or black fish, while others, equally large, were throughout of a vivid light yellow, varied with spots and bars of shades of the same color. The cunner is found all along the Atlantic coast of North America, from Delaware Bay to New- foundland. They are caught most plentifully near rocky shores, and are supposed to feed chiefly on Crustacea ; other fish do not molest them, from dread of their dangerous spines. They are very annoying to the fisher for tautog or rock-cod, as they swarm plentifully and take off with great readiness the bait intended for larger prey. It is, however, an excellent and favorite pan fish, and there are two or three old fishermen at Swamp- scott who devote themselves entirely to catching cunners in the cunner season, that is, from the middle of June to the middle of September. Vast numbers are caught in scoop-nets, which are lowered from boats into the still waters, where they gather in shoals so thick that sometimes a bushel is drawn into the boat at once. They are prepared for the table by stripping the skin off entirely, leaving the flesh white and delicate. I 18 A SUMMER CRUISE ON found them very good eating, not inferior to tau- tog, when both are cooked in the same manner. Beside the cunners, I caught a cod weighing a pound and a half, which went with them into the frying-pan. The Professor, despising cunner-fish- ing, was engaged in catching medusae with a hand- net, as they floated past the sloop ; but, on seeing the cod, he dropped his net, baited a large hook heavily with clams, and flung it overboard. In a moment he had a bite, and, pulling vigorously, drew up a large sculpin, or " grubby," as the Skipper called it, toad-fish, it is called in New York. For the benefit of my inland readers, I will try to describe this monster, who, if his size were commensurate with his ugliness, would be the most frightful of created things. The speci- men we caught was about twelve inches long, with a big, thick head, an immense mouth, great staring goggle eyes, with black pupils and golden irides, fins and tail variously and brightly colored, and with about fifty spines and tubercles scattered over him, chiefly on his head. The upper part of his body was of a light-brown color, with dark, ir- regular blotches ; his throat and belly pure white, his first back fin of a dark-brown color, banded with yellow ; the second back fin of a greenish- yellow, with three transverse black bands ; the fins on the sides of a dirty white streaked with black ; the tail yellow, with three transverse black bars. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 19 The sculpin is a lazy rascal, and spends his time chiefly in lying on the bottom, with his fins spread, waiting till food is brought within his reach. He eats everything that is edible, and will therefore bite at any bait. He is very easily caught, and comes to the surface unresistingly, ex- hibiting, when there, a ridiculously piteous aspect, gasping with his great mouth and staring with his goggle eyes. He is generally put to death, or badly hurt, before being flung back into the water, in order to keep him from biting again at the hook. On this occasion the Professor sought to induce the Pilot to cook the creature and try its edible qualities, assuring him that he would find it not bad eating. The Pilot was deaf to the suggestion, and, after knocking the sculpin's head two or three times against the side of the vessel, threw it overboard. I believe the Greenlanders are the only people who make the sculpin an arti- cle of diet, though I have heard that the negroes of Boston are accustomed to eat those they catch from the wharves and bridges, and that they pro- nounce them very good. They are said to make especially good soup. Mr. Perley remarks that when the line fishers in the Bay of Fundy find the sculpin biting too freely they immediately change their ground to avoid it. Our breakfast was of fried fish, boiled eggs, "hard tack," as the sailors term crackers and biscuit, in distinction from loaf bread, which they 20 A SUMMER CRUISE ON call " soft tack," and coffee, which we drank from large yellow mugs. After breakfast, about nine o'clock, the fog " rose up in many a spectral shape And crept away in silence o'er the waves. The sea, from silvery white to deepest bine, Changed 'neath the changing colors of the sky ; . The distant lighthouse broke upon the view And the long land-points spread before the eye." The village of Swampscott, with its small white fishing-houses lining the shore of the shal- low bay, which is no harbor, but only a barely perceptible indentation in the coast, shone out in the sunshine, backed by lovely green hills, their wooded slopes dotted by cottages and villas. Na- hant, with its beaches and cliffs, crowned by its immense, fantastic-looking hotel, jutted far into the sea on our left, while to the right the surf was lazily breaking, glancing and flashing against the rocky point on which stands the Ocean House and its accompanying buildings. Behind us tow- ered Egg Rock, with a white lighthouse perched on its narrow summit, and whiter waves foaming around its base. We lay moored amid a fleet of picturesque fish- ing-vessels, about twenty in number, most of them schooners, and ranging in size from five to fifty tons. Craft of this size and description are called jiggers by the fishermen. They are employed in the shore fishery, in "market fisheries," so called THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 21 because the fish they take are not salted or dried, but taken fresh to market and sold for immediate consumption. In summer the Swampscott fisher- men take their fish direct to Boston for sale ; but in winter the Boston fish-dealers go to Swamp- scott to purchase. The number of jiggers owned in Swampscott is twenty-five, and they are manned by upward of two hundred men. There are be- sides sixty or seventy dories employed in fishing, each worked by one man. The dory is a flat-bot- tomed skiff, thirteen feet long. Our sloop had one which usually was towed at the stern, but in bad weather was hoisted on board. The jiggers, when they go out to fish in winter, carry a dory for each man of the crew, and when the vessel anchors on the fishing-grounds, each man takes his dory and rows to some distance to fish. A man and a boy generally remain in the vessel and fish from her side. They catch cod, haddock, hake, halibut, pollack, and mackerel. Mr. Tufts had come on board while we were at breakfast, and wishing to see his aquariums I went ashore with him in his dory. We landed on a beach in front of his shop, which is almost at the water's edge, and I spent half an hour very agree- ably in examining his tanks, of which he had several in fine condition. Mr. Tufts is a shoe- maker, with no more education from schools than every boy in Massachusetts receives. He has educated himself by books and observation in nat- 22 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ural history, till he has become in his specialty marine zoology a very intelligent naturalist. For a year or two past he had devoted himself to collecting and selling materials for stocking aquari- ums, -the demand for which two or three years ago was considerable in our principal cities. The Smithsonian Institution and the Boston Society of Natural History employed him in this capacity. To those who ordered from him the materials for stocking an aquarium, he sent a keg or barrel of sea-water, and a box of two compartments, one containing the sea-weeds and some of the animals, the other containing the more delicate animals in a bottle or jar. While aquariums were in fashion he had full occupation in this pursuit, but I learn that recently he has relinquished it. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 23 CHAPTER IV. OFF BOSTON LIGHT. POLLACK. SUN-SQUALLS. BLUE-FISHING. AT 10 o'clock the anchor was raised, and with a fine breeze we got under way, bound for the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, intending to land, if possible, at Marshfield, and next at Ply- mouth, to take on board an artist who had agreed to meet us at that place on the 5th of July. Soon after passing Dread Ledge, the scene of numerous shipwrecks, the Professor, who was basking in the sunshine on the taffrail of the sloop, watching the medusa3 floating by, was suddenly startled by the apparition of a large shark within a foot or two of his elbow. The creature was probably attracted by the sight of the Professor's red shirt, for, before starting this morning, we had discarded our shore clothes, and reduced our integuments to panta- loons and red-flannel shirts. The shark remained alongside but for a minute or two, after which he was not seen again. The- wind was northwest, and the day fair and splendid, and not too warm, though it was very hot, I believe, on shore. As we passed Nahant Point we saw a great fleet of vessels coming out of Boston Harbor, spreading their white wings to 24 A SUMMER CRUISE ON fly to the uttermost ends of the earth. At 11, however, the wind shifted to the east, and the fog, which had been driven out to sea by the north- west wind, came rolling rapidly in again, involving everything in its blinding embraces. Many of the vessels we had seen, returned with it, not liking to keep the sea during its continuance. For our- selves, we skirted slowly along the grim rocky barrier of Boston Harbor, with its frowning gray rocks, seamed by dikes of black basaltic trap, looking so much like iron hoops on a barrel as to readily suggest the epithet of an iron-bound shore. As the fog gained on us and grew denser, we ran in, and came to anchor between the island called the Outer Brewster and the island on which Boston-light is situated. A fog- bell near the lighthouse had been for some time sounding its dismal warning, which it continued so long as the fog lasted. The lighthouse is a tall structure of brick, hooped with iron. "I helped to hoop it forty- eight years ago," said our Pilot. " Thomas Knox, brother of General Knox of the Revolutionary Army, was the first keeper of the light." Our Pilot, as we called him, from his minute knowledge of the coast, generally officiated as steersman, and always as cook. He was sixty- eight years of age, of which fifty-five years had been spent on the sea. He was still as hale, hearty, and active as most men of fifty years. His THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 25 life had not been without adventure and strange vicissitudes. In 1812, when Congress declared war against England, he was on a voyage to St. Petersburg. On the return from that port his vessel was captured by an English cruiser, and he was sent a prisoner of war to Chatham, where he remained upward of a year, and was exchanged and released just before the transfer of the Ameri- can captives to the fatal prison of Dartmoor. Dur- ing the rest of the war he sailed from his native Marblehead in a privateer, which made a good many captures, and had three or four engagements with armed merchantmen. He continued to make long voyages for some years after peace was re- stored, but finally settled down into the steady pursuit of the fisheries, in the course of which he had become familiarly acquainted with almost every bay, harbor, island, headland, reef, shoal, and rock, from Cape Cod to Labrador. Two schooners, yachts from Boston, were fish- ing and carousing near us, and a party from one of them was on shore on the lighthouse island, making chowder. We dined on boiled ham and corned-beef, and about the middle of the after- noon, the fog clearing away, the Skipper suggested that cunners would be good for supper, and that they could be caught close to the rocky shores of the island near which we were anchored. The Professor and myself accordingly took the dory and pulled to the nearest point of rock, on which the 26 A SUMMER CRUISE ON surf was slightly breaking. We anchored the dory by her little iron anchor, as close as we could to the rocks, and, baiting with clams, dropped our lines in water ten or twelve feet deep. We caught a number of cunners, somewhat larger than those I had caught at Swampscott, two or three small cod, rock-cod the fishermen call them, and as many pollack. The pollack is a beautiful fish of a singularly elegant shape. From its agility and fine form the Bay of Fundy fishermen often call it the " sea-salmon." It has a strongly defined silvery line running down the sides. Above the lateral line the color is a greenish black. The belly is white. It is caught very freely on our shores, in spring and autumn. Jeffries Ledge, which lies fifteen or sixteen miles east by north of Cape Ann, is a favorite fishing-ground for pollack, and im- mense quantities are taken there in the fall of the year by boats, which go in fleets of twenty or thirty for the purpose. Formerly the fish was very little prized, was hardly ever eaten fresh, and was so carelessly cured that it had a low reputation in the market. Within a quarter of a century it has come into use, and is a favorite article when salted and dried. It is also very good eating fresh, thougk I find our Pilot and Skipper retain their ancient prejudice against it in that state. The pollack grows to the size sometimes of thirty pounds, but the average weight of those taken THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 27 in deep water is ten pounds. Those that we caught were small, weighing about a pound and a half. Subsequently in our cruise we caught them plentifully of somewhat larger size, and frequently saw great schools of them darting out of the water. The English fishermen sometimes call the pol- lack the cythe. It is found in great plenty around the coasts of the British Islands, and is described by English naturalists as extremely frolicsome, gamboling and flinging itself about on the surface of the water. It spawns in winter, and the young abound near the edge of the tide, in rocky places, at the beginning of summer. Mr. Perley says that from almost every project- ing point in the Bay of Passamaquoddy, where there is a run of tide, young pollack may be taken during the summer, by rod and line, very rap- idly, either with bait or any gaudy artificial fly, even of rude construction. The most attractive is the scarlet ibis with gold, by which also white sea-trout is caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The sky and sea were so beautiful, and the air was so delicious, the surf broke so splendidly over the many rocky points and ledges which surround- ed us, that I fear we prolonged our fishing beyond what the necessities of supper strictly required. A curious whitish appearance on the summit of the huge rock near which our dory lay had at- tracted our attention from the sloop. As the Pilot had said that it was caused by the drop- 28 A SUMMER CRUISE ON pings of sea-birds, the Professor jumped ashore to examine it; instead of guano, it proved to be white quartz. When we returned to the sloop, we found the seamen fast asleep. On awaking, and inspect- ing wind and tide, they decided that we must remain where we were for the present. Refresh- ing ourselves with lemonade, concocted by the Skipper, into which he had put a little whiskey to correct the acidity, we gave ourselves up to the contemplation of a fleet of medusae, which were sailing by in prodigious numbers. The Professor rigged a dip-net, and caught a variety of speci- mens. The common names for these curious and beautiful creatures are sea-nettles and sea-jellies. Around Boston Harbor the common people call them sun-fish. Our Pilot called them sun-squalls, which obviously is a derivation from the German name for them, schirm-quallen, which means " um- brella-jellies," and is highly descriptive of the animal. They consist of a transparent gelatinous substance, of a circular form, and when floating have the shape of an expanded umbrella, without the handle. They contract and expand in a man- ner similar to the opening and shutting of an um- brella, except that they do not shut up quite so tightly. The most common form which we saw here was that of the Aurelia aurita, which sometimes swim in such abundance in Boston THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 29 Harbor as to impede the motions of boats. It is easily distinguished by the four stomachs in its centre, each surrounded by a circle of ovaries which are very conspicuous, because, unlike the rest of the animal, they are of an opaque whitish or pinkish white color. From the centre, between these organs, hang four fringed tentacles by which the food, consisting chiefly of minute Crustacea, is caught and conveyed to the mouth. The margin of the umbrella is closely surrounded with long cilia, which Avave gracefully in the water with the motions of the animal. We captured a number of large ones, a foot in diameter, and weighing several pounds, in sub- stance and consistence exactly like jelly. But if one of these is exposed to the sun a few hours, it will evaporate and dry away till nothing is left but some small shreds of membranous skin. Those we caught were of various species, some of them well deserving their popular name of sea-nettles, for in handling them I was stung severely, with an inflammation which lasted two or three hours. By some naturalists this stinging is supposed to be a sort of electric shock, but it has been ascertained that it is mechanical, and is caused by the darting of minute barbed stings, shaped like arrows. As I was inspecting one of these animals, the Professor made a sudden dash with his dip-net. " Ah ! " he cried, exultingly, " I have caught a Staurophora laciniata, which is very rare. They 30 A SUMMER CRUISE ON are hardly ever seen in the bay." We subse- quently, however, saw it in considerable numbers. It is so transparent that it. could scarcely be dis- tinguished in the water were it not for its two lines of opaque ovaries arranged in the form of a cross, and intersecting at the centre, at which the extremely small mouth of the animal is situated. The mouth has no tentacles in this species. The margin of the umbrella is ciliated. I spent a good part of the afternoon in watch- ing these sun-squalls, as the Skipper called them, which I think are the loveliest and the strangest of all the productions of the sea. In their delicate and fragile and evanescent beauty, I can compare them to nothing on the land except the soap-bub- bles blown by a child. No one who has not seen them in their proper element can appreciate their exquisite grace. To me, one of their greatest charms was the exceeding strangeness of their forms and motions, which are wholly unlike those of any other living thing. And strangeness, as Lord Bacon long ago said, is one of the first elements of beauty. I saw, while on this cruise, I suppose a hundred thousand sun-squalls, in some places the sea swarms with them, yet I never beheld one pass without a sensation of eager delight and curiosity. About 6 o'clock the Pilot took the dory and went ashore to the lighthouse in search of milk. As he was returning from this expedition a sud- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 31 den commotion in the water near the sloop at- tracted my attention. It occurred once or twice before I called the Professor, who was in the cabin making desperate efforts to light a cigar, the fog having affected our matches with damp- ness. " A school of bluefish ! " exclaimed the Pro- fessor excitedly, as his eye caught the movement to which I pointed. He shouted to the Pilot to make haste with the dory, and throwing on an overcoat, seized from the locker, where we kept our fishing-tackle, a long, stout line, at the end of which was a shining spoon-shaped piece of pewter terminated by a large hook. This apparatus is called a jig. As the dory approached he jumped in, nearly oversetting it in his hurry, and telling the Pilot to row in the direction where the blue- fish last showed themselves, threw overboard the jig and rapidly unwound the line, till about thirty fathoms were trailing behind him. Presently I saw him, standing in the stern of the boat, pull in rapidly the line. He had caught a large bluefish, which he held up for me to look at. I went below to see what the books said of the animal. Shortly afterward, hearing the Pro- fessor alongside, I went on deck. A young man, a stranger, was sitting at the oars. The old Pilot, unable to get any milk at the lighthouse, had gone ashore in pursuit of the article on the Outer Brewster,- on whose green surface he had espied 82 A SUMMER CRUISE ON a cow. A young fisherman, resident there, had volunteered to row the dory while the Professor trailed for bluefish, and the Professor, after catch- ing two or three, had run alongside to give me a chance at the sport. The sun was just setting, and as we rowed about I forgot the bluefish in the beauty of the purple sea, of the soft, fleecy, rosy clouds, and the plashing lines of surf gently breaking over the reefs and on the rocky points of the islands. The vigorous arms of the fisherman sent the dory along at a rate that kept the jig spinning on the surface like a fish in rapid motion. Presently the bluefish broke close to it, three or four rushing at it at once, with great ferocity. A sudden jerk, a rush to the right, then to the left, a plunge, a leap, a strong, savage pull, told that a large bluefish was on the hook. I drew him in as quickly as possible, which was no slight job, for I had out at least thirty fathoms of line, and my oarsman, to whom the sport was entirely new, in his excitement kept the dory going as fast as his arms could send her. On getting the bluefish alongside, you must lift him at once into the boat, as he will disengage himself if the line is allowed to slacken in the least. The fellow I captured was about two feet long. The jig, thrown over again quickly, was hardly out to the full length of the line before the fish were dashing at it. Several caught it in suc- cession, and got away, their mouths probably tear- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 33 ing with the powerful tug they gave. At length one hooked himself firmly. I pulled him in and found he was somewhat smaller than the other. In a few minutes a third was hooked, so large that, after hauling him in with difficulty to the side of the dory, and seeing that he had the hook apparently well down his throat, I slackened the line to give him a chance to play a little. He dis- engaged himself instantly and was off. The bluefish broke water next time at some dis- tance, and while we were rowing toward them I saw a large fish, probably a shark, chasing them vigorously. This put an end to our sport, for the bluefish suddenly disappeared. We saw no more of them, though we rowed about in all directions, till it grew quite dark. Directing my oarsman to pull to the Outer Brewster, where he had resided, he said, for ten years past, catching lobsters for a living, I exchanged him for the Pilot, who for nearly an hour had been sitting patiently on a rock by the shore, with his pitcher of milk beside him. The Brewster man gladly accepted two of the bluefish for his services as oarsman. As he seemed greatly enamored of the sport of catching them, we gave him a jig to enable him to follow it in the future. The bluefish is sometimes called " horse-mack- erel " by the fishermen, though the real horse- mackerel is a very different fish. At Philadelphia I believe they are called " tailors." They range 2* o 34 A SUMMER CRUISE ON in size from three to thirty pounds, though speci- mens of the last-mentioned weight are extremely rare. Their average size in the waters of New England is four or five pounds, I think. They are heartily anathematized by the fishermen ; for, though a fine fish themselves, and popular as food, they drive off from the fishing -grounds all the other species on which the fishermen depend for support. The appearance of the bluefish is the signal for the disappearance of the cod, mackerel, haddock, and pollack, which fly before these fierce and insatiable marauders as the bluefish them- selves fly before the shark. The bluefish is singularly erratic in its habits. A century or two ago it was plentiful on our coast, and was held in high estimation as an article of food. During the last half of the last century and earlier years of this it disappeared entirely. Within forty years it has returned, first appearing on the coast south of Cape Cod, near Nantucket, New Bedford, and Martha's Vineyard. In course of time it made its way into Massachu- setts Bay, and appears to be gradually working to the northward. Bluefish have passed Cape Ann within two or three years, though not in great numbers, and a few have been seen this year as far north as the Isles of Shoals, off Ports- mouth. The bluefish belongs to the mackerel family. The upper part of his body is of a bluish color, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 35 whence his name ; the lower part of the sides and the belly are whitish or silvery. We supped heartily on cunners and rock-cod, and at 10 o'clock turned in to sleep, the sky being cloudless and the sea calm. 36 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER V. A MIDNIGHT WATCH. RUNNING DOWN THE SOUTH SHORE. PLYMOUTH. THE ASSYRIAN. JUST at midnight we were all roused from sleep by a great crash in the cabin. Tumbling out of my berth in a hurry, I found the little sloop toss- ing and pitching furiously. The table, which ex- tended the whole length of the cabin, and which we had left, on turning in, covered with books, cups, lamps, and miscellaneous articles, had got unfastened, and at length upset by the rolling of the vessel. The Skipper and the Pilot were al- ready on deck, where, by the uproar, it was evident that something was going wrong. Fol- lowing them I learned that the tide was setting strongly up, while a northwest wind was blowing strongly down the bay. The conflict of these twe forces produced a rough sea, under the effect of which our craft was dragging her anchor and drift ing toward a not very distant reef. The sky was overclouded, and the darkness was relieved only by the intermittent flashes of the revolving-light. The seamen were at work forward trying to pre- vent the vessel from drifting, in which they at length succeeded, though only partially ; for the Pilot muttered as he went below, that if the wind THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 37 did not freshen, he guessed she 'd not drift much before daylight. I lingered awhile on deck listening to the sa- lutes of cannon, like distant thunder, from all the surrounding shores of the bay, announcing the termination of the Sabbath and the beginning of the celebration of the Fourth of July. The cold at length drove me below, and I turned in again, but the violent rocking of the vessel and the un- usual noises prevented me from getting to sleep. By and by I rose in the darkness, put on all the coats I could lay hands upon, and groped my way to the deck. The light, as it revolved, threw over the vessel so strong a blaze that I could read the smallest print. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was just 2 o'clock. The clouds were breaking away, and the moon, like the light of the light- house, shone out at intervals with a fitful bril- liancy. The Skipper, who had been watching since midnight, uncertain if his anchor would hold, said the wind was changing ; and as the vessel now drifted but little, he would turn in if I was going to stay on deck. For two hours I stood at the companion-way, leaning over the boom, watching the black and angry waves, the flashing light, and the moon, now clouded, now unveiled, and listening to the rote of the sea, as our ancient Pilot always calls the sound it makes when breaking over ledges or rolling on the shore. The word is from the Latin 38 A SUMMER CRUISE ON rota, and I think is used by Shakespeare. It is now obsolete except among seamen. The firing of cannon at various points on the land was audible at intervals, and now and then a fish would leap near the vessel, falling back with a great splash into the water. Occasionally I could dimly discern, through the gloom, the masts of ships that were taking advantage of the tide to glide into the harbor. They had a singularly spectre-like appearance, and stalked along sol- emnly and silently, like the ghosts of Ossian's heroes. It was a strange, wild scene, the most pecu- liar feature being the great revolving light, now throwing a ghastly glare over the vessel and the water, and in a moment after subsiding into sud- den darkness. I watched it with a sort of fascina- tion till the gray light of morning began to appear, and some sea-birds on a neighboring island to twit- ter, and a cock to crow faintly in the distance. Shortly afterward the sun rose, and as the wind and weather were fair I roused the crew. The Skipper went ashore at the lighthouse to fill our water-firkins. The Pilot cooked the bluefish for breakfast, and in half an hour we were standing toward Plymouth with a stiff breeze from the northeast. At 7 o'clock we passed the Light-ship at Mi- not's Ledge, off Cohasset, the scene of many ship- wrecks, and the site of the iron lighthouse, which, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 39 with its keepers, was overwhelmed by the great gale in April, 1851. The Light-ship is a yellow two-masted vessel, strongly built and well an- chored, with three or four heavy spare anchors hanging from her bow and stern, to be used in case of a gale. She had several flags flying in honor of the day. Running down the South Shore of Massachu- setts Bay, keeping generally at the distance of two miles, at a little past 10 o'clock we were off the Gurnet, a long, high promontory, stretching out from Marshfield, with two lighthouses close together on its seaward extremity, well-known to mariners as the Gurnet Lights. This high point is supposed by some antiquarians to have been discovered by the Northman, Thorwald Ericsson, who in the second summer of his sojourn in Vin- land landed here, saying to his companions, " This spot is beautiful ; here should I like to build my- self a habitation." Being shortly afterward killed in battle with the natives, his body was buried on the promontory, which, from the crosses erected over his grave, is called in the Sagas, Krossaness, or Cross Cape. No one on board had ever sailed into Plymouth Harbor except the old Pilot, and he but once, for- ty years before. The Professor, sitting on deck with the Coast Survey chart of the harbor before him, undertook to pilot us in, an undertaking not without hazard, as the bay abounds in shoals, 40 A SUMMER CRUISE ON and the channel is intricate. We got in success- fully, however, and anchored just outside the sand- spit which serves as a breakwater to the harbor. I believe it is thought to be the spot where the Mayflower anchored. At all events, it is the place where, five or six years ago, I got aground in a schooner attempting to sail out of Plymouth on a fishing excursion with a party of friends, and lay through a long summer's day studying the habits and manners of crabs, lobsters, and floun- ders, as we watched them prowling about our vessel. The bay that forms the harbors of Plymouth and Duxbury is a broad and beautiful sheet of water, almost landlocked, with its entrance facing the east. On the north, Captain's Hill, the resi- dence of the doughty old Puritan leader, Captain Miles Standish, rears its round, smooth summit to the height of two hundred and fifty feet, and con- ceals from view the village of Duxbury. Still farther to the north, behind other hills, lies Marsh- field, the home and grave of Webster. Far to the south, fronting the Gurnet, and bounding the outer bay, the high and heavily-wooded promon- tory of Manomet extends for miles into the ocean. Plymouth itself is built on the slope of hills and the valleys between, and extends for about a mile along the shore, with here and there a steeple or a great elm towering above its brown roofs. Schools of bluefish were swimming to and fro, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 41 and the Professor took the dory and tried to catch them by trailing ; but they would not bite. An old fisherman, seventy years of age, who rowed his dory alongside the sloop to have a little chat with us, said that he had been trying to take them all day without success. He said, also, that they had driven nearly all other fish away. The broad surface of the bay was lively with pleasure-boats, gayly decorated with flags, and filled with young men and women. The air also was alive with flocks of black-headed terns or "mackerel gulls," as the Pilot called them, be- cause they make their appearance in our waters about the same time that the mackerel comes. The Professor went ashore on the sand-spit near which we had anchored, to look for crabs and shells, and roused a great multitude of these gulls, who flew up, wheeling about, and uttering pecu- liarly shrill and painful cries. They had appar- ently been holding a convention on the shore, though perhaps they were only engaged in a social clam-feast over the mollusks which the waves had washed up. He saw, also, sandpipers running along the beach, diligently scrutinizing every hole which seemed likely to contain the small crusta- ceans which form their food. One of these crusta- ceans, a Talitrus, was remarkable for the height and quickness of its leaps, so high and quick, in- deed, that it could scarcely be captured by the hand. A few specimens were secured by making 42 A SUMMER CRUISE ON rapid grasps at the spot where they seemed likely to alight. Among the insects which the Professor found on this sand-spit, a race-horse beetle, Cidndela^ was conspicuous for its neat shape and bright col- ors. These insects must live on animal food, for there is no vegetable growth on the sands- which could afford them sustenance. But the most singular animal found on the sand- spit was a creature which the Professor said he should certainly take to be the " ant-lion," if the ant-lion had ever before been found in this coun- try. It was an insect with a soft grub-like body and a hard beetle-like head, of a greenish color, with golden reflections or indiscences, and armed with a strong pair of forceps-like jaws. It had ex- cavated a pit about an inch in depth, at the bot- tom of which it lay concealed, the head and pow- erful jaws covered by the sand. Around the mar- gin the grains of sand were so loosely arranged that the slightest disturbance would cause them to roll down into the cavity, carrying with them into the clutches of the " ant-lion " any unlucky insect which happened to pass that way and to tread on the margin of the pit. About sunset, the Professor and both the sea- men went to the town in a dory, to mail our let- ters and to bring off the Artist, who was expected down by the afternoon train from Boston. Left alone in charge of the vessel, I was reading in the cabin, when I heard a shout close at hand : THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 43 " Sloop ahoy ! " I stepped on deck. A large schooner, with a numerous party of ladies and gentlemen on board, was slowly sweeping by. " Captain, how near can we go to that p'int yonder ? " said the master of the schooner, indi- cting with his hand the sand-spit at the entrance of the harbor. I was so much overcome by this unexpected compliment to my nautical appearance, that I in- considerately replied, " O, quite near, quite near," as if I knew all about it. The schooner stood on, and I watched, not without trepidation, her course. If she had got aground, I should have been in a pretty fix. Fortunately the tide was high, and she rounded the point safely. Late in the evening, the dory returned from Plymouth, bringing off the Artist, who, much to our surprise and pleasure, was accompanied by the Assyrian, as his friends are wont to call him, from his striking resemblance, in face and beard, to the Ninevite sculptures dug up by Layard and Botta. Their arrival completed the number we had fixed upon as desirable for the cruise, four being in fact as many as the sloop could possibly accommodate. The seamen, indeed, for the rest of the voyage slept on the cabin floor, having relinquished their berths to the new-comers. We sat on deck for hours after supper, watch- ing the fireworks of Plymouth, which we answered 44 A SUMMER CRUISE ON with Roman-candles and blue-lights, of which we had provided a considerable stock, not only for amusement, but to use as signals at night. The Assyrian lighted his meerschaum, the seamen their clay pipes, and the rest of us our cigars. And so we smoked and talked, talked of " The strange, old-fashioned, silent town, The lighthouse, the dismantled fort, The wooden houses, quaint and brown." " We spoke of storm and shipwreck, Of the seaman's anxious life : How he floats 'twixt sky and water, 'Twixt joy and sorrow's strife. " We spoke of coasts far distant, We spoke of South and North, Strange men and stranger customs That those wild lands send forth." Nor did our conversation cease until the moon, " O'erhanging bright and brave The pale green-glimmering ocean-floor, Silvers its wave, its rustling wave Soft folded on the shelving shore. " O lovely moon, a lonely place Is this thou cheerest with thy face ; Three sand-side houses, and afar The steady beacon's faithful star ! " THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 45 CHAPTER VI. PROVINCETOWN. SAND-DABS. COCKTAILS. EARLY next morning, Tuesday, July 6, we set sail for Provincetown, Cape Cod, about twenty- five miles distant. The day must have been an excessively hot one on shore, for even on the water we found the heat oppressive, as in thin- nish clothing we lay basking on deck. The wind was so light that it was some hours before we got sight of Cape Cod. As the sloop slowly glided along we gathered at the bows to watch the sun- squalls floating by in countless numbers. The Skipper coiled himself up in the shadow of the sail, and went to sleep. Our course was headed direct for Provincetown, whose town-house, built high on a hill, and looking like a church, was visi- ble long before the rest of the place came in sight. Presently a slight divergence attracted my at- tention to our venerable Pilot. He was seated as usual at the helm, his hand firmly grasping the tiller, his head erect, but his eyes were close shut. The extreme heat had overpowered his habitual vigilance. Curiosity led me to await the result. The Professor had taken the telescope to inspect a large white object floating on the waves, which 46 A SUMMER CRUISE ON we had been for some time approaching, and which proved to be the carcass of a porpoise. The yaw- ing of the vessel as the Pilot's slumber grew heav- ier distracted his aim at the porpoise. He lowered the telescope, looked carefully at each end, read- justed the focus and tried it again. He caught a glimpse of the land ahead. His eye, experienced on our coast, saw that it was not Provincetown. "Halloo!" he cried, "what does this mean? You 're heading for Truro, Captain Widger." The Pilot made no reply. He still clung to the tiller, but his chin had descended to his breast, and his honest, good-humored, weather-beaten visage had disappeared in the voluminous recesses of a hat that must have been the fashion at Marble- head forty years ago. The Professor surveyed through his spectacles for a moment the sleeping helmsman, then, while the Artist rapidly sketched his figure, took a good long look at him through the telescope, and finally approached and gently tried to detach the tiller from his gripe without awakening him. But though insensible to sound, the old sailor started at the first touch, however light. He shook his head to jerk his hat back to its proper position, rubbed his eyes, gave a vig- orous push to the tiller, and said, with a light blush, that it was very warm, and he had been almost asleep. " It is very hot indeed," replied the Professor, " and if you will turn in and take a nap I will THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 47 take the helm. I am tired of doing nothing, and should like to steer awhile." Captain Widger complied with the suggestion, and in half a minute was sleeping as soundly as a man could sleep. I had observed already the remarkable ease with which he went to sleep at night. But hereafter I have kept a sharp lookout for him on hot days and in plain sailing. In bad weather or in dangerous positions no pilot could be more wide awake or more trustworthy. It was a deliciously easy, lazy voyage. We were ten hours in going twenty-five miles. To be sure, we lay-to occasionally to fish and dredge, but that did not detain us long, for we caught nothing, not even a bite. Either the bluefish had -really driven everything else out of the bay, or we did not cast our lines in the right places. The population of the sea, like the population of the land, is fond of concentrating in favorable localities, in cities and towns as it were, leaving wide spaces desert, or at best very thinly peopled. A line dropped at random in the ocean may fall upon a finny Pekin or London, or, on the other hand, upon an absolute Sahara, crossed only here and there at long intervals by scanty caravans of fish. The experienced fisherman knows the populous spots, and governs himself accordingly. But revolutions and conquests and massacres oc- cur at the bottom of the ocean as well as on shore. The place that was once prosperous and populous 48 A SUMMER CRUISE ON decays and becomes desolate. The prototypes of Nineveh and Babylon, of Baalbec and Palmyra, exist in Massachusetts Bay, and it must have been their deserted precincts into which we dropped our fruitless lines. The bluefish is as cruel and sanguinary a devastator as the Mede, the Tartar, or the Turk. About half-way between Plymouth and Prov- incetown we dredged in water thirty fathoms deep. The bottom was soft and muddy, and yielded us some curious shells, such as are never seen upon the shore. These were various species of Nucula and Leda, remarkable for their clean, glossy ap- pearance, bright -green color, and the comb-like teeth with which their hinge is armed. They protruded a strong, fleshy foot from between the valves of the shell, striking the hard surface of the deck in vain attempts to burrow in it as they do in the soft, muddy bottom on which they live. About 4 P. M. we cast anchor in Provincetown harbor, which is one of the best ports in the world, easy of access, secure and capacious enough, with sufficient depth of water, to shelter a thousand line-of-battle ships. It is admirably adapted by its quality and position for a great naval station. In the war of 1812 it was occupied by the British cruisers, and they could have found no point bet- ter situated from which to harass the commerce of the North. It was this harbor that the May- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 49 flower first entered, and here, on board that ves- sel, was born Peregrine White, the first New- Englander of European parentage. The Professor took the dory and boarded a lob- ster-man who was lying-to just outside the harbor. We wanted lowers for bait, and we wanted them for food. The Professor returned in triumph with a dozen good-sized ones, for which he had paid three cents apiece. In Boston or New York they would have cost five times as much. He brought also the important information that the harbor, near where we had anchored, abounded with flounders or sand-dabs of large size, even twenty pounds in weight. The Professor, the Artist, and myself made preparations for fishing immediately, directing the Pilot, meanwhile, to boil a lobster for supper, and to boil him thoroughly, not less than an hour. We were particular in these injunctions, because by this time we had detected in the Pilot, in his capacity of cook, a proclivity to boil eggs too much and other things too little. The Assyrian, who despised flounder -fishing, however big the flounders, said the heat made him thirsty, and that furthermore he never ventured to eat lobster unless he had previously fortified what he called his " stom-jack " by some pre- ventive of colic or cholera-morbus. Accordingly, while we were getting ready our lines and bait, he persuaded the Skipper to row him ashore at the 3 D 50 A SUMMER CRUISE ON town, in order that he might quench his drouth with a cocktail, or something of the sort. When the dory returned, the Professor, the Artist, and I rowed to within a hundred yards of the shore, opposite the town, and dropped the boat's killock in deep water. WeJiad strong cod- lines, with two large hooks each, which we baited with pieces of lobster, a very difficult bait to keep on. The lines hardly reached bottom before the flounders began to bite so rapidly that they kept us actively employed in putting on bait, they took it off so easily. Nevertheless, in the course of an hour we had caught twenty or thirty, all large ones, weighing several pounds each. The largest was twenty-eight inches in length by eight in breadth. They bit so eagerly that twice we caught two at one haul of the same line. This fish, though called flounder in New York, is termed "sand-dab" by the Boston fishermen, who confine the name flounder to a smaller spe- cies, which, however, does not differ greatly from it except in size. In shape it resembles the long flounder of the British fishermen, its breadth be- ing less in proportion to the length than in any other of its tribe. One side of the " sand-dab " the right side is of reddish-brown color ; the other side is white. The eyes of the fish are both upon the right side. The mouth is very large ; the upper jaw projects somewhat beyond the lower, and both jaws are furnished with a single THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 51 row of prominent, sharp teeth, separated from each other, so that when the mouth is closed the teeth of one jaw shut into the space between those of the opposite jaw. The blowing of a horn on board the sloop an- nounced to us that supper was ready. We wound up our lines, and, rowing first to the Helen, de- posited our fish on the deck, giving directions to the Pilot to cook one of the flounders while we went to the town for the Assyrian, whom the Skipper said he had seen, through the telescope, sitting on the edge of the wharf, for the last half- hour, evidently waiting for us. We found the descendant of Ninus and Semira- mis in an unsatisfied state of mind. As we rowed off, he gave us his opinion of Provincetown. The place, he said, was dry and dreary to the last de- gree, with a very repulsive-looking set of inhabit- ants. After walking about for some time, he ven- tured to inquire of one of the natives for a tavern. The man directed him to an edifice which bore upon its front, in large letters, the words " Union House." He entered, and was accosted by a dentist, the sole occupant, who offered to pull his teeth on moderate terms. On learning, however, what his visitor wanted, the dentist directed him to a neighboring apothecary as the only man in town who kept for sale anything to drink. The Assyrian, in his usual confident way, demanded a cocktail. The apothecary looked at him for some 52 A SUMMER CRUISE ON moments with the air of a person who is too much astonished to speak, and then replied, with grave deliberation, " I do not know what you mean by a cocktail." The Assyrian, in his turn, stared with astonish- ment. Here was a depth of ignorance hardly credible. At length he intimated that he wanted something to drink. He was offered soda-water, qualified, at his choice, with lemon, strawberry, pineapple, sarsaparilla. He shook his head. Was there nothing else ? " Nothing." A bright idea flashed on the Assyrian. He de- scribed to the apothecary the method of concoct- ing a cocktail. The apothecary listened like one to whom a new science is unfolded. Gradually light dawned upon his mind. He produced, from some dusty shelf, an almost forgotten solitary bot- tle of sherry bitters. The Assyrian seized it with alacrity. In the absence of anything better, cock- tails could be made with sherry bitters. The other requisite materials were on board the sloop. Supper was ready when we got on board. We found the flounder savory, the lobster was boiled enough, and before turning in at nine o'clock we drank with the Assyrian a cocktail of his com- pounding to the speedy enlightenment of Prov- incetown in the knowledge of national beverages. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 53 CHAPTER VII. PROVINCETOWN. THE SANDS OF CAPE COD. WHEN we went on deck in the morning, Wednesday, July 7, the sky was cloudless, the breeze gentle, and the long length of Province- town, brilliant with white paint, stretched before us gleaming in the soft, warm sunshine. It is a village of three thousand inhabitants, dwelling in five or six hundred houses, nearly all of which stand on one narrow street, that runs along the shore of the harbor between the water and a ridge of huge sand-hills. The Skipper took the dory and went to the town in' search of " soft-tack," loaf bread. He could not get any, and we breakfasted on hard-tack, flounders, and coffee. After break- fast we all went ashore to see the place, except the Assyrian, who protested that he had had enough of it. Having suffered for several days with a violent toothache, my first business was to visit the den- tist of whom the Assyrian had made mention. In the search for him we discovered so many of the same profession that we were forced to form unfa- vorable conclusions about the state of the teeth of the Cape-Codders. These numerous dentists, however, did not all make a living by their pro- 54 A SUMMER CRUISE ON fession, for we found that one of them combined with it the calling of an auctioneer and of a hard- ware and furniture dealer. The one whom we sought was a dentist, and nothing else. He did his business well, and relieved me of my offending molar in a dexterous manner. His office appar- ently comprised the whole of a deserted hotel, the chief room of which, used at times for dancing, had a curious resemblance to a ship's cabin on a large scale, as befitted the maritime character of the town. As the Professor desired to examine a beach four or five miles distant, on which the Atlantic rolls its waves unchecked by any land nearer than the "far-off bright Azores," we hired a wagon, a span of horses, and a queer little urchin of a driver, to conduct us thither over the sand-hills. In a few minutes we had left behind us the single street of the village and merged into a desert of white sand, that looked as if it had been some time rolled into high waves by a raging tempest, and then suddenly arrested and fixed before it had time to subside to a level. Here and there in the dells and hollows were patches of vegetation, al- ders, huckleberry-bushes, low pitch-pines, scrub- oaks, and clumps of wild roses, glowing with the brilliant hues which the sea air gives to flowers. But outside of the village there were no houses, fences, paths, or any traces whatever of man or beast. It was a wilderness, as it was when it first THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 55 met the eyes of the Mayflower pilgrims. The horses that tugged us onward had the muscles of their rumps unusually developed from working always fetlock deep in sand. At length we gained the shore and stood by the sea, " The boundless sea, that washeth many lands." As Heine sings, " The billows were rolling, Were rolling and roaring, The sun poured down incessant ; Affrighted, the flocks of the sea-mews Fluttered away, loud screaming." A prodigious multitude of terns flew up at our approach, and wheeled around in the air clanging their wild and piercing cries. No other signs of life were visible, save a few white sails far away on the horizon. Signs of death were around us in the shape of fragments of wrecks thrown high on the beach by storms. I picked up a piece of bam- boo which perhaps had floated from some vessel returning from India or China, or the isles of the East. The Professor strolled one way, and the Artist another, in search of specimens, and pres- ently disappeared behind the curving sand-hills. The urchin of a driver busied himself commend- ably with bringing from the nearest patch of green roots of a species of binding grass, which he planted here and there in the desert sand to grow and spread. More idly inclined than either 56 A SUMMER CRUISE ON of these, and feeling perhaps unusually poetical, after getting rid of my aching tooth, I sat down on a piece of wreck and abandoned myself to the spirit of Whittier's lines on Hampton Beach : " Good by to pain and care ! I take Mine ease to-day ; Here, where the sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. " I draw a freer breath ; I seem Like all I see, Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, And far-off sails, which flit before the south wind, free. " What heed I of the dusty land And noisy town ? I see the mighty deep expand From its white line of glimmering sand To where the blue of Heaven on bluer waves shuts down ! " In listless quietude of mind, I yield to all The change of cloud and wave and wind, And, passive on the ground reclined, I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall." The ocean was calm, and at a distance looked like glass, but the tide was coming in, and the long lines of surf were slowly rolling up the sand with a dull, continuous roar. " The waves that plunged along the shore Said only, Dreamer, dream no more." I turned to the little urchin who was busily THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 57 transplanting roots of grass, and, admiring his in- dustry and his practical philanthropy, rose to assist him in spreading the growth of verdure for the benefit of future generations of Cape - Codders ; but as I sank to the ankles in the sand after a few steps inland, contented myself with showing a proper appreciation of his labor by giving him a dime. Reseating myself, I resumed the contem- plation of the sea. " And still the legions charged the beach, And rang the battle-cry, like speech ; But changed was the imperial strain : It murmured, Dreamer, dream again." The presence of the urchin plying his task with redoubled zeal disturbed and annoyed me, what business had he to be working when he might just as well be idle ? and I gave him another dime to take his wagon and horses out of sight behind a sand-hill, and continue his grass-planting some- where else. And then, with nothing to break the spell of the sea, I sat there gazing vaguely at it until " The creeping tide came np along the sand And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see." By and by the red shirt of the Artist and the red shirt of the Professor came slowly into view, returning from their explorations. The Professor had found nothing worth noting, and the Artist 3* 58 A SUMMER CRUISE ON had discovered only a hut built by the Humane Society for the relief of shipwrecked persons who might make their way, cold and wet and hungry, to the shore. We mounted the wagon, the little urchin resumed the reins and drove back to the village, at the entrance to which the Artist and I got out and walked from one end of the place to the other, on a narrow plank sidewalk, examining, as we went, a number of salt-pans, and wondering at the extreme ingenuity which the inhabitants had displayed, in so varying their domestic archi- tecture that no one of the six hundred wooden houses was like another. The afternoon was passed in dredging the har- bor and in searching for shells on the long, sandy point opposite the town ; the evening in writing letters and in listening to yarns about money-dig- ging and privateering, on both which topics the Skipper and the Pilot had respectively much to tell. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 59 CHAPTER VIII. FROM PROVINCETOWN TO SWAMPSCOTT. MINOT'S LEDGE LIGHTHOUSE. THE SKATE AND THE KRA- KEN. ON Thursday, July 8, at 8 A. M., we made sail for Swampscott, fifty miles distant, as the crow flies. We were going thither to have some alter- ations made in the sloop's cabin, which would ren- der it a little more commodious. The day was fair, but the wind was high and the sea very rough outside of the harbor. The Artist, as we passed Long Point, braced himself at the companion-way to take a sketch of the picturesque lighthouse there, but, before he had finished, a wave struck the sloop on the bows and poured over her, drench- ing the sketch-book, giving the Artist a ducking, and kicking up a bobbery among the Professor's specimen jars and bottles that sent that gentleman rushing into the cabin in a state of high excite- ment. Fortunately, not many were smashed, and the remainder were made secure with a care that preserved them from similar mishaps during the rest of the cruise. We had a splendid run, the sky cloudless, the sea sparkling, and the wind fair and steady. As we neared the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, 60 A SUMMER CRUISE ON the sea grew smoother, and it was delightful to recline on deck and listen to the cool rushing and dashing of the water as we swept by Plymouth, Duxbury, Marshfield, and Cohasset. Now and then a hot puff of air would come from the land, seeming almost fetid from contrast with the pure air of the sea, and reminding me strongly of Washington in that horrid hot month, of June. We learned afterward that it was an excessively hot day ashore. As we passed Cohasset we saw men at work on Minot's Ledge, building the lighthouse. Two small schooners were anchored near them. The structure is of granite, and only the foundation was yet laid, although the work was begun three years before. The rock on which it stands is of irregular form, forty-eight feet long and thirty-six feet broad, and is covered even at low tide. There are only three hours in the day when it is possible to work there, and sometimes for months together the weather is such that nothing at all can be done. In 1856, one hundred and fifty-seven hours' work was done, in 1857, one hundred and thirty hours', and in 1858, two hundred and eight hours'. After the foundation was complete, however, the work went on much more rapidly. The lighthouse is a circular cone, thirty feet in diameter at the base and ninety feet high, and strengthened by large iron rods running through several courses of stone. The courses were first set up and fitted on shore THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 61 and then carried off in vessels and fixed in their places. We reached our moorings at Swampscott at 5 P. M. Our good friend Tufts, the aquarium- stocker, was on the watch for us, and soon came off with our letters and papers. While supper was getting ready, we fished from the vessel and caught cunners, cod, pollack, sculpins, and floun- ders, using for bait lobster and salted clams. The flounders were much smaller than those we caught at Provincetown, and were what is called " flat- fish" in New York, I believe. They are taken all along our -Northern coast, in shallow water. On the coast of Maine they are speared in the winter when lying in the mud, the fishers detect- ing them by their eyes, which stick out from the mud that covers the rest of the body. They are very abundant on the coasts of New Bruns- wick and Nova Scotia, and are taken so plenti- fully in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that they are largely used for manuring land. " I have seen," says Mr. Perley, " potatoes being planted in hills, when the only dressing consisted of fresh floun- ders, which were used with a lavish hand." The cod we caught were of a beautiful red color, and weighed about two pounds each. The Pilot called them " rock-cod," and selected them for supper, throwing the cunners, pollack, and flounders overboard as worthless in comparison. This species is of unrivalled excellence for the 62 A SUMMER CRUISE ON table. It is very numerous on the coast of Nova Scotia and in the vicinity of Grand Manan. I caught this evening, for the first time, a skate, a very singular-looking fish, which sometines is found of great size, weighing as much as two hun- dred pounds. The one I caught weighed proba- bly three or four pounds. It was a flat fish, with a broad, brown back, somewhat raised in the mid- dle, the under side of the body of a dirty white. The snout was sharp and projecting, shaped like a spade ; the mouth large, and armed with strong teeth. It had a tail like a monkey's, long and slender, and armed with spines. There were also numerous spines upon the body. When hooked it pulled with some force, and when thrown on deck rolled itself up like a hedgehog, lashing the deck with its tail, and uttering a faint squeak as if in anger. Mr. Perley remarks, that the peculiar form of the skate adapts it admirably to exist near- the bottom. Its usual mode of progression is by a slight undulating motion of its pectoral fins, some- thing between flying and swimming. It "is capa- ble, apparently, of great muscular exertion. With its powerful snout it roots up clams and crushes them between its flattened teeth, which appear to act upon each other like the cylinders of a rolling- mill. It also feeds on other fish, as well as crus- tacea. The young of the skate are deposited by the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 63 parent fish in their horny cases, nearly square in form. These are often found empty on the shore, and are familiarly known as " sailors' purses." As food, large quantities of the skate are consumed in London, where the flesh is considered delicate and well-flavored. It is also eaten by the French, and, I believe, is sold in the markets of Boston and New York. But our fishermen treated the creature with great disdain, and did not seem to like to have it on board. The old Pilot expressed especial disgust at the suggestion of eating it. The skate is taken all along our coast with hook and line, by the cod-fishers. A specimen has been seen by Dr. Storer measuring fifty-four inches long and thirty-six inches wide. I have myself, in the subsequent part of the cruise, taken one that was nearly three feet in length, and have also seen two large ones pulled up at one haul on a single line. In the seas of Great Britain they have, been found of the weight of two hundred pounds. But even these were pigmies compared with one caught in the vicinity of Guadaloupe in the West Indies, which is said to have measured twenty-five feet in length by thirteen in breadth. Who knows but that their power of growth is illimitable, and that the kraken of the Norwegians is after all no fiction, but only a skate of antedi- luvian age and expansion ? After supper the Skipper and the Pilot went ashore to sleep at their own homes in the town. 64 A SUMMER CRUISE ON After their departure we lighted our cigars, and held a council of war. It was evident that the next day would be consumed by the carpenters in altering the cabin. We resolved, therefore, to spend our share of it in dredging and fishing in the vicinity, off Nahant and at Dread Ledge, the formidable roar of whose breakers was sounding in our ears. On the day after, Saturday, we would sail for Marblehead, stopping to fish on the way at certain famous shoals and ledges. Sunday we should pass at Marblehead. The rest of the week we decided should be given to Cape Ann and the Isles of Shoals. Another Sunday would find us at Portsmouth or Portland, as the wind and weather might serve, and the succeed- ing week would take us through Casco Bay and its hundred islands, to the lakes, and caves, and mountain peaks, and gorges of Mount Desert. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 65 CHAPTER IX. THE HELEN'S CABIN. HARDHEADS. DREAD LEDGE FISHING. FRIDAY morning, July 9, I awoke soon after daylight, and, by a prodigious exertion of energy, got up. I did not dress, for on board the Helen, during this cruise, we have undressed only when we bathed or went ashore, in which latter case, to prevent misconception, I will state, that after undressing we dressed ourselves again in shore clothes ; the main constituents of shore clothes being coats and white shirts. White shirts and coats we put on, however, only when visiting some considerable place, like Gloucester, Ports- mouth, or Portland. At other places we gener- ally went ashore in our sea rig, consisting of panta- loons well smeared with the slime of fish, and bleached with constant drippings and splashings of sea water, and thick red-flannel shirts, one or more shirts being worn at a time, according to the weather or the fancy of the wearer. The Pro- fessor, whose ardor in pursuit of science exposed him most to the wet, generally arrayed himself in three shirts at once ; the oldest in service being worn uppermost and outermost. Getting up, as I said, soon after daylight, and 66 A SUMMER CRUISE ON giving myself a shake by way of making my toi- lette, I could scarcely keep from laughing as I looked around the little cabin. The Professor, whose berth was on the same side with my own, was sleeping almost in a sitting posture, his back propped up by a pillow, a great coat, and a huge volume of the United States Coast Survey Re- port. He had fallen asleep while reading, for his unextinguished lamp yet burned dimly beside him, and his spectacles were still on his nose. His blanket was lying folded beneath him, and he had passed the night close to the open cabin-door, with no other protection from the cool air than his three shirts. They, however, seemed to be sufficient, for he was sleeping soundly and comfortably. The Assyrian's berth was opposite to the Pro- fessor's. An extra mattress, which the two sea- men spread for themselves on the floor when they were on board, had been thrust on the top of his mattress during the day. He had neglected to remove it on turning in, and the space that was left between it and the ceiling was barely suffi- cient for his somewhat ample proportions. He had no pillow, and with his head thrown back and his mouth resolutely shut, he was sounding a blast with such sonorous and sustained vigor that I could almost imagine he had served as a trum- peter through all the seventeen campaigns of his famous ancestor, the mighty Temenbar, who, if he writ his annals right on the sculptured walls THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 67 of his palace, was the most successful and sangui- nary of the long line of Ninevjte kings and con- querors. In the struggles and contortions induced by his inconvenient posture, the Assyrian had twisted his blanket around him^in such fashion, that, while a triple fold enveloped his body, his nether continuations were exposed at full length, protected only by his coarse blue pantaloons. The Artist, on the contrary, was lying, like gray-haired Saturn, " quiet as a stone," snugly wrapped in his blanket, which swathed him as closely as a mummy is swathed by its bandages. He had converted his portmanteau into a pillow, and was taking his sleep with a resolute expres- sion of countenance, \vhich said plainly that he was very comfortable, and did not mean to be dis- turbed. I pinched the Assyrian's nose till he opened his mouth, which I have always found an effectual mode of checking a snorer, and went on deck to see the sun rise. The air was mild and still, and the view superb. Before leaving us the evening before, the Skipper had purchased from a neighboring jigger a num- ber of " hardheads," as he called them, for bait. This fish belongs to the shad and herring family, and is found in prodigious numbers all along our coast. It is known by a variety of names, " bony- fish," " pauhagen," " menhaden," and " moss- bonker." Dr. Storer in his Report on the Fishes 68 A SUMMER CRUISE ON of Massachusetts, uses the term menhaden, while the moss-bonker is used by Mr. Perley, and Mr. Spencer F. Baird in his Smithsonian Report on the Fishes of the New Jersey Coast. The fish- ermen whom we met on this cruise never gave it any other name than " hardhead," which is lit- erally descriptive of the hardness of its head. It grows to the length of fourteen inches, and is about three inches in width. The upper part of the body is of a greenish-brown color, the lower part whitish. The back is slightly arched, the mouth opens very wide, the lower jaw being shorter than the upper. The flesh is sweet, though so full of small bones that it is seldom eaten by those who can get other fish. The hardhead enters Massachusetts Bay about the middle of May, and remains till November. It is exclusively a sea fish, and does not, like the herring and shad, ascend the fresh-water streams. They swarm in every bay and inlet in immense schools, swimming at the surface, with their dor- sal fins sticking out of the water, and causing by their rushing a rippling, which the fishermen term "breaking," and which is sometimes visible at a great distance. The shark and bluefish follow, and feed upon these schools, making such ravages among them that the gulls and other sea birds sometimes join in the chase for the purpose of picking up the fragments that have fallen from the jaws of the finny slaughterers. It is also said THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. G9 to be a favorite food of the great whale, who takes several hogsheads into his mouth at a time, though his gullet is so small that he can only swallow them one by one. The common mode of taking the hardhead is by seines, many thousand being taken at a single haul. They are sold for bait to the cod and mack- erel fishers, and are also used in great quantities as manure and for the oil which they contain. I have visited some establishments on the islands on the coast of Maine where oil was expressed from these fish. They are first chopped up and boiled, and the oil skimmed off'. The residuum is then put into a press, and still more oil is extracted. What is left of the fish is then used as manure. The entire fish, however, just as it comes from the sea, is largely used for manure on Cape Cod, on the southern coast of New England, and on the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey. They are spread over the land at the rate of 2,000 or 3,000 to an acre, and are ploughed or hoed in. In plant- ing corn, a single fish is sometimes placed in each hill, to the manifest improvement of the growth of the crop. Each fish of ordinary size, weighing about a pound, is computed to be equal in rich- ness to a shovelful of barnyard manure. The chief value of the hardhead in Massachu- setts Bay is for bait. It is in great demand among the fishermen, who use it profusely, not only by putting pieces of it on their hooks, but by grinding 70 A SUMMER CRUISE ON it up fine in a bait-mill and throwing it overboard by handfuls, to attract the mackerel near their ves- sels. The marauding bluefish this season caused a comparative scarcity of hardheads in Massa- chusetts waters ; and later in our cruise we met Swampscott and Cape Ann vessels which had gone as far east as Mount Desert in search of hardheads for bait. Cutting one of these fishes into small pieces with an old butcher-knife, which was always lying about on deck for that service, I baited a couple of small hooks on a cunner-line, and dropped them over the side of the sloop, more for the sake of having something in my hand as I sat on the rail looking at the scenery, than with much expecta- tion of catching anything. In a moment I had a bite and pulled up ; there were two good-sized flounders, one on each hook. " Pretty well for a beginning," said I to myself, throwing them on the deck with a splash that evidently startled a little the sleepers below, for I heard some one of them muttering and rolling about in his berth. The flounders had not got the bait off, and as soon as I had disengaged them I dropped the line again. It was still sinking when I felt a bite, a stout, vigorous tug, very unlike the feeble pull of the flounder. Hauling in, I found the largest pollack we had yet caught, a handsome, lively fellow, weighing nearly four pounds. I threw him on deck with considerable THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 71 emphasis, and again dropping the line, which had yet one bait left upon it, drew up almost instantly another pollack of about the same size. The Professor just then stuck his head out of the companion-way, and on seeing my captures, rigged a line with his usual quickness, and for a few minutes we pulled up pollack as fast as one could wish. But in a quarter of an hour the sport was all over. For ten minutes we did not get a bite. " This is the way with sea-fishing," said the Professor. " A small school of fish comes along and bites to your heart's content for a while. Suddenly they cease to bite, and you may fish for an hour and catch nothing." " What can be the cause ? " I asked. " Either that we have caught the whole school, or so many of them that the survivors have be- come cautious and have gone off, or some larger fish of another species has chased them away ; or, perhaps, mere whim. Who can tell?" The Skipper and the Pilot came on board at seven and got breakfast for us. At nine we took the dory, the Professor rowing, and went to Dread Ledge, a famous and formidable reef running out into the sea about a mile from where our vessel lay. The surf was foaming splendidly in the bril- liant sunshine, over the black, savage rocks. We anchored the dory as close to them as we could with safety. Southwest of us, two or three miles 72 A SUMMER CRUISE ON distant, was Nahant, with Egg Rock rising be- tween. Northwest was the picturesque rocky promontory on which stands the Ocean House, embowered in trees. East and south stretched the sea, dotted with the sails of the commerce of Boston. The Professor baited two lines, and, standing up in the middle of the boat, was soon hauling in on each side of the dory, cod and pollack weighing three or four pounds apiece, much to the an- noyance of the Assyrian, who was comfortably stretched out in the "arm-chair," as the fish- ermen call the stern of the dory, with a cigar in his mouth, and a half-baited line in his hand. The Professor, as he quickly bent first to one side, then to the other, to pull up and throw back his lines, caused the little flat-bottomed skiff to oscil- late in a way sufficiently alarming to one not used to it. The person who sits in the narrow stern always feels this oscillation most strongly. The Assyrian who had scarcely ever before been in a dory was evidently a little frightened. At length he said, " I wish you would sit down, Professor, and keep still. You make the boat rock so with your confounded jumping about, that I haven't been able to bait my line." " Sit down ! certainly, certainly," responded the Professor. " I did not observe by George ! what a bite ! I've got him." And up he jumped, ...., THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 73 with a sudden spring that sent the gunwale of the dory under water, and made the startled Assyrian drop his line and clutch nervously the sides of the boat, uttering at the same time a slightly profane ejaculation. " I beg your pardon," said the Professor, re- seating himself, and taking' from his hook a very lively pollack, weighing five pounds, which he threw at the Assyrian's feet, " I forgot that you wished me to sit down. Isn't that a fine fel- low?" The dory had imbibed a good deal of water in the dippings to which the Professor's activity had subjected it, and the lively pollack was slapping his tail on the bottom with rapid energy that spat- tered a shower of dirty spray in the face of the gentleman from Nineveh. That personage, how- ever, said nothing, but put his heel on the tail of the fish with an emphasis that indicated considera- ble exasperation. He threw over his now baited hook, and in half a minute had pulled up a fine cod. Another and another followed, and in the excitement of the sport, the splashing of dirty water and the rocking of the boat were alike un- heeded. He was soon almost as actively employed as the Professor himself, though he fished with a little less vigorous action. We did not continue long the sport, for its abundance soon satiated us. We had more fish in our boat than we could possibly use, and had no 4 74 A SUMMER CRUISE ON desire to be guilty of wanton destruction. We stopped in time to get back to the sloop at noon, bringing with us forty-two pollack, twenty-seven cod, and a dozen cunners that weighed about a pound apiece. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 75 CHAPTER X. DREDGING OFF NAHANT. MISADVENTURES. A NIGHT ROW. WE found the carpenters in possession of the vessel, making cupboards and putting up racks and shelves for books, charts, clothes, and other articles. As their presence made the vessel in- conveniently crowded, after dinner the Professor, the Assyrian, and the Artist got into a " whale- boat," belonging to Mr. Tufts, and made sail for Nahant Point, intending to dredge in that neigh- borhood. The fishermen make great use of these boats, which are called whale-boats because in some particulars of their build they resemble the boats used in the whale fishery. They are really a convenient species of sail-boat, and generally of about five tons burden. My companions promised to get back in time for tea, but at tea-time there was no trace of them visible. About sunset I saw them through the telescope far away beyond Nahant, six or seven miles distant. The breeze had died away where the sloop was lying, though there seemed to be some wind in the offing. Just before dark the whale-boat disappeared behind Nahant, and I con- cluded that my friends, finding it impossible to 76 A SUMMER CRUISE ON regain the sloop, had concluded to put into Na- hant and pass the night there at the hotel. The Skipper and the Pilot coincided in this view, and at dark went ashore to spend the night with their families, leaving me in sole charge of the vessel. The night was exceedingly dark, and the air chilly. I confined myself, therefore, to the cabin, occupied in writing till nearly midnight, when, as I was about to turn in, I heard a distant, faint c - rv > " Helen, ahoy ! " I stepped on deck, and held the light in the companion-way, so that the wind could not reach it, while yet its glare could be seen from without. The hail was repeated, and I recognized the strong voice of the Assyrian. But the sound came not from the direction of Nahant, but from the oppo- site quarter, toward the shore of the mainland. Without stopping to speculate on this phenome- non, I ran below, grasped a bunch of Roman can- dles, and lighting one at the lamp held it aloft, so that its fiery shower threw a momentary radiance over the sloop. I caught a glimpse of the sail- boat slowly approaching, and a shout from her crew announced their satisfaction at my signal. I lighted two more candles in succession, guided by which they got safely on board. They were tired, wet, cold, and hungry. For- tunately the Pilot, before going on shore, had cooked a plentiful supper in the expectation that THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 77 they might possibly return before nightfall. Dry clothes proved an adequate remedy for both cold and wet. The Assyrian crawled into the fore- peak, and presently emerging with two bottles of ale, proceeded to make himself comfortable in his own way. The Professor, having arranged his Coast-Survey volume for a pillow, turned into his berth, lighted his cigar, and favored me with an account of their adventures in the sail-boat. First, they had dredged laboriously and success- fully for three or four hours in the deep waters beyond Nahant, which abound in curious speci- mens of marine life. Dredging, by the way, I believe I have not yet described. The implement used by naturalists is a square iron frame, like a shallow box without a bottom. It is generally about two feet square, the sides of the frame being four inches high. It has a handle like that of a pail or bucket, with a ring to which a rope is tied. Below the frame, fastened to a row of holes near its lower edge, hangs a bag of network with tolerably small meshes. A stout rope, two or three hundred feet long, is used. The dredge is dropped over- board while the boat is in motion, and is dragged along until the net-bag is supposed to be full of mud, gravel, stones, shell, and whatever else may be upon the bottom. It is then hauled up to the surface and swashed about for a few min- utes to get rid, as much as possible, of the mud, 78 A SUMMER CRUISE ON which generally constitutes the chief part of its contents. Lifted upon deck, buckets, pans, basins, and other vessels are put in requisition, filled with sea-water. Handful by handful the mud is then taken from the net and thoroughly examined. Stones and other rubbish are flung overboard, but every living creature is carefully handled and washed and put into a bucket, pan, tumbler, or whatever vessel may be most conve- nient, taking care always to immerse the animal as soon as possible into cool, freshly dipped sea- water. On board the sail-boat they had but a single bucket. Their dredging, as I said, had been suc- cessful, and at the end of three or four hours the bucket was nearly full of fine specimens. What they were the world will never know, for just as they had hauled up the last dredgeful an unlucky flaw struck the vessel. There was a commotion on board, a rushing or rather a rolling to and fro to get out of the way of the boom. The Profes- sor's hat was knocked off his head by the boom, and went overboard, nearly taking the head with it. The Assyrian's long legs swung round and struck the bucket containing the specimens, the greater part of which, consequently, a minute afterward, were rapidly descending to their na- tive depths. Disheartened by this mishap, they gave up dredging and made sail for a fishing-bank some THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 79 miles farther out to sea. They caught nothing there worth mentioning ; and when it grew dark, an 1 they essayed to return, the wind had died away. The vessel had no oars, nor anything that could be used as a paddle, except a broken pitch- fork that had somehow found its way on board. With the aid of this, they slowly moved onward, and, as they went, picked up a tolerably good straw hat floating by, which had doubtless fallen from some vessel. It fitted the Professor's head as well as the one he had lost. About 9 o'clock a light breeze sprung up, and enabled them to make their way into Swampscott Bay. It was so dark, however, that they could not distinguish the sloop, and they did not ascer- tain their position till they found themselves close to the shore. Tacking about, they stood out again, till they discerned a faint glimmer of a light, which proved to come from my lamp in the cabin. They hailed it gladly, for the shore was too rough to permit a landing in the dark, and they were al- ready suffering from cold and hunger. A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XI. SHROWDEN'S BANK. A SEA-WOLF. A SEA-RAVEN. A HEMDURGAN. HOPE OF HALIBUT. SATURDAY morning, July 10, the weather was dull and cloudy, and my companions, exhausted by the fatigues of the previous evening, were in no hurry to get up. At seven, the seamen came on board and got ready our breakfast, consisting mainly of the codfish we had captured the day before. The old Pilot selected three of these fish to cook, throwing the rest overboard. I noticed that he selected them with care, and without any reference to size. I asked him why he picked out those three in particular. He replied that they were the best, much the best of the lot. He could not tell why, exactly. He judged by the look, by the shape. Some cod were logy, heavy, dull ; others were lively, sprightly. These last were best for food, though all cod were good eat- ing. His explanation reminded me of the New England proverb : " All deacons are good, but there 's odds in deacons." At 8 o'clock we made sail for Shrowden's Bank, a noted fishing-place nine miles distant. We took our last look at Swampscott, whose name, by the by, is Indian, though apparently compounded of THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 81 two familiar English words. It was once a favorite resort of the Indians, and was the site of one of their villages. The tribe by whom it was inhab- ited were called Abergonians, and at the time of the settlement of the colony they were governed by a " squaw sachem." From 1634 to 1641 Swampscott was occupied as a farm by Sir John Humphrey, one of the original patentees of Mas- sachusetts. For more than two centuries it was a part of Lynn. I remember it ten or twelve years ago as a small, dirty fishing- village, romantically situated, with a succession of picturesque coves, beaches, and rocky points. The summer sojourn- ers at Nahant were fond of visiting it as a droll, queer place, very like the Scotch fishing- village described in The Antiquary. Now, it is a flour- ishing, populous town, clean and neat, its houses resplendent with white paint, and its beaches lined with the most elegant sea-side mansions in the State. We anchored on Shrowden's Bank, and began fishing with cod-lines, with a pound of lead for sinker. We baited with hardheads, and caught in a few minutes twenty or thirty codfish, averaging about three pounds weight. The Pilot and the Skipper expected here to catch halibut, which they evidently regarded as the greatest of prizes. At length I hooked some- thing of greater size and vigor than anything we had yet taken. Observing the force with which 4* F 82 A SUMMER CRUISE ON it resisted capture, the seamen watched with eager- ness its arrival at the surface, in the Jiope that it might be a halibut. It proved to be a catfish, or wolf-fish, or sea- wolf, as it is sometimes called. The Scotch fish- ermen term it sea-cat, and in the Orkneys it is known as the swine-fish, from a swinish move- ment of its nostrils. It was a hideous-looking, black, and slimy monster, thirty-two inches long by sixteen wide, weighing ten pounds. The head was large, flat on the top, and blunt at the snout ; the jaws filled with long, thick-pointed teeth, with which the creature snapped ferociously whenever we touched him. These jaws have great strength, and our fishermen handled their owner very cau- tiously. They shook their heads with marked dis- gust at a proposal to cook the animal for dinner ; yet Dr. Storer says the catfish is excellent food. He has had it upon his own table, and found it, when boiled, very delicate and palatable. Before cooking, the tough skin should be stripped off. The flesh, when smoked, is said to have the flavor of salmon. It is caught as far south as Rockaway Beach on Long Island, and abounds in high north- ern latitudes, where it attains the length of six or eight feet. Along the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia it is caught at all seasons, and it abounds at the entrance to the Bay of Fundy. Its food con- sists chiefly of shell-fish, which are easily crushed by its powerful jaws and teeth. It swims rapidly, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND, 83 with a lateral, undulating motion, and spawns in May and June among the reefs and rocks which form its favorite lurking-places. Half an hour afterward I hooked another cat- fish, of such size that when I attempted to lift him over the vessel's side the stout cod-line broke and he escaped. The Assyrian, seated comfortably at the stern of the sloop, with his invariable cigar in his mouth, was lazily pulling up the occasional cod or haddock that were so accommodating as to fix themselves on his hook, when suddenly he started to his feet exclaiming, " I 've got a halibut, now, I think." We all gathered round him as, with surprising animation, he pulled in his line, of which he had out a great quantity, the tide having carried it away from the vessel. A brief observation of the process of hauling in satisfied the old Pilot. He stepped back to his own line, saying, " You 've got no halibut there." It was evidently, however, a large fish of some sort, and in time arrived at the surface. On catch- ing sight of it the Assyrian paused, as if paralyzed with astonishment. " What in Tophet is this ? " he muttered. " Lift it up," said the Artist, " and let us look at it." The Assyrian reluctantly complied. It was a frightful, spinous, blood-red creature, about two feet long. 84 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " A sea-raven," said the Professor. The old Pilot laughed. "You may call it a sea-raven, but it 's a sculpin, a deep-water scul- pin." " So it is," rejoined the Professor ; " but there are many kinds of sculpin, and the books call this one the sea-raven." The Professor then took the dory and rowed away from the sloop about one eighth of a mile, where he fished for half an hour, apparently with- out much success. On coming alongside he held up to our inspection a beautiful rose-colored fish about eight inches in length. "What do you call that?" he inquired of the Pilot. " I call that a humdruggan." " A hemdurgan ? " said the Professor, repeating the word as Dr. Storer spells it. " No, a humdruggan," persisted the old fisher- man ; " that 's what I have always heard it called, a hum-drug-gan." It was a Norway haddock. The fishermen call it " rose-fish," " red sea-perch," and " snapper." It is a rare fish on our coast, and seldom eaten when taken ; though on the coast of Norway, where it is caught plentifully, it is a favorite arti- cle of food, being considered a great delicacy, and eaten either cooked or dried. It is common in the seas around Newfoundland, and in the deep bays on the southern coast of Greenland it is caught in THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 85 great numbers, in the way that the Professor caught it, on baited hooks attached to long lines. It lias spines on the head, which the Greenlanders formerly used for needles. The greatest length of the Norway haddock is two feet. It is caught, though rarely, I believe, as far south as New York. The Pilot and the Skipper both expressed a good deal of dread of this handsome and apparently harmless fish. They considered the spine poison- ous, and the Skipper related several instances in which he had known persons to be dangerously wounded by handling it. The Professor pooh- poohed at these stories, though it was possible, he said, that a wound made by the spines of the fish might become badly inflamed, as was often the case with wounds made by the claws of a cat or the teeth of a rat. The Artist, who was fishing from the side of the vessel, now called out that he had got a halibut. The old Pilot took hold of his line, and after pull- ing for a moment his countenance lightened up and he exclaimed exultingly : " A halibut, and a big one too ! Now, gentlemen, you '11 see some sport. Now you '11 see what fishing is. Let me manage him ! " Rapidly, but continuously, he pulled on the line for a few moments, holding it so that a sudden rush of the huge fish would not meet with suffi- cient resistance to break the cord. We held our breath, and gathered round to watch the struggle 86 A SUMMER CRUISE ON which was to ensue when the halibut put forth his strength. But no struggle came. The Pilot pulled and pulled with greater difficulty, till it was evident that the line would bear no more strain. He then paused, and fingered it a little, gave a jerk or two, dropped it suddenly as if it burned his fin- gers, uttered a low, prolonged whistle, and walked to his own line, which he began to pull in slowly with a chapfallen expression of countenance. *' What's the matter?" inquired the Artist. " Why don't you pull up the halibut ? " " Halibut be hanged ! " responded the old man ; " your line is foul of a cable which somebody has lost here." The Artist pulled stoutly and the line broke, coming up minus the hooks. He protested, how- ever, that he had, at first, something living on the line, which had probably got away in consequence of coming in contact with the sunken cable. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 87 CHAPTER XII. TINKER'S ISLAND. THE TAUTOG. MARBLEHEAD. SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. ALL hope of halibut failing us, and satiated with catching cod and haddock, we hoisted the anchor and made sail for Tinker's Island, near Marblehead. We anchored in a narrow channel between the island and the mainland. While the seamen were getting dinner we took the dory and went first to the island to gather crabs for bait, as we intended to fish for tautog. A large Boston yacht was at anchor not far from us, and a party of gentlemen from her were already on the island fishing for tautog with rods. The island is a mass of rocks, a quarter of a mile in length, uninhab- ited, and covered with a thin growth of grass and bushes. The Professor being expert at crab-catching, we soon had bait in plenty. Selecting a place at the north end of the island, where an eddy whirled and seethed around a huge isolated rock, we an- chored and began to fish. Gunners of a large size soon gathered around our boat in such multitude that we caught them nearly as fast as we could bait. We threw back into the sea all but the largest, which would weigh somewhat more than 88 A SUMMER CRUISE ON a pound apiece. Of tautog we caught only seven, the largest of which weighed three pounds, and was sixteen inches in length. The tautog, or blackfish, as it is commonly called in New York, tautog in the Mohegan language meaning black, naturally ranges only from the Capes of the Delaware to Cape Cod. But twenty or thirty years ago some gentlemen of Boston caused a number to be brought in well-boats around Cape Cod and set free in Massachusetts Bay. They have since multiplied rapidly, and have extended northwest as far as the coast of New Brunswick. Mr. Perley says that in 1851 many of them were exhibited for sale in the fish- market of St. John, the largest of which weighed eight pounds. The largest specimen of which Dr. Storer had any knowledge, twenty years ago, weighed sixteen pounds. They are now caught plentifully at Nahant, at Plymouth, and at Marsh- field, so plentifully, indeed, at Marshfield, that they are used there for lobster bait, and are little esteemed for food, probably because they are im- properly cooked. Frank Forester, in the earlier editions of his " Fish and Fishing in North Amer- ica," says that the savoriness of the tautog depends mainly on the cook. But in the revised edition, he says, " He is better in the pan than on the hook, and better on the table than in the pan." After dinner we hoisted sail for Marblehead, with a stiff breeze from the northeast, which swept THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 89 us with a rush into the harbor of that famous fish- ing town. We came to anchor pretty close to the wharves, with a huge cliff rising abruptly from the water about a hundred yards ahead of us. The harbor, which is separated from the ocean by a narrow, rocky peninsula, is a mile and a half long and half a mile wide. It is easy of access, with depth enough for the largest vessels, and is perfectly safe, except in a northeast storm, when the waves roll in with such force that, said the old Pilot, " I have seen twenty vessels ashore at once on yonder beach." He was a native of Marblehead, and had sailed from its port for a quarter of a century. Nearly everybody in the town knew him, though he had lived for many years past in Swampscott. Soon after we anchored we were surrounded by a swarm of boat filled with enterprising youngsters, who, in accordance with the traditional habit of the youth of the place, had come off to chat with " Uncle Widger," and to " haze " the strangers. They paid special attention to my gold specta- cles, and when the Professor and the Artist, with their eyes arrayed in the same manner, appeared on deck, there was a general shout of amazement and delight. The Assyrian, hearing the uproar, and learning its occasion, borrowed a spare pair of spectacles which the Professor had provided in case of accident, and putting them on, though his eyes are like those of a hawk, came out of the 90 A SUMMER CRUISE ON cabin and gravely contemplated our noisy visitors, whose exultation at this fourth apparition was loudly manifested. It was evident that a vessel navigated by men in red shirts and wearing gold spectacles had not been seen in Marblehead harbor within the mem- ory of the present generation. After a while these ingenuous youth departed, and betook themselves to skimming in their dories to and fro over the surface of the harbor for amuse- ment. " Make 'em give you a pair of gold barnacles, Uncle Widger," was their parting salutation, " and then the whole crew will be in uniform." We witnessed a glorious sunset, which set off to great advantage the picturesque old town with its quaint houses and ragged heights. As I sat on deck gazing at it, I repeated the lines which Whit- tier's ballad in the Atlantic Monthly have made familiar to the public : " Skipper Flood Ireson, for his hard heart, Was tarred and feathered, and carried in a cart." " I was in that scrape," said the old Pilot, who overheard me. "The deuce you were! Why, it happened long before you were born," said I, with an indis- tinct impression that the " scrape," as he called it, was a pre-Revolutionary affair. " It happened fifty years ago, when I was eigh- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 91 teen years old, and I was one of them that dragged Ireson in his dory over to Salem after he was tarred and feathered." The old man proceeded to relate what he re- membered of the transaction. Skipper Ireson, it will be recollected, basely passed a wreck on which were four or five men appealing to him to rescue them. He left them to perish, his townspeople of Marblehead thought, because he begrudged the cost of keeping them on board his vessel for even the short passage from Cape Cod to Cape Ann. The circumstances becoming known, the indig- nant Marbleheaders tarred and feathered him, put him in the boat of his own vessel, and dragged him as far as the entrance of Salem. There they were stopped by the Selectmen of that town, who informed them that an enraged mob was waiting for them with the intention of hanging Ireson. According to our Pilot, upon hearing this the Marblehead mob turned back and took their vic- tim home, because they had been strictly charged by the Selectmen of Marblehead to take care that he sustained no serious injury, a circumstance which indicates a strange mixture of order and lawless- ness in the proceeding. The traditional story used by Whittier, that Ireson repeated, as he was carried along, the ' I, Flood Ireson, for my hard heart, Am tarred, and feathered, and carried in a cart" 92 A SUMMER CRUISE ON the Pilot pronounced untrue. The verses were made afterward by the boys. Ireson endured his punishment with fortitude, sitting like a statue and uttering not a word, ex- cept once ; the weather being extremely cold, he asked for some grog to warm him, when about half-way on the road to Salem. His request was granted, and he made the rest of his unpleasant expedition in silence. He lived till within a few years, and was a commander of ships almost to the time of his death, the merchants favoring him because he was noted for successful voyages. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 93 CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT THUNDER-STORM. FROM MARBLEHEAD TO GLOUCESTER. MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS. A SKIPPER LOST. THE morning of Sunday, July 11, in the pic- turesque harbor of Marblehead, was as lovely as sunshine and sea and scenery could make it. As the day advanced, the heat became oppressive. On shore, we afterward learned, it was the hot- test day of that hottest of the heated terms of the year, the mercury rising in some instances above 100. Toward noon we got into the dory, and, with the Pilot for oarsman, rowed across the harbor to the narrow peninsula which separates it from the ocean. Leaving him in charge of the boat, we walked across the field half a mile or so, till we found ourselves on the shore of our yesterday's fishing-ground, at Tinker's Island. It is a bold, rocky coast, indented with many little coves, with tiny sandy or gravelly beaches. Selecting the prettiest and shadiest of these recesses, we cooled off with a long, luxurious bath. Strolling then to a headland, crowned by a group of stately elms, we sat down in their shade on the grass, lighted our cigars, and refreshed our eyes with the con- 94 A SUMMER CRUISE ON templation of a scene of blended land and water, promontory and inlet, hill and meadow, cultivation and wildness, that has, southward, no rival nearer than the bay of Rio Janeiro, and northward is not surpassed in natural beauty till you reach Mount Desert. Certain interior sensations, premonitory symp- toms of the approach of the dinner hour, at length caused us to turn our steps toward the Helen. Crossing the Neck, we found the dory where we had left it on the beach, but the Pilot had disap- peared. We hunted for him up and down the shore, in caves, behind rocks, under bushes, everywhere. He was not to be found. He had absolutely vanished. We had no resource but to await his reappearance. To sit or stand in the fierce sunshine, which poured down upon the boat, was out of the question. Descrying a barn at some distance we went to it for shelter, and dis- covered our missing Palinurus stretched upon a heap of hay fast asleep. He, too, had prudently retreated from the fervor of the sun, and yielded himself to his usual proclivity to sleep when there was nothing else to do. Rousing him, we rowed back to our vessel, and after dinner, the heat hav- ing grown still more oppressive, we turned in and went to sleep ourselves. Our slumbers were not of long duration. They were cut short by a tremendous peal of thunder. We arose and went on deck. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 95 " The sky was changed, and such a change ! " When we went below not a cloud marred the serene blueness overhead, not a breath of wind disturbed the fervid, glowing atmosphere, or miti- gated the fierce heat ; now, the heavens were shrouded with a pall whose blackness was irra- diated only by flashes of lightning, while furious gusts swept madly over the harbor, lashing the waters into short, sharp waves, crested with foam. It was the most formidable thunder-storm ever known in the annals of New England. It raged, I believe, over the whole of Massachusetts. In Cambridge alone the lightning struck in more than forty places, though that city, from its pecu- liar position, is usually remarkably exempt from the influence of thunder-storms. The temperature lowered very rapidly. There was a gust of rain, and then suddenly we were engulfed in a dense fog, which, however, did not rise high above the surface of the water ; for I was struck by the strange appearance in the air of the topmasts of the surrounding vessels, while their hulls were entirely hidden. Gradually the fog turned into rain, and by nightfall the weather was so cold that we were fain to go to bed at dark to keep ourselves warm. The wind was north- east, and blowing pretty hard, and I noticed, be- fore turning in, that the Skipper and the Pilot were busy rigging a large anchor, which we had on deck, but which we had not yet had occasion 96 A SUMMER CRUISE ON to use. They predicted that the wind would increase in the night, and, as it was blowing di- rectly into the harbor, we should be likely to need an additional anchor. The old Pilot said that he remembered a northeast storm, many years ago, in which every vessel in the harbor was driven ashore. The prediction of the seamen was verified. About midnight we were roused by an outcry on deck, and, turning out, found that the wind was blowing almost a gale, and that the sloop, in spite of her additional anchor, was drifting under the impulse of wind and waves directly upon the great black rock which rose from the water a hundred yards southwest of us. She drifted slovvjy, and we watched her progress with some anxiety. Fortunately, when we were about fifty yards from the frowning rock, our anchors caught in the moorings of another vessel and arrested our dan- gerous progress. The next morning, Monday, July 12, was so cold and damp that the seamen dragged forth a small stove from the forepeak, and made a fire in the cabin. We went ashore to take a look at the town, which has always been reputed one of the queerest places in New England. It was settled before 1645, and is built on a high, rocky, irregu- lar peninsula about four miles in length and two in breadth. The streets are narrow, and are laid out on the pattern of the paths in a modern landscape THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 97 garden, with a careful avoidance of right lines. We saw few of the inhabitants, and most of those we saw were small boys, who had a weather- beaten look, and sported pea-jackets and top-boots. The people were formerly the most uncivilized in New England, and the boys so rude and turbulent as to be a terror to strangers, whom they were accustomed to stone, or, as they themselves ex- pressed it, to " rock," for amusement. But of late years the place has much improved. After dinner we made sail for Gloucester. The wind having abated, our progress was very.slow^ and about the middle of the afternoon we lay to and fished. Half a dozen rock-cod were hauled up in a few minutes, and the Pilot, having nothing else to do, began to prepare them for the frying- pan. As he cleaned them, he threw overboard the entrails, which floated for a while on the surface. Almost instantlv a flock of stormy petrels, or Mother Carey's chickens, as the sailors call them, gathered round the garbage. A moment before but one of these birds was visible. They were very bold, coming close alongside of the vessel, and seizing pieces of the floating prey larger than themselves, with which they would strive to fly away. Sometimes two of them would take hold at the same time of the same piece, and tug in opposite directions. The Professor seized his dip- net, and stationing himself at the side of the vessel, 98 A SUMMER CRUISE ON directed the Pilot to throw over a handful of gar- bage so close that it would float within reach. The birds gathered round, and the Professor, with his usual singularly quick adroitness, captured in suc- cession half a dozen of them. They were so greedy and so bold, that he might, if he had pleased, have taken the whole flock. In taking them from the dip-net and throwing them on deck near the companion-way, they showed remarkable stupidity, or inability to walk on anything but water. They dashed about under the bench which surrounded the small standing- place for the helmsman, in front of the cabin, knocking their heads against the under surface of the bench as blindly as a bird or any insect will sometimes knock against the glass of a half-opened window, instead of flying out of the aperture. In no case did one of them succeed in getting clear of the deck without our assistance. When liber- ated, I noticed that they all flew away in the same direction until they were out of sight. The last one that we caught the artist took into the cabin to make a drawing of it. It was very tame, and remained for a quarter of an hour with- out struggling, loosely held in the hand \mtil its portrait was secured, when it was suffered to rejoin its companions. Like all those we captured, it had a singularly gentle and innocent expression, and its resemblance in this respect to a young chicken was so great that we were satisfied of the appro- COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 99 priateness of the term chicken commonly applied to the bird by sailors, though why it should be called Mother Carey's is an unsolved and unsolv- able mystery. A flock of these birds will sometimes follow a vessel for months together. They sleep on the water at night, and catch up with the ship in the morning, guided in their search for it perhaps by instinct, perhaps by the small floating substances, such as scraps of food, which their keen eyes can detect in its wake. The Professor told us that he had frequently caught them in the Pacific Ocean, and let them go again with a colored thread tied to their legs. One individual, thus marked, fol- lowed the ship for six weeks, and was seen every clay. It has been a question much discussed among naturalists where and how this bird breeds. But at Grand Manan the Professor found their nests in immense numbers. They burrow, like the cliff swallow, in cliffs of sand. There are cliffs of great extent at Grand Manan, so perforated by them as to resemble gigantic honeycombs, around which they swarm in multitudes so prodigious as almost to blacken the air. About sunset we cast anchor in Gloucester har- bor. The weather was thick, and the wind very light. As we slowly made our way in, the Skip- per noticed a small schooner, a fishing jigger from his own town of Swampscott, which was also creeping along with the tide. It was owned, he 100 A SUMMER CRUISE ON told us, by a neighbor of his, and was manned by two men, one of whom was particularly known in Swampscott by the nickname of " Cousin," who, he said, was a very merry fellow, and would amuse us by his droll remarks. We accordingly stood toward the jigger, and when near enough for con- versation, hailed it. " Cousin" was at the helm, and in anything but a jolly mood apparently. In answer to our inquiry for news, he replied that he had " lost his skipper." " Lost his skipper ! " exclaimed the Assyrian, " what does the man mean ? I never heard be- fore of losing a skipper : the fellow must be jok- ing." But I observed that the countenances of our Swampscott fishermen grew grave on hearing " Cousin's " unexpected reply. They were too familiar with the dangers of their perilous vocation to be much perplexed to comprehend the strange catastrophe that had befallen their neighbor. The old Pilot silently relinquished the helm to the Professor, and he and the Skipper took the dory and went aboard the jigger. They returned in a few minutes, and confirmed " Cousin's " state- ment. He had really " lost his skipper." The two men had been sent to some distant fishing-bank, and on their return, while yet out of sight of land, had been overtaken by night. They kept watch, one at a time. The first half of the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 101 night was " Cousin's " watch. At midnight he roused his companion, who took the helm, while "Cousin" turned in to sleep. In the morning when he awoke the skipper was missing, gone, vanished. Not a trace of him was visible. The little schooner was easily searched, he was not on board. The dory still towed at the stern, he had not gone off in that. The inevitable conclusion was, that he had somehow fallen overboard, and been drowned. But how, when, or why, were questions that would have baffled forever all the coroners of the Commonwealth. After looking in all manner of impossible places for his missing comrade, " Cousin," with a heavy heart, steered for Cape Ann, the nearest land, to report his loss and take counsel with the friends and neighbors whom he knew he should meet in Gloucester harbor, which is the great rendezvous of the Massachusetts fishermen. Our Pilot and Skipper, who knew both the men intimately, expressed the most entire confi- dence in the accuracy of " Cousin's " statement. His companion had probably fallen overboard in a fit or by a careless misstep in the dark, and, like many of the fishermen, being unable to swim, had gone down unseen and unheard. They showed evident concern for their neighbor, but still could not repress a certain degree of amusement as they thought of " Cousin's " astounding bewilderment on getting up in the morning and finding that he 102 A SUMMER CRUISE ON had lost his skipper. They had been so much in the habit of laughing at, or laughing with him, that a touch of the ludicrous could not but mix itself with even so grave and shocking an event. On our way up to the harbor we had dressed ourselves in shore-clothes, and immediately on casting anchor we went ashore and made our way to the Gloucester House, where we ordered supper. While that was getting ready, we strolled out into the narrow, winding streets, which were thronged by sailors and fishermen, of whom there are sometimes three or four thousand in port at once. Supper being ready at 9 P. M., we sat down, and made a night of it, with appetites ren- dered keen by ten days' abstinence from the forms, food, and appurtenances of civilized life. It was pleasant to see a table-cloth once more, to sit in a chair, and to eat something beside fish and salt meat. We lodged that night at the hotel, and it was really delightful to turn in withojit pantaloons to a bed broad enough to roll about on. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 103 CHAPTER XIV. A MARINE MUNCHAUSEN. RATTLESNAKE SOUP. A BIG SNAKE. HELEN'S GROTTO. THE next day, Tuesday, July 13, there was little or no wind, and not a vessel left port. We amused ourselves, therefore, with walking about the town during the forenoon, visiting the Pavil- ion, a fine hotel, superbly situated on the edge of the harbor, near to which are the ruins of an old fort, commanding a fine prospect, where we basked for an hour or two in the sunshine, watching the mackerel-fishers in the harbor. We dined at the hotel, and after dinner went on board the sloop and resumed our sea-rig. In the evening we received visits from several Swampscott skippers, whose vessels, like our own, were wind-bound in the port. One of these men sat with us till midnight, spinning the most mon- strous and incredible yarns, which he narrated with a serene gravity that would almost have per- suaded the hearer to believe any lie. He was a marine Munchausen of the first water, and his adventures were nearly as wonderful as those of the renowned Baron himself. You could mention no island that he had not visited, from Borneo and Madagascar down to No 104 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Man's Land, or Pitcairn, or the Isle Royale of Lake Superior. He had sailed on all seas except Dr. Kane's Open Polar Sea, and that he reluc- tantly admitted he had only seen at a distance. He had conversed with all potentates, from the Czar Nicholas to the King of the Cannibal Islands, and kindly gave us each a couple of cigars, which he said were from a box presented to him by his friend the Captain-General of Cuba, a very choice and rare brand that could not be got for any money even in Havana. The last part of this assertion was probably true. No such cigars were ever seen in Cuba, for they were obviously of Con- necticut tobacco, and we had ourselves bought some of the same choice kind at a shop in the main street of Gloucester for two cents apiece. We spoke of snakes. On this topic he spread himself amazingly. He had often seen the sea- serpent, and once when cruising for swordfish off Nantucket, had harpooned the monster from the deck of his vessel, and had been towed out to sea a hundred miles in thirty minutes, when the line broke and the creature got away. " Rattlesnakes ? Yes, sir ; I have seen rattle- snakes. Some years ago, I grew tired of the sea, and took a farm in Illinois. I had a meadow on the prairie of three hundred acres, and when it came haying-time rattlesnakes were so thick there, that of seven Irishmen I sent to mow it one morning, five were bitten so that they died in- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 105 stantly, and the other two were only saved by keeping them constantly drunk with whiskey for more than a month. That job cost me a barrel of good Bourbon, beside the funeral expenses of the dead men." " And you lost your hay ? " said the Professor. " Not at all. I had seen too much of snakes to be bluffed off in that way. I had a pair of boots which had been given to me at Buenos Ayres by General Rosas, of the kind worn by the Guachos on the Pampas when they go out to hunt the jaguar. They are made of the toughest bull's hide, doubled, and I was confident that if they could resist the jaguar's claws they could the fangs of the rattlesnake. They came up to my hips, and I put them on one fine morning, and taking a scythe, went into the meadow and began to mow. The snakes came at me, a dozen at a time, and whenever they struck their fangs into the tough leather it held them fast. I took no notice of them, but kept on mowing till they hung in such numbers about my legs that the weight became troublesome, and then I stopped mowing and cut them off with the scythe. I had to do this about once in half an hour, and when I went home to dinner there were so many heads hanging to the boots that you could scarcely see the leather. The boys picked off enough to fill a peck measure heaping full, and when I came home to supper they got off as many more. I kept this 106 A SUMMER CRUISE ON up for a fortnight, and by that time, I can tell you, snakes were getting rather scarce in that particu- lar meadow." " What became of them boots ? " inquired our Pilot, who had listened to this narrative with much apparent interest. " Them boots," said the visitor, lighting one of the Captain-General's Havanas with much deliber- ation, and rolling the weed slowly between his lips, evidently to gain time for invention, "them "boots saved my life not long afterwards. You see, I soon got tired of farming and went to sea again. I bought a brig in New York and started on a trading expedition to the west coast of Africa. Off the Cape de Verdes we had about the worst storm I ever saw in my life, and were driven ashore in the night a little south of Cape Blanco, where the Great Desert comes down to the sea. The brig struck a reef running out under water a considerable distance. The next day a whole tribe of Arabs appeared on the beach mak- ing signals to us. I went ashore to see what they wanted, and as I did not like to expose the boat's crew to harm, before going I put on them iden- tical boots, which I had always kept with care, in order that I might wade from the boat to the beach. As the water was shallow, the boat could keep a good way out beyond the reach of the javelins and spears of the Arabs, who did not seem to have any fire-arms. As soon as I landed THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 107 I was seized and hurried off over some sand-hills to their camp. Knowing enough of their lan- guage to understand most of what they said, I soon found that they meant to entice my crew on shore, make slaves of them, and plunder the ship. As a part of this plan, they treated me civilly for a time, only taking off my boots, which seemed to strike their fancy in a way that I could not at first comprehend. But I soon found that they were almost wholly out of provision, though they had plenty of water, and that they meant to make soup of the boots. They accordingly put them into a big iron pot, over a fire, and in about an hour invited me to partake of the broth. I de- clined, and they ate it themselves. In half an hour afterwards every mother's son and daughter of them was as dead as Julius Cassar. There was rattlesnake poison enough in them boots, sir, to destroy all the Arabs of Arabia. The next day we got the brig off without material damage, and we found gold-dust enough in the camp of the Arabs to make every one of the crew a rich man. That was on the whole the most successful voyage I ever made. " But speaking of snakes, if you want to see snakes you must go to the East Indies. I was once lying at anchor in a little port on the coast of Sumatra, waiting for a cargo of pepper. The weather was intensely hot, and we left all the hatches open at night. I got up early one morn- 108 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ing and found the gunwales of the ship nearly down to the water's edge. Supposing that we had somehow sprung a leak and were sinking, I roused up the men and sent a couple of them down the main hatchway to see what the matter was. They did not come back, and after waiting a few min- utes I sent the mate, who looked in cautiously with a lantern, and reported that there was a serpent in the hold, and that he had probably swallowed both the seamen, as the feet of one of them were stick- ing out of his mouth. From the depth to which his weight had sunk the ship he was evidently a big one. Prompt measures were necessary. I di- rected the men to rig a tackle and fall, on the main yard, and let down a stout rope with a running noose right over the hatchway. I then mustered all our fire-arms and gave the snake a volley to rouse him. He soon reared his head out of the hold, I dropped the noose over it, the men ran him up, while the mate and I with axes chopped him in two. He was so long, sir, that it took the whole forenoon to haul him out by sections, cut him up, and throw the pieces overboard." Wednesday, July 14, there was a fog in the morning, but not a very dense one, and we had grown so tired of inaction that we rigged a pair of oars, and about 9 A. M. began to sweep the sloop out of the harbor, a slow and toilsome process, but successful in time. We passed languidly by the villas that line the shores of the harbor, passed THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 109 the light-houses, passed the reef of Norman's Woe, the scene of Longfellow's ballad : " Such was the wreck of the Hesperus, In the midnight and the snow ! Christ save us all from a death like this, On the reef of Norman's Woe ! " Great schools of hardheads were rippling the water all around us. A light breeze at length sprang up, and we laid our course for Rockport, on the outside of Cape Ann. Off Thatcher's Island, at the extreme end of the Cape, we en- countered a fleet of large sloops, laden with granite from Rockport, which they were taking to Boston. They were very deeply laden, and as they rolled along they dipped a volume of water which immediately poured out again in great streams from their scuppers. There was a heavy swell on the sea, and the water had a strange metallic lustre like that of blue steel. We had a slow, dull breeze, and the tide was against us. We did not advance, on an average, more than a mile an hour, and at times actually retrograded. The Professor with his dip-net caught a quan- tity of beautiful sun-squalls as they floated by. He also caught up some floating capsules offucus, or rockweed, attached to which we found speci- mens of the Anatifa vitrea, a species of duck- barnacle. This curious animal, having a regular multivalve shell, was long thought to be a mollusk, and was so classed. It is now, however, placed 110 A SUMMER CRUISE ON among the crustaceans, and the young of it is found to be a small crustacean, swimming freely in the water. This animal has a stout, fleshy pedun- cle for attachment. Its flattened body is enclosed in two large principal valves and several small supplementary ones. From between these valves a horse-shoe shaped cluster of long, curved, cirri- form arms are protruded, which sweep through the water with a grasping motion, in search of food. In the centre of this cluster the mouth is situated. We were nine hours in going nine miles. Grad- ually the swell subsided, and the sea grew very smooth, with a gray leaden hue. Flocks of terns were wheeling and screaming overhead, and schools of pollack leaping all around us. When within a mile of Rockport, as we coasted slowly along, at no great distance from the high, rugged shore, we discerned among the fissures in the rocks a cavity of unusual size which greatly attracted our curiosity. The Professor and I took the dory and rowed into it ; not without difficulty, notwithstanding the unusual smoothness of the sea. It proved to be a high narrow cavern, ex- tending about a hundred feet into the rock. We named it Helen's Grotto, in honor of the sloop. On emerging from it we found the vessel had kept on her way, instead of lying to for us, and was already at the entrance of Rockport harbor. We accordingly had to row after her, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. HI and as the tide was against us did not overtake her till she came to anchor in the middle of this curious little port, which is partly artificial, and will shelter fifty or sixty small vessels. We made our supper on cunners, which we caught from the side of the vessel, and on bread, for which we sent one of the men ashore, and went to bed at 9 o'clock, a dark fog covering the water and giving us a poor prospect for a rapid voyage to-morrow. 112 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XV. EOCKPORT HARBOR. THE KING OF THE GUNNERS. LOBSTER-FISHING. THE ASSYRIAN STARTLED. THE town of Rockport, in one of whose harbors we brought the Helen to anchor about sunset on Wednesday, July 14, is declared by the veracious Gazetteer of Hayward to lie four miles northeast from Gloucester Harbor, thirty-six northeast from Boston, and eighteen northeast from Salem. It comprises all the seaward portion of the extremity of Cape Ann, and from the settlement of New England to the present time, the men of Rockport have been distinguished for their enterprise in the fisheries, " thereby," as Hayward judiciously re- marks, " rendering them serviceable to their country abroad, and fit companions for its intelli- gent and rosy-cheeked damsels at home." We saw but little of the town. The fog was so dense that we could only discern that we were in a small harbor, partly artificial, with a huge mole of granite between us and the ocean. There were fifteen or twenty schooners in the port which afforded room for perhaps twice as many more. The Artist and I got the Skipper to row us ashore before breakfast next day, July 15. We THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 113 landed on a dirty beach, covered with the decay- ing offal of fish, the stench of which was almost suffocating. A narrow street led us to the centre of a large and prosperous-looking village, where we mailed our letters, and made some purchases, especially of " soft tack," of which we bought a quantity that caused the baker to stare and gasp with amazement. We knew we should be likely to get none for several days, and had found by ex- perience that six healthy men, with sea appetites, could consume an enormous amount of bread. When we got on board again we found the Pro- fessor and the Assyrian in a state of deep disgust at the smell of rotten fish which filled the air, and which, indeed, had been so disagreeable on the previous evening that we should have hoisted anchor and gone outside of the harbor to pass the night on the open sea, had not the fog been so thick that we could not see our vessel's length ahead of us. It was so unpleasant on deck, that, immediately after supper, we had lighted our cigars and closed the cabin doors, to smother with the fumes of tobacco the fishy odors from the shore. As soon, therefore, as breakfast was over, we raised the anchor, rigged the oars, and rowed our little vessel out of the port, just as so many Greeks would have done three thousand years ago. I have been amused during the whole of this cruise with its resemblance to the style in which the an- 114 A SUMMER CRUISE ON cients made their voyages. The Helen, I suppose, could not be much smaller than the bark which carried her namesake, the faithless wife of Mene- laus, from Sparta to Troy. And though we did not, like the Greeks of that age, haul our vessel on shore at night, we ran regularly into port as the darkness approached, and never ventured far from land. The coast of New England, north of Bos- ton, with its inlets and islands and rocky headlands and frequent harbors, is not unlike the coast of Greece. Cape Ann, and Casco Bay, and Mount Desert, abound in promontories, which only re- quire to be crowned with temples to compare well with " Sunium's marbled steep," or " The rocky brow Which looks o'er seaborn Salamis." The fog was still as dense as ever, and when we had got half a mile or so outside the harbor we ceased rowing and let the vessel drift. The Pro- fessor, taking a couple of cod-lines, got into the dory and rowed away from the vessel. In two minutes he was out of sight, and presently the sound of his oars became inaudible. The tide was drifting us away from the land, and we soon grew anxious for the safety of our companion. Though the sea was as smooth as ever I have seen it, the rugged coast in that quarter is accessible to boats only by the harbors. And in such a fog, without a compass, the Professor, after a few turns THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 115 round, would have found it as difficult to make the land as to recover the sloop. The Skipper, who was seriously alarmed, took the horn and sounded a sonorous blast. It was presently answered by a blast from the land. All along the coast, as far north as population extends, even to Labrador, the humane and kindly custom prevails of blowing a horn in time of fog as a guide to the mariner. Such a signal from a vessel, anywhere from Cape Ann to Labrador, will be promptly responded to from the shore, if the shore is inhabited. We blew again at intervals of five minutes to guide the Professor. By and by we heard the sound of oars, and that gentleman came alongside, having caught nothing but a lobster, which he had somehow contrived to entice into his dory. He seemed in no hurry to come on board, but asked the Skipper to give him a cup of water, a piece of bread, and half a dozen cigars. He then said to me, " You are always interested in cunner-fishing, C . Jump into the dory and come along, and I will show you the king of the cunners. But first light a cigar, and take a couple of lines from that locker. There give me a light and take the oars, if you please, while I see if I can make this confounded leon cToro burn. I have used up half a bunch of matches on it already." The golden lion would not burn, and was at 116 A SUMMER CRUISE ON length flung into the water. I pulled toward the shore, while the Professor lighted another cigar and baited the lines with the flesh of the lobster he had taken. The fog was so dense that the shore was not visible until we were close upon it. We anchored the dory in water ten or twelve feet deep, at the distance of as many yards from the high, steep, rugged rocks, black and slimy with sea-weed, that line all that part of the coast of Cape Ann. The sea was as smooth as glass, and the water so clear that the smallest objects on the bottom were distinctly seen. Directly beneath our boat, and for a few feet on every side, the bottom was clean sand, free from weeds. But this clear space, which was about twenty feet in diameter, was surrounded by heaps of rocks which rose to within three or four feet of the surface. Around the bases of these rocks, and in their crevices, grew a dense thicket of marine plants, making a vegetable ring about the rocks two or three feet wide. " Here is where I caught the lobster," said the Professor, " and with patience and dexterity we can catch enough of them to keep us supplied with food and bait for the rest of the week. Did you ever see so many cunners before ? Look sharp, and you will see a very large one." The water beneath us, indeed, swarmed with cunners of all sizes and all colors. There were some not larger than a man's finger, and others that THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. H7 appeared upward of a foot in length. Most of them were hlackish in hue, but there were several of lighter colors, and one or two of a bright orange tint. There must have been hundreds of them in sight at once. They swam about slowly and lazily, sometimes hiding in the thickets of sea-weed, then gliding out and cruising vaguely round, apparently without any definite object. I lowered a baited line from the side of the boat. In a moment it was surrounded by a crowd of eager fishes, their apathy gone, and their tails wagging with excitement. I now saw an explanation of a phenomenon that had often puzzled me while fishing for cunners in water so deep or turbid that the fish, until caught, were not visible. While so fishing, you frequently have a smart, bold bite, and your line is carried off for a yard or two with a rush that makes you feel sure you have caught the biter. But with such a bite you seldom, if ever, take a dinner. The reason is, as I now saw, that it is only the smallest eun- ners that bite in that fashion ; too small they are to swallow the bait readily. Little fellows, not yet arrived at years of discretion, will impudently thrust themselves in among a crowd of larger and wiser fish, who are gravely contemplating and smelling the bait before venturing to touch it, and suddenly snapping hold of a corner of it, a young gentleman, not more than five inches long, will drag the tempting morsel away from under the 118 A SUMMER CRUISE 02V very noses of his seniors. He seldom runs with it more than two or three feet, however, and after the first impudent rush, drops it, and scuds off as fast as his tail will carry him. The larger cunner, if he takes the bait at all, takes it soberly and con- siderately, and does not make a greedy snatch at it. He is very expert at getting the bait off with- out being caught by the hook, though, where cun- ners abound, there is such a crowd and so much competition that the wariest fish is tempted now and then to an incautious and fatal bite. I was so much pleased with watching the move- ments of the cunners, that I did not care to catch them. I had taken five or six of moderate size, who would hook themselves in spite of my endeav- ors to prevent it, and had exhausted my share of the bait, when the Professor, who had been pulling them up in considerable numbers, called out to me from the other end of the dory : " There is the king of the cunners I told you of. He is just coming round that point of rock. Did you ever see a bigger one ? " It was, indeed, a large one, by far the largest cunner I had ever seen. His great comparative size was apparent when he moved in a throng of his own species, as he did presently, sauntering about for a few minutes with a stately air, brushing aside his subjects with a majestic sweep of his tail. After promenading for a short time without finding anything worthy of his royal attention, he THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 119 glided slowly into the recesses of a patch of sea- weed at the base of one of the rocky heaps. Not doubting that he would soon reappear, I deter- mined to capture him. I cut off the head of a small cunner and fixed it securely on the hook. The common herd of cunners attacked this bait as soon as it was dropped among them, but could make nothing of it. They could not disengage it nor gorge it, and it was so hard they could make lit- tle impression by nibbling. Still, they tugged and pulled and pushed, till nearly all had tried their teeth upon it. Not one, however, could take it in. At length the big one came out of his lurking- place among the sea-weed, where probably he had been feeding upon Crustacea. As he lounged about, I brought my bait several times in front of his nose. Again and again he poked it away with disdain. At length, suddenly it seemed to strike him as something that demanded attention. He paused before it for about a minute, evidently con- sidering what it meant as it hung within an inch of his nose, wagging his tail gently all the while to keep himself in position. I felt sure he would take it ; but no ; with one sweep of his tail he wheeled about and darted away toward the rocks. " He is gone," said I to the Professor, who was watching the affair with interest. " No, there he comes again ; he has thought better of it." The cunner had got his nose among the sea- 120 A SUMMER CRUISE ON weeds, when he paused, wheeled again, made a straight line for the bait, took it in his mouth without the slightest hesitation, and deliberately marched off with it to his den in the rocks. He did not rush off as a" young cunner would have done, but moved away with a grave unconcern, that said as plainly as words could say it : "I know what I am about. I have fully considered this matter, and it 's all right. This prize is mine, and I 'm going to enjoy it comfortably and at leisure." I gave him plenty of slack line, and when he had got fairly housed in his place of refuge, I slowly counted a hundred before I ventured to pull him up. The bait was so large and tough that I doubted whether he would swallow it. When he carried it off, he merely took hold of it with his thick, fleshy lips. At length I pulled. I had him. He had fairly swallowed the bait, and was fast enough. I had a measuring line in my pocket, and found his length was sixteen inches. His weight I cannot tell, for we neglected to weigh him after our return to the sloop. A few minutes later we heard the sound of a horn from the direction in which we judged the Helen to have drifted, though at a considerable distance. " They want us to come back," said I ; " what can the matter be ? " The Professor made no reply for a moment, but THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 121 attentively scanned the neighboring shore, as if he were considering the state of the tide. At length he spoke. " What time is it ? I have left my watch hang- ing in the cabin." " So is mine. I have n't the least idea of the time. In this fog, all hours of daylight seem pretty much alike." " As well as I can judge by the tide," said the Professor, " it is considerably past noon. I have smoked three cigars, which ought to have taken three hours, and it was after ten when we set out. I suppose they want us to come to dinner ; but I 've no notion of going back without a lobster or two for supper. What say you ? " " Agreed. Hand me a bit of that bread, and I '11 stay till dark, if you wish." Two or three short blasts on the horn, in rapid succession, indicated that our comrades were get- ing impatient. " Let them toot," said the Professor ; " it will do their lungs good. Besides, they deserve to be worried a little for making us row so far yesterday. Now for a lobster." Being a good deal puzzled to comprehend how he expected to catch lobsters with a hook, I watched his proceedings with attention. While fishing for cunners I had observed several lobsters prowling about, backing in and out from the sea- weed and scattering the cunners by their ap- 6 122 A SUMMER CRUISE ON proach. Two or three small flounders had also made their appearance, sliding along on the bot- tom, taking my bait with their usual stupid greed- iness and getting caught accordingly. The Pro- fessor cut a piece from one of these, fastened both the hooks of his line in it and dropped it over the side of the dory. It was instantly surrounded by a crowd of cunners. By gently jerking the line up and down he kept these from stealing the bait, and in a few minutes a lobster darted out of the sea-weed, and rushing among the crowd as if to see what was going on, put them to flight. He did not seem to notice the bait himself, but the Professor, following his movements, dropped the tempting, morsel in front of his claws. Presently he seized it with avidity and conveyed it to his mouth. The Professor let him have it for a min- ute until his claws were somewhat entangled in the line, and then with great caution, slowly and gently pulled him up till his horns or feelers ap- peared above the water. Seizing these the Pro- fessor drew the lobster into the boat. The instant the creature felt his touch it disengaged itself from the line. " The hook is of no use," remarked the Profes- sor. " I have caught them in this way with merely a piece of fish tied to the end of a string. All that is needed is quickness and caution. The lobster will let you draw him to the surface if you do it quietly so as not to alarm him, but if he is THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 123 frightened in the least he is off like a flash. You must grab him the instant his horns are out of the water." I baited my line with a piece of flounder, and watched for a long time in vain. But one lobster showed himself, a small one, which the Professor caught. I was nearly out of patience when the Professor, who was watching his line on the op- posite side of the boat, said : " Here is the father of the family, probably just waked up from an after-dinner nap. He is under the boat, look out for him. I shall leave him to you." The hard-shell gentleman thus designated soon appeared on my side of the dory. He was truly a large one, and hideous to look at. For a good while he would pay no attention to my bait, but amused himself with chasing the cunners, who sculled out of his way with an alacrity that indi- cated no small degree of terror. At length I con- trived to attract his notice by dropping my sinker on his head. He seized the bait promptly, with a sort of clumsy wrath, and conveyed it to his mouth. I pulled him up gently an inch or two at a time till his horns were within my reach. " Grab him ! " said the Professor who had watched the proceeding anxiously. It was easier said than done. I put out my hand to take him by the horns, but with so much reluctance to run the risk of an encounter with his formidable claws, that before I had secured him he let go the line and sank to the bottom. 124 A SUMMER CRUISE ON "Bah!" exclaimed the Professor, "you have lost him. Was that cowardice or only clumsiness ? " " A little of both," I replied ; " but you must recollect that I am not accustomed to handle lob- sters, whereas you have been intimate with the crab tribe ever since you were out of your cradle." I tried again, and being less nervous, succeeded in getting the big lobster to the surface and lifting him into the boat. We caught three more, and concluded we had enough for all reasonable wants. We accordingly pulled up the killock, and the Professor, who hated rowing, sculled the dory slowly out to sea in the direction from which we last heard the sound of the horn. We soon lost sight of the land, and could see nothing of the sloop. Presently, however, we heard some one singing, and in a few minutes the tall mast of the Helen loomed through the fog. In another minute we could see her deck, but no one was visible upon it. Motioning me to be silent, the Professor slowly and noiselessly impelled the dory toward the vessel's bows. The singing continued, and we perceived that it came from the Assyrian, who was lying in a coil of rope on the deck, with his face toward the sky, instead of watching the hori- zon, as he ought to have done. His song was ap- parently suggested by our absence : " Malbrook, the prince of commanders, Has gone to the war in Flanders ; His fame is like Alexander's, But when will he come home ? THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 125 " Perhaps at Trinity feast, or Perhaps he may come at Easter. Egad ! he had better make haste, or Perhaps he ne'er may come." We were now close aboard the sloop, and the Professor, putting his hand to his mouth, shouted through it, in the gruffest tones he could command, an unintelligible order to the sloop to get out of his way, or he would run her down. The startled Assyrian sprang to his feet with an alacrity that showed how imminent he thought the danger. Evidently he expected to see a vessel of at least a hundred tons bearing down upon him through the fog. " You keep a bright look-out here," said the Professor, as we stepped aboard. " Malbrook, my prince of commanders," re- sponded Ninus, " you have given a great shock to my nerves. But I forgive you, in consideration of your safe return. We have been really anxious about you, my dear fellow, and have had thought of alarming the coast and turning out a dozen steamboats in search. As it is, we have rowed this infernal galley up and down and round and round till we are all beat out. Where on earth have you been hiding ? " " Is dinner ready ? " inquired the Professor, wholly unmoved by the Assyrian's distresses. " Dinner ! What time do you think it is ? " " About three, or perhaps four," said the Pro- fessor. 126 A SUMMER CRUIS& ON It was nearly seven. They had had a dismal day on board the sloop, had seen nothing, caught nothing, and done nothing but eat and sleep. As night was fast approaching, and we were re- solved not to return to Rockport, we had no alter- native but to pull for Pigeon-Cove Harbor, about two miles distant. We reached there, by hard rowing, just about dark. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 127 CHAPTER XVI. PIGEON-COVE. CAMPHENE COCKTAILS. MUSICAL FISHERMEN. THE little harbor of Pigeon-Cove, where we anchored about dark on Thursday, July 15, is like the neighboring harbor of Rockport, partly artificial, being protected from the ocean by a high granite wall. It was filled with vessels, mostly fishing-schooners, of from fifty to a hundred tons, manned each by ten or twelve men. They had taken refuge here from the fog, and were waiting impatiently for a breath of wind to enable them to get away. Most of them were from Gloucester and Swampscott, though there were a few from the south shore, and one or two from Province- town. While we were rowing the vessel into port, the Pilot had boiled the big lobster, and made tea. So we had supper immediately on coming to an- chor. After supper, the Assyrian, protesting that in consideration of the fog, the lobster, and hard work at the oar, our " stom-jacks " needed and deserved a little something to strengthen them, volunteered to concoct a general cocktail. He produced his bottle of strong bitters, which he kept carefully tucked away in a corner of his 128 A SUMMER CRUISE ON berth: It was nearly empty. Still there was enough to lay the foundation of a cocktail in each of the six tumblers, which stood in a row before him on the cabin table. The dark-red fluid was drained to the last drop. Recorking the empty bottle, the Assyrian, forgetting that we were not out at sea, flung it through the cabin door with such force that it fell smash on the deck of a ves- sel astern of us, causing a gruff shout of, " Halloa ! what are you at there ? " The Skipper, who was always properly tenacious of the proprieties of sea-life, stepped on deck for a moment to explain to our neighbors that the missile was unintentionally sent in their direction. The Assyrian, intent only on his cocktails, grasped a large stone jug which stood conveniently at hand, in a recess near the head of his berth. He elevated it in a peculiar way that he had prided himself on, which brought the body of the jug to rest in the hollow of his extended arm. I heard him mutter as he felt its weight, that the whiskey held out well, if the bitters had given out. At this moment the Professor, who was seated at the opposite end of the table, drew our solitary lamp toward him to light his cigar. The Assy- rian, not seeing very well what he was about, de- canted a pretty large allowance into each glass, and putting in a little water, handed the tumblers around and requested us to drink. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 129 " Confusion to the fog and success to the last of the cocktails." We drank ; and then followed a general splut- tering and spitting forth, accompanied by ener- getic requests to the Assyrian to know what on earth he had made the cocktails of? That gentleman himself had swallowed a copi- ous draught, and was exhibiting alarming symp- toms of strangulation. As soon as he could speak, he produced the jug and held it up for inspection. The Skipper burst into a roar of laughter. " Why, that is the burning-fluid jug ; I filled the lamp from it just before supper, and put the jug there so as to have it handy." " Handy it was," said the Assyrian with a groan : " it has spoiled our cocktails, and for aught I know, poisoned us. But what have you done with the whiskey ? " " The whiskey is all gone," replied the Skipper, " and I put the empty jug in the forepeak, where I used to keep the burning-fluid." " Well, well," said the Assyrian, " what is swallowed, is swallowed. There is an end to cocktails. But I must have something to dilute this confounded camphene in my stomach, or I shall die of spontaneous combustion. There is a box of claret in the forepeak, Skipper ; get out a couple of bottles, and let us wash down the abom- ination. Keep your mouth away from that lamp, S ," addressing the Professor, who was relight- 130 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ing his cigar ; " if your breath comes in contact with the flame, you will certainly explode, and we shall have another dreadful burning-fluid accident." The Skipper produced the claret, and as the night was warm and still, we adjourned from the cabin to the deck. It was very dark. The soft white fog envel- oped us like a veil, through which we could dimly discern the sea-wall of the harbor, looking, as it loomed in the haze, like some huge castle, or like " the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old." We could see vaguely the outlines of the thronged vessels around us, and that was all. Everything was weird and mystic and spectral in aspect. All around us were voices, but not a man was visible. We felt like those in the Arabian story,, who, in the enchanted forest, heard many, but saw no one. Talking and laughter on every side showed that the hundreds of fishermen in the harbor were, like ourselves, on deck, enjoying the mildness of the night. As the evening wore away we sipped our claret, smoked our cigars, and chatted over the events of the past and the projects for the future, or listened dreamily to the laughter and the talk that came so gayly out of the darkness. At length there was a momentary silence. It was broken by a song. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 131 A rich, deep, manly voice from the Venus, a schooner that lay some distance astern of us, sang in fine style a sentimental song, elegantly worded, and full of simple, tender feeling. I cannot recall the lines, but it expressed the long- ing of a sailor for his home, for the scenes of his childhood, for the peace and innocence of rural life, for his mother and sisters, for the waving woods, and grassy, flowery fields. It was long, and was sung slowly and distinctly, with perfect taste and propriety of pronunciation. The most entire silence prevailed. Not a sound broke the universal hush of attention, save the low ripple of the tide pouring through the narrow entrance of the port. As the song closed there was an in- stant's pause, and then there resounded at once over the harbor the vehement clapping of hun- dreds of hard hands. It was very striking, this simultaneous and hearty applause from an invisible audience, shrouded in darkness and mist. Presently some one on the other side of the har- bor began a song which our Pilot said was called " Cape Ann." It seemed to have no meaning, or if any, a mystical one, like " the House that Jack built." It began : " We hunted and we halloed, and the first thing we did find Was a bam in the meadow, and that we left behind. Look ye there ! " The only allusion to Cape Ann that caught my ear was : 132 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " We hunted and we halloed, and the next thing we did find Was the lighthouse on Cape Ann, and that we left behind. Look yc there ! " One said it was the lighthouse, but the other he said nay, He said it was a sugar-loaf with the paper blown away. Look ye there ! " A good many voices joined in singing this, as if it were familiarly known, but it was not applauded. The same voice began " Annie Laurie," in which also a number joined. " They sing of love, and not of fish, Forgot is Gloucester's glory ; Each heart recalls a different name, Though all sing Annie Laurie ! " said the Assyrian, parodying the lines of Bay- ard Taylor on an incident in the siege of Sebasto- pol. The voice from the Venus took up the strain of love in a song which none of us remembered to have heard or read, and of which I caught only a few lines : " Bend softly down, ye gentle skies, Bend softly down to me, That I may see those spirit eyes, If spirit eyes they be. Bend gently down, for I have dreamed That there were forms above, In every pearly star that beamed, Made up of light and love." It was well sung, and warmly applauded. The singer continued with another song, beginning : THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 133 " When stars are in the quiet skies, Then most I pine for thee ; Bend on me, then, thy tender eyes, As stars look on the sea." " Bulwer, by Jove ! " exclaimed the Assyrian. " Where did the fellow pick that up, I wonder ? " " In some sailor's song-book," said the Professor. " The most popular song-books among our New England sailors abound in pieces of that sort, sen- timental and poetical. You will find the best songs in the language in them. But, come, son of Semiramis, let them hear your voice. Give them something stirring, something bacchanal. We have had enough of the lackadaisical. With a bottle of claret down your throat, you ought to do justice to the theme." The son of Semiramis, who sang finely, and liked to hear his own voice,, readily complied. " I '11 try them with Wendell Holmes's Song of Other Days, though I fear it 's a touch above their com- prehension." " Not a bit," said the Professor, " they '11 under- stand it as well as you do, go ahead." And so the Assyrian lifted up his voice and sang that song which is in parts so beautiful that it can- not be too often copied : " As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet Breathes soft the Alpine rose, So through life's desert, springing sweet, The flower of Friendship grows ; 134 A SUMMER CRUISE ON And as, where'er the roses grow, Some rain or dew descends, 'T is Nature's law that wine should flow To wet the lips of friends. Then once again, before we part, My empty glass shall ring; And he that has the warmest heart Shall loudest laugh and sing. " They say we were not born to eat ; But gray-haired sages think It means, Be moderate in your meat, And partly live to drink ; For baser tribes the rivers flow, That know not wine or song ; Man wants but little drink below. But wants that little strong. " If one bright drop is like the gem That decks a monarch's crown, One goblet holds a diadem Of rubies melted down ! A fig for Caesar's blazing brow, But, like the' Egyptian Queen, Bid each dissolving jewel glow My thirsty lips between. " The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn, Are silent when we call, Yet still the purple grapes return To cluster on the wall ; It was a bright immortal's head They circled with the vine, And o'er their best and bravest dead They poured the dark-red wine. " Methinks o'er every sparkling glass Young Eros waves his wings, And echoes o'er its dimples pass From dead Anacreon's strings ; THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 135 And, tossing round its beaded brim Their locks of floating gold, With bacchant dance and choral hymn Return the nymphs of old. " A welcome, then, to joy and mirth, From hearts as fresh as ours, To scatter o'er the dust of earth Their sweetly-mingled flowers ; 'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills, In spite of Folly's frown, And Nature from her vine-clad hills That rains her life-blood down ! Then once again, before we part, My empty glass shall ring ; And he that has the warmest heart Shall loudest laugh and sing." The applause was immense. Round upon round of clapping rolled over the harbor, shaking the fog and reverberating among the piles of granite. " Do you remember, C ," said the Assyrian, " where we heard that song before ? " " Ay, well do I remember." The question car- ried me back from the fogs and fishermen of Cape Ann to a far different scene in Boston, where, amid a gay circle that included some of the fore- most wits and poets of New England, the brilliant Autocrat of the Breakfast Table had sung the song himself. Again the voice from the Venus began to sing. Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine," was the song. 136 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " Where did you first hear that before ? " said I to the Assyrian. " In the course of your three or four thousand years of Pythagorean existence you must have heard it somewhere, long ago, either in the original Greek or in Ben Jonson's English." " I probably first heard it sixteen hundred years ago, sung by some Greek fisherman in an island of the jJEgean, perhaps at Lemnos itself. Who knows? But the circumstance has escaped my memory. Skipper," continued the Assyrian, turn- ing to that personage, who was sitting on the taf- frail soberly solacing himself with a pipe, " take the dory and carry a bottle of claret over to the Ve- nus, with the compliments of the Helen to the man who has been singing." " Nonsense," interposed the Professor. " Don't send them claret, they will take it for bad vin- egar. A couple of bottles of ale will be much more acceptable." The amendment was accepted by the original mover, and in a moment or two the Skipper sculled away in the dory, his pipe gleaming through the fog like a will-o'-the-wisp. He presently returned with the thanks of the Venus for the present. The vessel, he said, was a mackerel-fisher, with eight or ten men on board, and was waiting for the fog to lift before she started for the fishing-grounds. The singer was a good-looking young man who seemed to be the mate. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 137 The Professor, whose summer cruises in past years had brought him much in contact with the fishermen, said they were a remarkably intelligent and efficient body of men. A slow, stupid, lazy fellow could not succeed in their vocation, which, as pursued on our shores, was well calculated to call out each man's individual smartness and gump- tion. Of the hundreds of fishermen then in the harbor where we lay, probably every one had re- ceived a good common-school education, and nine tenths of them were qualified, by character and intelligence, to take command of vessels. It was now midnight, and the air had become chilly. So we went below and turned in to sleep. 138 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XVII. . CONGER-EELS. FOR THE ISLES OF SHOALS. THE VIKINGS. THE next morning, Friday, July 16, the fog was very dense, but the sun was shining, and the air soon grew hot. The old Pilot said he thought the fog would lift at noon, so we rowed the sloop out upon the ocean to be ready for the breeze if it should spring up. Off Halibut Point the Professor dredged, but got little, the bottom being muddy. The rest of us fished, and caught, among other things, a couple of conger-eels about two feet each in length. They were of a yellowish white, mottled with dirty spots, the head and neck thick, the mouth large, but the body slender and snake-like. These creatures have been caught ten feet long and as thick as a man's arm. The Professor dissected those we took, and found in their stomachs a large quantity of crustaceans belonging to the order Te- tradecapoda, fourteen-legged. This order, he told us, is very numerous in species, and contains two principal groups ; the first group consisting of ver- tically compressed species, the second, of hori- zontally flattened species. The first group, from the form of their bodies, walk upon their sides, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 139 and the second upon their bellies. About fifty species of the first group have been found on our coast. They are very active little creatures, and are interesting in aquaria, because they are very quarrelsome, and are generally engaged in mis- chief, except when they are at work building their houses, which consist of little tubes. They are found at all depths, from high-water mark to fifty fathoms. Some kinds are found floating at the surface, and are known as sand-hoppers, beach- fleas, sea-fleas, sea-screws. Of the flattened forms, some are known as sea-cockroaches, sea-pillbugs, and other strange appellations. About the middle of the forenoon, to our great relief, for we were heartily tired of the fog, and longed to be on our way Down East, a light southeast breeze sprung up. We started at once for the Isles of Shoals, which lay nearly due north from us, about twenty miles distant. We headed somewhat easterly to counteract the current which sets into Ipswich Bay on the flood tide. The breeze increased, and we dashed on finely through the fog, keeping a sharp lookout ahead. After running about two hours, we suddenly met a large schooner bearing down upon us. She emerged from the fog like a spectre, and passed close to us. Her skipper, standing on the taffrail, hailed as she swept by : " Whereaway is Cape Ann ? " " Ten or twelve miles south by west," responded our Pilot, who said the stranger was a mackerel 140 A SUMMER CRUISE ON vessel, probably on her way home from the Isles of Shoals. In a moment she vanished into the mist. Soon after this the fog began to clear away, which it did rapidly and beautifully, curling and wreathing and rolling off its soft fleeces whiter than wool, until insensibly they melted into thin air. Then, far off before us, about 2 o'clock, we saw on the horizon a white spot, like an immense ship, or like a house built right in the sea. This, the Pilot said, was White Island Lighthouse, the southernmost point of the Isles of Shoals. I remembered, as we silently glided on in our little bark, with our eyes fixed upon the white spot in the distance, which gradually rose higher and higher above the horizon, a story in the Ara- bian Nights, in which some one embarks in a boat and sails away on the sea till presently he discerns a castle rising from the water far off before him. I remembered also Lowell's description of a storm at the Isles of Shoals, and what he says of the white spot toward which we were steering : " Look southward for White Island Light, The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide ; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight, Of dash and roar, and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment, wild and wide, Where the breakers struggle left and right, Then a mile or more of rushing sea, And then the lighthouse, slim and lone ; And whenever the whole weight of ocean is thrown THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 141 Full and fair on White Island head, A great mist-jotun you will see Lifting himself up silently, High and huge, o'er the lighthouse top, With hands of wavering spray outspread, Groping after the little tower That seems to shrink and shorten and cower, Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly He sinks again into the sea." A grand image that, comparing the columns of spray that sometimes in a great storm rear them- selves above the lighthouse a hundred feet high, to the jotuns or giants of Scandinavian mythology, rising terrible from the sea to assail the tower. It would have pleased the bold Northmen, the Vikings, who a thousand years ago sailed down this coast in search of Vinland, led by Leif, the son of Erik the Red, and by Thorstein, his brother. Doubtless they, as well as we, saw the surf break- ing over White Island. For, though we saw not the jotun, who only rises in a storm, the breeze that bore us along sent the breakers dashing and foaming splendidly over the rock on which the lighthouse stands. At 2 the blue peak of Agamenticus, a moun- tain on the coast of Maine, appeared in sight be- yond the Isles. It is seen to a vast distance on the ocean, and is a noted landmark among the fish- ermen and seamen who navigate these stormy waters. About 4 o'clock we reached the islands, 142 A SUMMER CRUISE ON running through a squadron of seine-boats, cruis- ing for mackerel, and passing close to a high coni- cal rock, rising like a haystack from the water, on the top of which stood a picturesque group of red- shirted fishermen watching for mackerel schools. We ran to the westward of the southern islands for some distance, and then hauled up and entered the harbor, which is a sort of roadstead, where we anchored between Star Island and Appledore, famous in song and story. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 143 CHAPTER XVIII. THE ISLES OF SHOALS. THE PRINCE OF APPLEDORE. NIGHT ON THE WATER. THE Isles of Shoals form a group of eight small rocky islets, lying close together, about nine miles from the Portsmouth lighthouses. The largest of them, Appledore, has an area of three hundred and fifty acres, or a little more than half a square mile. Star Island, the next in size, comprises one hundred and fifty acres ; Haley's, the third in extent, about one hundred. The five other isles are mere rocks, the largest measuring not more than eight acres in extent. These islands were discovered in 1614 by Cap- tain John Smith, the founder of Virginia, and seem at one time to have been of some importance. It is on record, I believe, that a session of the Provin- cial Legislature of New Hampshire was once held here ; and on Appledore there was once a court- house and a church, though now the only buildings on the island are a summer sea-side hotel and one or two deserted houses. For a century before the Revolution the population of the group had risen to six hundred. Now it numbers only a hundred, who live chiefly in a village on Star Island, off which our vessel lay. William Pepperell, an an- 144 A SUMMER CRUISE ON cestor of Sir William Pepperell, the taker of Louis- burg, was among the first settlers at the Shoals, and there, in the fisheries, became rich, and laid the foundation of the fortunes of his family. The neighborhood of the Isles is a famous fish- ing-ground, and as soon as we had cast anchor we got out our lines. The water was very deep, and we caught plenty of pollack weighing two or three pounds apiece, cunners a foot in length, and sev- eral cod and haddock. After fishing awhile, the Professor determined to try his luck with the dredge in the harbor. The Artist and I got the Pilot to row us in the dory to Appledore, whose huge five-storied hotel, perched on the western side, excited our curiosity. We landed with diffi- culty on the steep and slippery rocks, and the Pilot returned to the sloop to take the Professor and his dredge. The Artist and I rambled for an hour or two over Appledore, which is nothing but a huge rock, nearly a mile in length, with an elevation at the highest of sixty feet above the sea. It is seamed with fissures, apparently the work of earthquakes, for no other power is adequate to their production. The vegetation is of the scantiest, a little grass, a few bushes, an elm and a cherry tree, and a patch of potatoes a few rods square, being all that we could discover. A small green snake was the only wild animal I saw. The tame ones were a cow and a few sheep. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 145 "We found the landlord of the hotel, the proprie- tor and prince of the island, sitting on the broad veranda watching the western sky. He was im- mensely stout and jolly, and facetious as becomes a Boniface. He told us he had not been off the island for thirteen years, and pretended to be much surprised at our fondness for wandering about, when we might stay quietly at home. Our pro- jected visit to Grand Manan, he spoke of as one would a voyage to Felix Boothia or the Antarctic Continent. In early life he had been a member of the New Hampshire Legislature and an active pol- itician, but a disappointment of some kind, perhaps of love, perhaps of ambition, I do not remember which, had led him to obtain the office of keeper of White Island light, on which lonely, storm-beaten rock he had passed many years, cut off from man- kind more completely than any hermit of the The- baid. Tired at length of his isolation, he had re- linquished his office and settled on Appledore, which, though more extensive in territory, was hardly more populous than his lighthouse rock, except for a few months in summer. Returning to the shore of the island fronting the harbor, we saw afar off the Professor, in his red shirt, busily dredging, with the Pilot rowing the dory. We had, of course, to wait their pleasure to be taken off, for the Assyrian and the Skipper had no boat. So, after exploring a ruined house near by, we seated ourselves on the rocks and 7 j 146 A SUMMER CRUISE ON watched the purple sunset behind the blue moun- tains on the mainland. In the course of half an hour the Professor returned to the sloop with the spoils of his dredging, and, after putting him on board, the Pilot came and took us off the rocks, not without difficulty, so steep and slip- pery with sea-weed was the shore. Among other things, the Professor had drawn up from the bottom specimens of the Hippolyte, a beautifully painted shrimp, which lives in groves of laminaria and other sea-weeds ; of the sea-cul- lender, a broad, rounded, or oblong flat leaf, with a narrow midrib, and perforated throughout with small round holes like those of a cullender or strainer ; of the sea-balloon (JBeroe pileus), a beau- tiful, transparent, bullet-shaped creature, of the size of a common walnut, ornamented with eight rows of minute flippers, arranged like the ribs of a melon or the meridians of a globe ; these flippers, striking in the proper direction, enable the animal to move through the water, to change its direction, and to turn over. It is provided with two long ciliated arms, which are often stretched out to six or eight times the length of the animal's body. These arms are thrust out from two cylindrical cav- ities, extending obliquely upward from the circum- ference to the centre. These sea-balloons are among the most beautiful of the many curious ob- jects that may be seen floating in the waters of the ocean on a summer's day. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 147 There was also a specimen of the Bolina, alata, an animal of the same family and habits as the Beroepileus, but much larger and more elongated. It is flattened in shape, and has eight pectinated ribs, but no long arms. A large opening at the lower extremity forms the mouth. From the depth often fathoms the Professor drew up some specimens of the Hyas coarctata, or north- ern spider-crab. This creature is very sluggish, and consequently becomes so overgrown with sea- weeds and polypes as to resemble a walking forest rather than a crab. Its covering serves, however, for concealment, and two glistening eyes among the foliage, forever on the watch for prey, enable him to espy and seize many an unlucky mollusk who creeps unsuspectingly near. Night came, and with it a slight mist, which glorified while it partially veiled the surrounding objects. There were several mackerel-jiggers in the harbor from Swampscott and Cape Ann, and their officers visited us to inquire for news. As we sat on deck chatting and smoking, I was struck with the wildly picturesque nature of the scene. The moon was up, and her light blending and struggling with the soft, floating and drifting mist, disclosed imperfect, irregular glimpses of the rocky ribs against which the low rote of the sea was sound- ing. Southward, at no great distance, White Island light was revolving, heightening, as it now appeared and now disappeared, the weird impres- 148 A SUMMER CRUISE ON sion of the moonlight and the mist. Presently a large schooner came gliding into the harbor, start- ing out from the mist with a silent, ghost-like sud- denness, the effect of which upon the imagination is unlike any phenomenon of the land that I have ever witnessed. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 149 CHAPTER XIX. THE E PLURIBUS UNUM. A BAIT-MILL. THE MONK- FISH. TO PORTSMOUTH AND PORTLAND. NEXT morning (Saturday), July 17, we all went, after breakfast, to visit a Swampscott mackerel schooner, the E Pluribus Unum, which lay at an- chor not far off. On our way to her, we saw horse-mackerel swimming about the harbor with their sharp back fins sticking out of the water. This huge fish is the tunny of the Mediterranean, where it swims in large schools, and is caught in great quantities, especially off the coast of Sicily. They are comparatively rare on our coast, and these were the first we had seen, though we heard of them almost every day. They are found some- times fifteen feet in length, and weighing a thou- sand pounds. Their flesh is good eating, looking like young pork, and tasting like the finest mack- erel. The men of the island caught them with harpoons. The E Pluribus Unum was a fine, clean vessel of thirty-six tons. We went on board, partly to see the vessel, partly to grind bait, and partly to see a " bait-mill," which to the Assyrian, the Ar- tist, and myself was an entirely novel institution. In fishing for mackerel with line and hook from 150 A SUMMER CRUISE ON the side of a vessel, the first thing done is to throw over bait to attract the fish to the surface. This bait consists of hardheads or other poor fish cut up into very small pieces. It is generally reduced to the requisite size by being ground in a mill. The bait-mill consists of an oblong wooden box, stand- ing on one end, and containing a roller armed with knives, which is turned by a crank on the outside. It cuts up the bait very expeditiously. From the E Pluribus Unum we went ashore to look at the curiosities of the isles, which are all of a melancholy and sinister nature. The first and most famous is a chasm in the rocks called Betty Moody's Cave. Early in the old colony times the Indians from the mainland made a descent upon the islands, and killed or carried off all the inhab- itants except a Mrs. Moody, who hid herself under the rocks, with her two small children. The In- dians made sharp search for fugitives, and the un- happy mother, unable to keep her infants quiet, killed them with a knife to prevent their crying from attracting the attention of the savages to her hiding-place. Another spot among the rocks on the shore was the favorite resort of Miss Underbill, a young lady from New Hampshire, who taught school at the island for two or three years. She was sitting there reading on the llth of September, 1848, when a huge wave came and swept her off into the ocean, never to be seen again on earth. Another THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 151 place of tragical interest is marked by the graves of sixteen shipwrecked mariners washed ashore in a storm. They lie side by side, each with a stone at his head and feet. From some fishermen on shore we got a monk- fish, which they had just taken in a seine. This hideous monster is known among the fishermen by many names, "frog-fish," " mouse-fish," " goose- fish," " bellows-head," " sea-devil," " wide-gab," " fishing-frog," and " angler." It is called " wide- gab " because its mouth is so large sometimes that a man's head might be put in it. The term " an- gler " is derived from its habits. It lies on the bottom, concealed in mud and weeds, with two or three hair-like filaments sticking up from its head, looking not unlike certain marine worms, of which other fishes are fond, who, seeing these apparent worms, approach to eat them, and are seized by the lurking " angler," who is too sluggish to catch his prey by active pursuit. The head of the monk-fish is wide and flat ; the mouth nearly as wide as the head. The jaws are armed with numerous teeth, of different length, conical, sharp, and curving inward. The lower jaw is the longer, and is fringed all round the edge with a sort of beard. The eyes are large and dull ; the pectoral fins broad, and rounded at the edge, and wide at the base. The body is nar- row compared with the breadth of the head, and tapers gradually to the tail. The whole fish is 152 A SUMMER CRUISE ON covered with a loose, rough skin, blackish brown on the upper surface, and white on the lower. The specimen we got measured forty-four inches in length and thirty inches in breadth. It weighed thirty pounds. We took it on board, disembow- elled it, filled it with salt, sewed it up and packed it with salt in a box, which we directed to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington and forward- ed the same day by express from Portsmouth. The morning had been foggy ; but at 11 A. M., in the words of a poet who I remember was a visitor at Appledore five or six years ago, " The mist that like a dim, soft pall was lying, Mingling the gray sea with the low gray sky, Floats upward now, the sunny breeze is sighing," and we raised the anchor and made sail for Ports- mouth. Outside the harbor we passed a number of seine-boats watching for mackerel. These boats are each manned by six men, and are accompanied by three smaller boats with one man in each, which row around and keep the mackerel in a body while the seine is being cast. After the seine is thrown, its edges are drawn into the large boat, leaving the mackerel in the centre of the seine, from which they are scooped out into the small boats and car- ried ashore. We had a fine southerly breeze, and in some- what more than an hour had passed the Whale's Back Lighthouse, romantically situated on a rock THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND, 153 in the sea, and had come to anchor inside of Fort Constitution, off New Castle, a village three miles below Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Piscataqua. The tide soon turning, and running very strongly up the river, we took advantage of it, and ran up to Portsmouth, where we fastened the sloop to a wharf, and went ashore to get our letters and make some purchases. The city a quiet, clean, aristocratic-looking place, of ten or twelve thousand inhabitants is beautifully situated on a peninsula on the south side of the river, the land sloping gently toward the water. The harbor is remarkably commodi- ous, well protected from every wind, and with forty feet of water at low tide. The river oppo- site the city seemed to be nearly a mile wide, with a very rapid current, moving at least five miles an hour. At 6 P. M. we dropped down to our former anchorage at New Castle. On our way down, we were greatly pleased with the sight of the work- men at the Navy- Yard which is on an island opposite Portsmouth crossing the river in boats, returning to their homes in the city after the con- clusion of the day's labor. It was the largest flotilla of boats I ever saw, and was a very gay and animated scene. While the Pilot was getting supper ready, the rest of us went ashore to visit the fort, which was built in 1808, on the site, I believe, of an old 7* 154 A SUMMER CRUISE ON British fort. We were very civilly received by the keeper, Sergeant Davison, who, with his wife and children, constitute the entire garrison at present. We found him an intelligent and com- municative man, and remarkably young looking for a soldier who had been in service forty-one years. The fort mounts forty-six guns, mostly twenty-four pounders. The ramparts command a beautiful view of land and ocean, and we lingered upon them till long after sunset, watching the passing ships, and the lighthouses flaring up as the sun went down, and listening to the talk of the old soldier about his battles and adventures. He had fought through the Mexican war, and had served for many years in Florida against the Indians. Soon after supper we were boarded by one of the pilots of the harbor, who was so drunk that he became disagreeable, and we had to intimate to him pretty clearly that he had better take his de- parture, which he accordingly did. If his condi- tion at the time was any specimen of his usual state, it is a proof of the excellence of Portsmouth harbor that vessels get in at all under such guidance. The next morning (Sunday), July 18, was clear and mild, with a fair and gentle breeze from the south. We got under way at 7 o'clock, and, passing out of the harbor, steered to the northeast, keeping about two miles from the shore. We were soon surrounded by large schools of mackerel, and THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 155 as we wanted some for dinner, we laid to and tried to " toll " them, as the fishermen call it, by throwing over handfuls of our minced bait. But we could not get a bite. The Professor took the dory and rowed repeatedly into the middle of a school with no better success. The fish were ca- pricious, and would not touch the bait. The weather was delightful, and we basked lux- uriously on deck, gazing at the picturesque coast, with its hills, headlands, and towns sparkling in the sun, or watching the rippling mackerel as they cruised about us, or occasionally dipping up a sun- squall, of which vast numbers were floating by. Toward noon we reached Cape Neddick, or rather, Cape Neddick's Nubble, a huge and high rocky promontory which juts far out into the sea, and is visible from a great distance. We sailed close by to enable the Artist to make a sketch of it. About an hour after we passed Cape Neddick, a sudden storm of wind and rain rose up right ahead of us, presenting a very singular appearance. We were sailing in the most brilliant sunshine, and straight before us to the north, at the distance of a mile, the air was filled with a dense, black, scowl- ing cloud, which came driving down upon us with fearful velocity. We struck our mainsail, and the squall swept by, deluging us with rain, and causing the little sloop to shiver and reel with the blow. We were, happily, not in the mid-path of the whirlwind ; but I suppose touched only an edge of 156 A SUMMER CRUISE ON it. Its direction was toward the southwest, and it broke with fury on the mainland. On the sea, the sky soon cleared up, and, like Barney O'Reirdon, the Irish navigator, we kept on our " nor-aist coorse." At 6 P. M. we were near Cape Elizabeth, and had a fine view of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Mount Washington bearing N. W. by N. At sunset, off Cape Elizabeth, it fell calm, and we lay and watched the lighthouses and the moon. The two lights looked like large stars near the horizon, and, at one time, formed the corners of a triangle of which the moon was the apex. About 8 P. M. a breeze sprung up from the northwest, and we began to beat up into Portland harbor through a large fleet of coasters bound southward, which were taking advantage of the wind to come out to sea. The tide as well as the wind was against us, and it was not till 3 o'clock the next morning that we reached a safe anchor- age, between House and Peake's Islands, alongside of a revenue cutter. We were still several miles from the city, and were glad enough to turn in and get some sleep. At daybreak the seamen got the sloop under way without disturbing us, and, on awaking about breakfast time, we found the Helen moored along- side of a wharf at Portland. Discarding our sea- stained shirts and trousers, we donned our best attire, and went ashore, to spend a day or two with our friends in the city. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 157 CHAPTER XX. CASCO BAY. THE POWER OF MELODY. THE HAD- DOCKJEWELL'S ISLAND No July morning was ever finer than that on which we bade adieu to the fair city of Portland and its generous hospitality, and turned the prow of our little sloop toward the nearest of the count- less isles of Casco Bay. As the gentle breeze swept the Helen slowly over the sparkling waters, we spread on the top of the cabin the ample charts of the coast of Maine with which our good friends in Portland had provided us, and fell to diligent study of our proposed route. Casco Bay extends from Cape Elizabeth, on the west, to Cape Small Point, on the east, a distance of about twenty miles. It is an indentation in the coast whose greatest depth does not exceed fifteen miles. Beside Portland, at its western end, there are three or four nourishing towns on the shores of the bay, and embosomed in its waters, if the popular account be true, are no less than three hundred and sixty-five islands, a compliment to the days- of the year which is also commonly attrib- uted to Lake George, Lake Winnipiseogee, and several other bodies of water. Without vouching for the exact number, it is doubtless safe to say 158 A SUMMER CRUISE ON that there are at least three hundred isles and islets, beside many bold and picturesque headlands and peninsulas, so that scarcely anywhere else in the world can you find a more varied or more lovely commingling of land and water. The shores of the islands and the promontories are mostly covered with woods of maple, oak, beech, pine, and fir, growing nearly to the water's edge, and throwing their shadows over many a deep inlet and winding channel. It is impossible to conceive of any combination of scenery more charming, more romantic, more captivating to the eye, or more suggestive to the imagination. No element of beauty is wanting. Many of the islands are wildly picturesque in form, and from their woodland summits you behold on the one hand the surges of the Atlantic, breaking almost at your feet, and on the other the placid waters of the bay, spangled by multitudinous gems of emerald, while in the dim distance you discern on the horizon the sublime peaks of the White Mountains. For several hours we sauntered, rather than sailed, through this enchanted and enchanting fairy-land, steering now hither and now thither as caprice impelled, or as the perpetually-changing views attracted. At length the Skipper, whose taste for the picturesque was yet undeveloped, and who beside, from a former residence of many years at Harpswell, on the northern side of the bay, was sufficiently familiar with its beauties, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 159 began to intimate that it was time to think of din- ner, and that a few fresh fish would lend addi- tional grace and unction to that important cere- mony. So, in spite of the protest of the Artist, who was still unsatiated with the scenery, the hint was taken, and we anchored in deep water, in a broad channel called Hussey's Sound. The Pilot kindled his fire in the furnace at the com- panion-way, and we baited our lines and began to fish. " Fish being more distinguished for the size of their heads than for the amount of brains lodged in them," observes the Rev. David Badham, at the beginning of his erudite and entertaining Prose Halieutics, "fell early victims to the crafts and assaults of their arch-enemy, man." The remark of the learned author is undoubt- edly founded in truth, but whether it was that the fish of Casco Bay are gifted with more brains than the rest of their tribe, or that they were natu- rally unwilling to quit their charming dwelling- place, certain it is that, in our case, they did not fall early victims. For more than an hour we fished without a bite. We suggested to the Skip- per that our lines were not cast in pleasant places, and that we had better shift our ground. But that worthy, who had an innate repugnance to hoisting the mainsail oftener than he was fairly obliged to, held for some moments silent and mysterious com- munion with the sky, the water, and the neighbor- 160 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ing shores, and then confidently predicted that the fish would soon bite. Having, from past expe- rience, considerable faith in his penetration into the whims and ways of our finny friends, and sus- pecting that in this instance his judgment was based upon observation of the state of the tide, we patiently pursued our sport, if sport it could be called. The Assyrian, who was prone to easy postures, had been for the last half-hour Iving on his back with his hands clasped on the top of his head, and his feet, about which he had fastened his line, pro- truding over the low rail of the sloop. He now began to sing a song, to which he was apt to have recourse when the time was passing heavily, and he was too lazy to make much exertion of intellect or memory. It began : " The grasshopper sat on the sweet-potato vine, Up came the turkey-gobbler and yanked him off behind." The second stanza, intended to show the careless security of the grasshopper, was next sung : " The grasshopper sat on the sweet-potato vine, Up came the turkey-gobbler and yanked him off behind." Then followed the third stanza, illustrating the perfidy of the turkey-gobbler : " The grasshopper sat on the sweet-potato vine, Up came the turkey-gobbler and yanked him off behind." This elegant ditty, whose chief merit was its capacity for indefinite prolongation, was suddenly THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 161 interrupted by a bite which nearly "yanked" the minstrel into the water. He rolled over and scram- bled to his feet with remarkable agility, exclaiming, as he hauled in his line, " A halibut at last, I think ! " To catch a halibut had been for some time the main object of the Assyrian's ambition, and the farther east we went the more confident he became that every large fish he hooked would prove to be the coveted prize. I observed, how- ever, that the old Pilot, who always grew excited at the prospect of halibut, after one eager glance at the line, turned with indifference to his furnace, on which, by this time, he had a large iron pot, bubbling with boiling water, all ready for a cod or haddock, or even for a pollack, if nothing better could be got. There was evidently no hope of halibut yet. The capture proved to be a skate, a flat, broad, spiny, brown-backed monster, with a dirty-white belly, a tail like a monkey's, and a spade-shaped snout armed with powerful teeth. He was very large, about three feet in length, and it re- quired a good deal of careful management to get him aboard without breaking the stout cod-line. The creature was very angry at the liberty we had taken with its person, and furiously lashed the deck with its tail, squeaking and writhing in a droll manner. " Behold the power of melody," said the Pro- fessor to the Assyrian. " It was your singing that 162 A SUMMER CRUISE ON brought this fellow to his bait. Sixteen hundred years ago, Claudius .JSlianus, in his De Animalium Natura, affirmed that the skate had musical ears, and could be attracted and entranced by concord of sweet sounds ; and I believe Aristotle said the same thing some centuries before him." " They were a couple of ignorant heathens," re- sponded Ninus, a little vexed about his worthless prize, "and would believe anything but the Gos- pel. What does Perley say, or Storer ? " " Nothing about it. , But Rondelet, of Montpel- ier, the greatest of French ichthyologists, who was a careful and accurate observer, and had uncommon facilities for investigating the habits of fishes, makes the same statement. Cuvier cites him as a stand- ard authority on the fishes of the Mediterra- nean." " Very well," said Ninus, " I yield the point, and admit the musical ears, though I suspect it was the fresh lobster on my hook that attracted the wretch, and not the song of the grasshopper on the sweet-potato vine. But in future I shall be careful how I exercise my voice while we are fishing." The capture of the skate did not materially im- prove our prospect of dinner, for though the Pro- fessor proposed to cook the creature, or at least a portion of it, the Pilot would not hear of such an abomination. In vain he was assured that it was a favorite fish in the markets of London, Paris, and THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 163 Edinburgh ; in vain I cited to him the Rev. Bad- ham's assertion that all skate is eatable, though not all equally good ; in vain the Professor assured him that Galen, in his treatise on aliments, particularly recommends the flesh of the skate as agreeable in flavor and light of digestion. His objections were immovable. At length the Assyrian, who had a bad habit of inventing quotations, recited to him an imaginary passage of Aristotle about the obsti- nacy of fishermen with regard to the edible qual- ities of the skate. " Damn Aristotle ! " responded the old fisher- man ; " don't you suppose I know what fish are fit to eat ? " and with the aid of the Skipper, who fully sympathized in his repugnance, which indeed is common to most American fishermen, he tossed the monster overboard, and seizing a line, he said he would soon give us something worth cooking. Sure enough, in a few minutes, probably because of his fresh bait, he pulled up a haddock weighing about seven pounds, as we judged by the eye, for we were too anxious for dinner to delay his trans- fer to the pot by putting him to the test of the steelyards. While he is being boiled, and the Skipper is setting the table, let me give some ac- count of the haddock. It belongs to the same family as the cod. A jet-black lateral line runs from the head to the tail, and above this line the color of the fish is a dark gray, and beneath it a beautiful silvery gray. 164 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Purple and gold gleams are visible on the back and sides, but disappear soon after the fish dies. The body is stout forward and tapers to the tail. The head is large and arched, the eyes large, and the lower jaw shorter than the upper. On jeach side of the fish, behind the gills, there is a dark spot ; and this peculiarity has led the fishermen of Catholic countries to believe that the haddock is the fish from whose mouth St. Peter, at the com- mand of Christ, took the tribute-money, these spots being supposed to be the marks made by the apostle's thumb and finger as he held it. It is found everywhere on the American coast north of New York. On the coast of New England it ap- pears in the spring in immense schools, which continue till the autumn, though many remain through the winter. In summer the catch of had- dock in Massachusetts Bay is about twelve times as great as that of cod, but in winter these propor- tions are exactly reversed. In fact, the haddock is so plentiful in the New England fish-markets in the summer, that, though it is one of the best of its tribe for the table, it brings the lowest price, a fish weighing several pounds being often sold for a cent, and myriads being used for manure. It swarms on the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, particularly on the east coasts, swimming in large schools, which appear in certain localities nearly at the same time in different years, arriving on the Yorkshire coast, for example, about the 10th THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 165 of December. The school in that quarter, on its first arrival, has been seen to extend from Flam- borough Head to the mouth of the Tyne below Newcastle, a distance of eighty miles in length, with a breadth of three miles. The fishermen at these times catch them in such quantities that they sell them at the rate of two or three for a penny. They are taken with hand-lines, in the same manner as cod. In stormy weather they refuse the bait, and take refuge in deep water till the commotion has subsided. The haddock is found far north, in the Green- land Seas, but has never been seen in the Baltic nor in the Mediterranean. It is singular that the mark of St. Peter's thumb, which is never wanting in the specimens taken in British waters, nor, so far as I know, in those taken on the coasts of New England, is not found in the haddock of the Arc- tic Seas. At least Fabricius, the naturalist, who observed the fish on the coast of Greenland, did not find one with these marks, out of the many he examined, and neither Artedi nor Linnasus, in their description of Scandinavian haddock, makes any mention of the spots. The French fishermen call the haddock hadot, from which it is probable that the English name is derived. As cooked by the Pilot, we pronounced the haddock excellent ; and after dinner we raised the anchor, hoisted sail, and cruised idly about among the islands till near sunset, when we put into a 166 A SUMMER CRUISE ON delicious little cove, narrow, deep, and shady, on Jewell's Island. As we glided in, an old fisher- man who resided on the island came alongside in his dory to have a little chat, and gave us a mag- nificent lobster, which went immediately into the pot for supper. After coming to anchor, we all went ashore in our boat, except the Pilot, who was detained on board by his duties as cook, to explore the island, witness the sunset, and get milk, eggs, and butter from a farm-house near our landing-place. The island, which lies about ten miles east of Portland, is large enough for a German principal- ity, and seemed to be fertile and well cultivated. The farm-house was built on elevated ground, and the view of the sunset and of the island-studded bay was superb. Fresh and sweet were the eggs and milk and butter with which we returned to our sloop as the twilight died away, and very jolly the supper we had in the little cabin before turn- ing in to our berths. The evening was pleasantly cool, and the Assyrian, who was naturally of a medical turn of mind, remarking that boiled lob- ster was not wholesome unless well qualified with something acid, availed himself of the Pilot's steaming teakettle, and brewed a pitcher of hot lemonade with a strong infusion of whiskey, which he administered to each of us, in proper doses, as a sure preventive against any ill effects from our supper. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 167 CHAPTER XXI. TO HABPSWELL POINT. ON A REEF. A COLD BATH. THE next morning, Wednesday, was fair and warm, and we rose early, and, after breakfasting on rock-cod and blue-perch, which the Artist, who was up first, caught alongside, while the Pilot was making his fire, we resumed our cruise among the islands. We skirted the shores of one of the larg- est of these, the Great Jebeig, and landed on its neighbor, the Little Jebeig, around which we walked, picking up shells on its beaches, and ex- ploring caverns in its rocks. Toward noon the wind freshened, and, blowing fair and strong for Harpswell Point, we stretched across a broad ex- panse of the bay for that place, which the Skipper, who had formerly resided there, said was more beautiful than anything we had yet seen. We were running along pretty rapidly, when the Skip- per, who had the helm, began to show symptoms of uneasiness. It was so many years, he said, since he had sailed these waters, that he was not quite sure of his course, there were a good many sunken reefs in this part of the bay. The Professor brought out the Coast Survey chart, and he and I attempted to spread it on the top of the cabin ; but the wind blowing too hard 168 A SUMMER CRUISE ON for that, we carried it below, and spread it on the cabin table. We had just begun to examine it, when my attention was arrested by a strange grinding and pounding sound apparently just be- neath my feet, under the cabin floor. I had never heard anything like it, and had not the least sus- picion of its cause. I glanced inquiringly at the Professor, who turned pale and darted on deck. He had heard that sound once before, while cruis- ing on the coast of Japan, and under circum- stances not likely to make him forgetful of its meaning. I followed him to the deck. The Skipper stood with the helm yet in his hand, looking sheepish enough at the result of his pilotage. The As- syrian and the Artist were staring wildly about them, while the prompt old Pilot, though so sud- denly roused from a nap he had been taking on the shady side of the deck, had already let go the jib, and was lowering the mainsail. Our vessel had run her length on to a reef about five feet below the surface, and was stuck fast about a mile from land. Fortunately the tide was rising, and in the course of an hour, by carrying out an anchor astern, and hauling with all our strength, we suc- ceeded in getting her off without any other dam- age, as we subsequently ascertained, than the loss of a part of her keel. Stationing the Assyrian and the Artist at the bow, with instructions to keep a sharp lookout for rocks, we ran a few miles THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 169 farther, and, entering the heart-shaped bay at the end of Harpswell Point, anchored in deep water, not far from its eastern shore. As the Skipper said that this was a good place for fish, we got out our lines while the Pilot was getting 'dinner. Before we had caught anything the meal was ready, and we went below, leaving our lines in the water, in hopes of finding that some fish had been foolish enough to hook himself during our absence. It so happened that I was first on deck after dinner. I tried the lines, but found nothing caught. The Assyrian's line was over the stern, and, as the tide was running very fast, he had let it out to its whole length of several hundred feet. I hauled it in to see that it was still baited, and as no one had yet followed me out of the cabin, I was enticed by the opportunity to play the Assyrian a trick. A huge stone jug weighing many pounds, and capable of holding several gallons, stood near me on the deck empty. It was our principal water jug, and the Skipper had placed it there to have it handy, intending to take it ashore and fill it after he had cleared away the dinner things. The temptation was irresistible. I quickly tied the end of my friend's line to the handle of the jug, and lowered it overboard. The strong tide swept it far along until it had gurgled full of water, when of course it sank plumb. I returned to my own line, and presently caught a large cod, the 8 170 A SUMMER CRUISE ON sound of whose flapping on deck brought out my comrades with the exception of the Skipper, who remained to put the cabin to rights a little. The Assyrian, cigar in mouth, sat down on the tafrrail, and gently fingered his line with the air of a man who has had a satisfactory dinner, and does not yet care to exert himself to catch fish for supper. Presently, however, he had a bite, and began languidly to pull up his line. The unusual weight soon made itself felt. The Assyrian grew suddenly excited. He said nothing about halibut, for previous disappointments had made him reticent of expression on that point, but halibut was evi- dently in his mind, by the gingerly way in which he handled his line, holding it in readiness to yield judiciously in case the monster should suddenly put forth his strength. We gathered round to witness the struggle. The gentleman from Nine- veh tugged and tugged, growing gradually more and more astonished at the weight of his capture, and the passive nature of his resistance, for the halibut, as the fishermen often told us, never yields without a desperate and powerful contest. At length his prize reached the surface. Without remark the Assyrian quietly lifted it on board, amid roars of laughter, and as he passed into the cabin to relight his cigar, good-humoredly nodded to me, saying, " I '11 pay you for that, my boy, before you are much older." He kept his word. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 171 By and by the Skipper put the jug into the boat, and the Assyrian and I went ashore with him to a fisherman's cottage, the only house in sight. I had been struck, as I saw it from the deck of the sloop, with the singular beauty of the place, and its resemblance to the abode of the fish- erman in Undine. " He 1 dwelt in a very beautiful spot. The grassy land on which his cottage was built ex- tended far out into a great lake ; and it seemed as if out of love, this slip of ground stretched itself into the clear, blue, and wonderfully bright waters, and also as if the waters, with loving arms, clasped the fair meadows with their high-waving grass and flowers, and the refreshing shade of the trees. Yet was this pleasant place seldom or never trod- den by any but the fisherman and his household, for behind the slip of land lay a very wild wood " No description could be more exact. Here, be- fore our eyes, was the solitary cottage, the grassy point of land, the clear, blue, bright waters, the refreshing shade of trees, and behind the house the identical wild wood that separated the dwell- ing of Undine's foster-father from the rest of the world. Surely La Motte Fouqud must have seen Harpswell Point in a vision or dream. The only differences between the two places were, that in- stead of a great lake there was a great bay, and that the surges of the Atlantic were rolling on the 172 A SUMMER CRUISE ON other side of the strip of land ; but these were not material. The men of the fisherman's family were away, but there were several women at the house, who received us kindly, and gave us milk and berries. The Assyrian speedily made himself at home with the ladies, and when I proposed to go to the beach, about two hundred yards from the house, to take an ocean bath, he refused to accompany me, but offered to wait where he was till I came back. The Skipper had gone to his sloop with his jug of water, to invite the Artist and Professor on shore to partake also of milk and berries. So I went alone to the sea, and strolled along the beach till I came to a convenient pile of rocks, out of sight of the house, and took off my clothes, and went in. The water was awfully cold, though the air was warm, and being unable to swim, and so not daring to plunge boldly, I endured fearful torture in the heroic efforts to get a thorough bath. A few rods farther along from where I went in, there was a large rock almost covered by the water, to which I determined to go, calculating that by the time I could reach it, and return, I should have had as much sea-bathing as it was desirable, or, for me, possible to endure. I reached it easily enough, and after clinging to it for a moment thoroughly chilled, turned to go to the shore. Conceive my consternation at beholding, as I THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 173 looked around, a woman approaching along the beach from the direction of the house. A tall, elderly female, wearing a veil, and carrying a para- sol. Evidently she was bent on a sea-side stroll. She must have seen me if she had looked in my direction, for the distance that separated us was inconsiderable. But she walked with her eyes cast clown, either wrapt in thought, or searching for shells and pebbles, I could not determine which. Nor did it much matter. I was nearly dead with cold, but of course could not quit the shelter of the water while the lady was in sight. If she only kept onward, however slowly, I thought I could hold out, for, thank Heaven ! there was a rocky point at no great distance which would conceal her, or rather me, from view as soon as she should pass it. So I crouched behind the rock to which I was clinging, shuddering with anguish as the chill waves rolled in succession over me. The lady was provokingly slow. She lingered, she stopped, she stooped to examine every shell and every pebble. I grew almost frantic with suf- fering, and was twenty times on the point of cry- ing out, and warning her off. Still, I trusted she would pass without seeing me, and thought I could endure a little longer. At length she reached the rocks, among which I had deposited my clothes. She did not notice the garments apparently, but, after pausing for a min- ute, coolly sat down, and, to my horror and de- 174 A SUMMER CRUISE ON spair, pulled a book from under her shawl, and began to read. I could stand it no longer. All the tales I had ever heard of persons who had died from staying too long in the water rushed upon my memory. I felt convinced that I was not only blue around the mouth, but blue all over. It seemed as if I had been in the water at least two hours. I should certainly die. But death itself was preferable to this infernal ..cold, which caused my very bones to ache. Positively I could stand it no longer. I began by coughing, gently at first, afterward more vigorously. It did no good. She was ab- sorbed in her book, some foolish novel, doubt- less, confound the author ! I hemmed, hawed, hooted. I splashed the water. All to no effect. A hor- rible thought flashed across me : perhaps she was deaf, as deaf as Dame Eleanor Spearing. I tried to get a stone from the bottom to throw at her, or rather near her, in hopes of attracting her atten- tion, but found I could not reach bottom without putting my head under water. It suddenly oc- curred to me that the tide was rising, and that my post would no longer be tenable even if I could stand the cold. That settled the question. " Hallo ! hallo there ! " I shouted, with all the force of my lungs. " Hallo, yourself ! What are you making such a row for ? Are n't you ashamed to yell at a lady in that way ? " THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 175 I recognized the voice at the first word, and was beside the speaker before the sentence was fin- ished. Throwing up the veil, which had concealed his features, the Assyrian burst into a laugh, in which, though at first I thought of stoning him, I finally joined. He had persuaded the women at the cottage to lend him his disguise, in order to repay me, as he had promised, for the affair of the jug. I forgave him for the sake of the provoca- tion, though he had put me to direful torture, but we entered then and there into a compact to desist from such pranks for the future. A smart run on the beach in the warm air re- lieved me of the chill I had got in the water, and being soon after joined by the Professor and the Artist, we rambled till sunset amid the groves and glades and rocks and beaches of the peninsula, which we all agreed far surpassed Nahant in beauty, while it almost exactly resembled it in situation. The sunset, as we watched it from a lofty bank, crowned with noble trees, was glorious. Our view extended over Casco Bay to the mainland beyond, and, farther still, to the White Mountains, of which we had never from any point obtained a more beautiful or more impressive view. We lingered long after Mount Washington had vanished in the gloom of twilight, and then, de- scending to the shore, assented fully to the patri- otic remark of the Skipper, as he rowed us to the sloop, that " There was n't a finer place in the world than Harps well." 176 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXII. SUCCESSFUL FISHING. WHITING, HAKE, AND COD. A CHOWDER-PARTY. THE next morning, when I came out of the little cabin of the sloop, the sky was gray with the faint light of dawn, and a few of the largest stars were yet visible. The air was fresh and fragrant, and the water of the bay looked singularly cool and clear, as it swayed and eddied with the rush- ing of the tide. The distant isles seemed shadowy and spectral in the morning mist, and from the groves on the Point came the twitter of land-birds, occasionally breaking into song ; while overhead a couple of large sea-birds were slowly wheeling in eccentric orbit, as they scanned the depths in search of prey. " I stood, And watched the pulses of the tide, The huge hlack rocks, the sea-weeds brown, The gray beach stretched on either side. A cool light brooded o'er the land ; A changing lustre lit the bay ; The tide just plashed along the sand, And voices sounded far away." Presently the old Pilot came on deck, and, as he filled and lighted his pipe, he scrutinized the sky, and said we should have a hot day. He then THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 177 began his preparations for breakfast, and, after call- ing my comrades to come on deck and see the sun rise, I fished from the side of our vessel, and soon caught flounders and cod sufficient for our morning meal. After that was despatched, we went ashore for a farewell look at Harpswell Point and its ro- mantic groves of pine and cedar, and its stately oaks and maples. On returning to the sloop, we made sail, and were soon gliding slowly onward with a gentle breeze that scarcely ruffled the water. At the end of an hour, the breeze, faint as it was, grew fainter still, and we came to anchor in a channel, where we had in every direction charm- ing views through long and liquid vistas edged with green islands. It was also, the Skipper said, a famous place for fish. We got out our lines and had good luck, catch- ing cod and haddock in abundance, and also, in lesser quantity, whiting and hake. The whiting were small, none of them more than a foot in length. According to Dr. Storer's Report on the Fishes of Massachusetts, that which our fishermen call the whiting is really the European hake ; and that which they call the hake is really the English codling. This statement is correct as far as it goes, but yet the real whiting is found in Ameri- can waters and on the coast of New England, though perhaps not as far south as Massachusetts. Those that we now caught were the genuine whit- ing, a handsome fish, elegantly formed, the head 178 A SUMMER CRUISE ON and upper part of the body of a lead color, and the sides and belly white. When perfectly fresh it is very sweet and palatable, the most delicate, in- deed, of our sea fishes, but its softness will not admit of its being kept long. It prefers a sandy bottom, and generally swims in schools a few miles from the shore. Its principal food is the fry of other fishes, but it is extremely voracious, and devours almost any kind of small shell-fish. It reaches sometimes the weight of four pounds. At Grand Manan it is very abundant and is there called the silver hake. The hake is much larger than the whiting, and varies in size from three pounds to thirty. One of those that we captured weighed twelve pounds, and was upward of three feet in length. The up- per part of the fish is of a grayish brown ; the lower part is somewhat lighter. Great quantities of hake are taken in Massachusetts Bay during the summer. They are caught with the hook on muddy bottoms, and bite best at night. Some- times a single fisherman, after spending the night in " haking," as they call it, will come home in the morning with a boat-load exceeding a ton in weight. When salted and prepared for market, the hake is called stockfish. Those taken off Cape Cod are said to be the best. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Bay of Chaleur, this fish is called the ling. The cod is so well known that any description THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 179 of it will seein superfluous, and yet there must be millions of persons in the interior of the United States to whom the fish is an utter stranger, ex- cept in its dried and salted condition. For such readers, I will say that it has a long, smooth, and well-shaped body ; the back is of a light olive- green color, with numerous reddish or yellowish spots ; the belly is dusky white. The color, how- ever, of some individuals is a beautiful bright red, while others are of a lemon yellow, and others again will be found entirely gray, without spots. The general run of cod are about two feet in length, and weigh three or four pounds, though the fish sometimes grows to great size. In 1807, one was captured at New-Ledge, about fifty miles from where we were now fishing, which weighed one hundred and seven pounds. The English spe- cies, which varies very little in appearance from the American, does not seem to attain so great a size, for Yarrell, in his account of British fishes, says that the largest cod of which he had ever heard weighed sixty pounds. A later writer, Dr. Ham- ilton, mentions one that weighed seventy-eight pounds, and was upward of six feet in length. Mr. Perley says that the largest brought into Hal- ifax market, in 1851, weighed eighty-six pounds. These fish generally dwell in water from twenty to fifty fathoms deep, though sometimes the attrac- tion of a plentiful supply of food will bring them to shallow places. They are voracious, and will 180 A SUMMER CRUISE ON eat any of the smaller inhabitants of the ocean. They devour large quantities of mollusca and Crustacea. In fact, the cod is the great collector of deep-sea shells for the naturalists, many of the rarest specimens having been obtained from his stomach. The cod is unknown in the Mediterranean, but it swarms in the Atlantic north of latitude 40, becoming more abundant and larger in size as you go toward the Arctic Seas. Immense quantities are caught on the coasts of Norway, and on those of Greenland, but the great cod-fishing ground of the world is the banks of Newfoundland. They seek their food near the bottom, and are therefore always taken with lines, and not with nets. They will bite at almost any bait, but our fishermen gen- erally tempt .them with clams. The cod-fishery of the United States employs two thousand vessels, and about ten thousand men, and is carried on almost exclusively from New England. The vessels generally used are schoon- ers of about eighty tons burden. About thirty mil- lions of fish are annually taken, and their value, when dried and salted, is $ 2,000,000. The French cod-fishery at Newfoundland is as productive as the American, and employs about as many men, but the vessels used are generally three times as large, and consequently fewer in number. Our fishing was at length interrupted by a cir- cumstance in itself indicative of success : we had THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 181 used up all our bait. The Pilot, in whom our unusual luck seemed to have aroused his dormant love of the pursuit to which he had devoted so many years, seizing a spade and bucket, jumped into the dory, into which I followed him, and rowed to the nearest island. We walked across a cornfield to the other side, where a broad, muddy shore spread its blackness before us, the tide having left it bare and weltering for many^ rood. There were no traces to my eyes of clams, and, in fact, nothing was visible but black mud, mixed with sand enough to make it sufficiently firm to bear our footsteps. But the Pilot at a glance selected a spot where, on digging, we disclosed a bed of happy mollusks, " Happy as a clam " being a proverb on the coast. While he was filling the bucket I climbed over a huge rock that bounded on one side the cove of the clams, and found beyond it a beautiful gravel beach, where I was soon busily engaged in picking up shells of a brilliant yellow color. By the time I had filled my hat with these, the Pilot had obtained sufficient bait, and, recalled by his shout, I rejoined him, and we returned to the sloop, where the fishing was resumed with such luck that by dinner time we had captured more than a hundred fish of a large size. We now thought it time to stop. The Pilot overhauled our pile, and as he handled each fish in its turn, he put some aside on the deck for preser- 182 A SUMMER CRUISE ON vation, and others he threw overboard. Notwith- standing this sifting out, enough remained to more than supply our wants for several days, and the Skipper said that after dinner he would salt them for use in case we caught nothing on the mor- row. A brilliant idea suddenly struck the Assyrian as he was wiping his face after washing it, on the top of the cabin. " I say," he exclaimed, looking round with a countenance glowing partly with the rubbing he had given it, and partly with delight at the new idea, " let us have a chowder." It was an inspiration. " A chowder," we echoed simultaneously ; " why did n't we think of it be- fore ? " " Captain," said the Professor to the Pilot, " can you make a chowder ? " The old man had just lighted the chips in his furnace, and was down on his knees blowing them into a flame. He looked up, with a strong degree of scorn depicted on his honest face. " Can I make a chowder? " he repeated ; "well, I should think I could ; I 've made more 'n forty thousand." The Professor, who had a rapid mathematical mind, remarked that that large figure must be only a figure of speech, for to make forty thousand chowders in sixty years would require an average of two a day. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 183 " Well, well," said the old man, " I did n't mean forty thousand exactly. I never kept count on 'em ; but I 've made a great many, and if you like, I '11 give you as good a one as Daniel Webster himself ever turned out." He went to work, and as we had salt pork, pota- toes, and onions on board, and plenty of " hard tack," or crackers, in less than an hour we were sitting in front of as fine a chowder as one could wish to eat. Our morning sport had given us good appetites, and the chowder rapidly vanished, much to the delight of the concoctor thereof, who was not a little proud of our appreciation of his culinary skill. We had lighted our cigars, and the Assyrian was brewing a mighty pitcher of what he persisted in calling lemonade, especially since we had got within the bounds of the State of Maine, when suddenly we heard a shout. " Sloop ahoy ! " We went on deck. A yacht, crowded with ladies and gentlemen, was lying within hailing distance. "Have you got any fish?" " Plenty. Do you want some ? " They answered with a joyful shout, and four of the gentlemen, jumping into their skiff, were soon on board. One of them proved to be an acquaint- ance of ours from Portland. They had set out on a chowder excursion to Diamond Cove, and had been fishing all the morning, with scant luck. We gave them fish enough for their chowder, and the 184 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Assyrian, whose hospitable instincts had kindled up at the sight of visitors, invited them into the cabin to partake of his favorite liquor, which, like the Chaplain in " Jonathan Wild," he was fond of recommending as a wholesome beverage nowhere condemned in Scripture, and, as he added, not contraband to Maine law, so long as you called it lemonade. He gravely checked one of the stran- gers who inadvertently spoke of it as punch. Ascertaining that the people on the yacht had nothing to drink on board but ale, the Assyrian insisted on sending to them a pailful of his lemon- ade, with the compliments of the Helen. The Skipper in our dory accordingly accompanied the strangers back to their vessel, bearing with him the steaming oblation, together with a dozen of our best fish. They received the present with a cheer, and making sail for Diamond Cove, were soon out of sight among the islands. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 185 CHAPTER XXIII. THE SEA-CUCUMBER JAQUISS AND BAILEY ISLANDS. MACKEREL COVE. THE MAINE LAW. SHORTLY after their departure we got under way, and as the sloop began to move, the Profes- sor threw over the dredge. In a few minutes it was full, and we hauled it up, and found among the contents several rare shells, fine specimens of star- fishes, and, what was then new to me, a number of sea-onions and sea-cucumbers. These last are living creatures, denizens of the bottom of the sea, lying at considerable depths. The sea-onion re- sembles a large vegetable onion, cut in two longi- tudinally ; and the sea-cucumber, in size, shape, and color, is so similar to its namesake of the land that we were almost tempted to slice it up and try it with vinegar. It belongs, in fact', to the same fam- ily with the trepang, of which many species are eaten by the Chinese, who employ it in the prepa- ration of nutricious soups, in common with an escu- lent sea-weed, shark's fins, edible bird's-nests, and other materials affording much jelly. The length of the sea-cucumber is from four to eight inches, but it possesses the power, within certain limits, of extending or contracting its body at will. Its head, when the animal is alarmed, is so concealed as to 186 A SUMMER CRUISE ON be almost imperceptible, but, if it be placed in a bucket of sea-water, and left awhile undisturbed, the head will be gradually protruded and expand- e*d, until it assumes the appearance of a beautiful flower, generally of a brilliant rose-color. The least touch, however, will cause this efflorescence to suddenly disappear. The creature moves prin- cipally by the aid of sucker-like, feet, of which, in most species, there are five longitudinal rows. As the Pilot and Skipper wished for news from home, we directed our course to Herring Gut, an anchorage between Bailey's Island and Jaquiss, which, as it communicates directly and easily with the ocean, is much frequented by fishermen, and we could hardly fail to find there some vessel fresh from Swampscott, and certainly some one from Gloucester. We anchored about the middle of the afternoon, among a small fleet of schooners, with whose crews our seamen were soon in deep conference about persons and affairs on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay. Leaving them to enjoy their gossip on board of a Swampscott schooner, we rowed the dory into a charming little nook on the rocky shore of Jaquiss, and landed to explore the island. It proved to be a perfect gem of the sea, and fit to be the habita- tion of Calypso or of Prospero and his daughter. Like many of these islands of Casco Bay, it has long been used as a pasture for sheep, and to pro- tect the flocks from the wind a thick belt of the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 187 original forest of evergreens has been left growing all around the shore. These trees, pines, cedars, firs, hemlocks, and spruces, kept sacred from the axe, and permitted to grow at their own sweet will, bent only by the storms of ocean, are as wildly picturesque as poet or artist could desire. The sheltered interior was a meadow, interspersed with copses and clumps of oaks and maples, some of them of great size. No house or barn, or sign of human occupancy, broke the sylvan solitude of the island, which was not marred even by a fence, the encircling sea confining the sheep more se- curely than a wall. A pond in the centre, fed by springs and garlanded by lilies, gave the animals drink. From the summit of the island the view was superb, embracing on one side the ocean, dotted with sails, and on the other, across the little road- stead where our vessel lay amid its kindred craft, the pleasant groves and fertile fields of Bailey's Island, and beyond, the far-stretching peninsulas of Harpswell and the countless isles of the bay. A long, long while we " Looked from the rocky cliff, Whose foot the tender foam-wreaths kissed, Towards the outer circle of mist That hedged the old and wonderful sea ; Below us, as if with endless hope, Up the beach's rnarbled slope, The waters clomb unweariedly." The Assyrian was enraptured with Jaquiss, and 188 A SUMMER CRUISE ON his enthusiasm broke out in random citations from The Tempest: "How lush and lusty the grass looks ! how green ! " he cried in the words of old Gonzalo. And then, following Caliban : " I '11 show thee Every fertile inch of the island, I '11 show thee the best springs ; I '11 pluck thee berries ; I '11 fish for thee, I prythee let me bring thee where crabs grow ! " This last line was addressed to the Professor of Marine Zoology, who, heedless of the beauties of sky and sea, of woods and rocks, was already, with his customary ardor, in the service of science, attentively inspecting the beaches in search of specimens of natural history. The Assyrian, who was something of a naturalist himself, took the man of science by the hand, and led him to a great mass of rock, sloping down to the water, and thickly covered with slimy sea-weed. This place swarmed with crabs, and the Professor, whom much practice had made singularly expert in catching these creatures, soon pulled out of its recesses as many as it was convenient for us to carry. We returned to the sloop, and putting the Professor and his prey on board, we left him to study the crabs at his leisure, and went to Bai- ley's Island, to which we were rowed by the Skip- per, who had finished his gossip and come aboard in our absence. Bailey's Island being several miles long, we de- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 189 termined to explore it, and visit a store which was said to be at the other end, in order to purchase some things we needed. We, therefore, on part- ing with the Skipper, directed him to take the sloop round to Mackerel Cove, a harbor on that side of the island toward which we proposed to walk, and be ready to take us on board in time for supper. Our steps were first directed to a respectable looking farm-house which had been in sight from the sloop, and had attracted our attention by its fine situation on a height near the shore, from which there could not fail to be a noble view. We wanted to see the view, to see also the people, and to get a drink of water, for our supply of that element on the Helen had grown to be somewhat stale, and the day was warm, and our walk on Jaquiss had heated us a little. The view we found magnificent. The peo- ple all that were at home consisted of two young ladies, both barefooted ; the oldest, a handsome, healthy, frank-looking girl of eighteen, or thereabouts, arrayed in a dress distended by a single hoop, taken probably, as the Artist sug- gested, from some old barrel. The second dam- sel, several years younger than her sister, was reading, when we entered, a volume which proved to be Robinson Crusoe, a not inappropriate book for such a situation. They received us cordially, and the younger 190 A SUMMER CRUISE ON girl ran for water to the well, which stood at some distance from the house, and was worked by an old-fashioned sweep. We sat down and had a lit- tle chat with the elder girl, whose manners were good, and her language excellent. She had visited the mainland, and had once travelled even as far as Boston, but maintained, very justly, that she had seen no place so beautiful as her native island. She seemed fully to appreciate the romantic natu- ral loveliness of her home, and talked with dis- crimination of all the characteristics of the scenery. Bidding adieu to these damsels, we walked through a grove of stately pines, and then through cultivated fields on the road toward the store. Shortly after passing the grove we met, at the top of a long hill, a bevy of children coming home from school. We stopped them, and after they had answered some inquiries as to the road, the Assyrian pulled out a quantity of coppers which had been burning his pockets ever since he left Portland, and with impressive gravity distributed them among the urchins. The effect of this donation was prodigious. Ap- parently so much money had never before been seen on Bailey's Island. The barefooted recipi- ents, after one eager and amazed glance at their acquisitions, simultaneously broke into a run, and as we watched them scudding down the long hill, we could see one after another darting into the lanes which led to their respective homes, each THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 191 anxious to display his treasures to the admiring eyes of his family. A pretty long walk brought us to the store, near which was the house of the Principal Inhab- itant of the island, a retired sea-captain, renowned for his wealth and magnificence, of whom we had heard much from our female friends at the farm- house. His abode was surrounded by apple-trees, and the Principal Inhabitant himself was standing in front of it ; and we paid him our respects in passing, and endeavored to enter into conversa- tion, but found it rather difficult. He would not answer a question directly, and spoke with most exasperating slowness. He had, beside, a queer habit of always turning his back to us when he said anything. We tried to circumvent him in this, by dividing our forces and surrounding him ; but he was not so easily baffled. He walked to his garden fence, and, getting over, placed his back against it, and thus continued the conversation in his old attitude. We got little out of him, however, except some Jack Bunsby opinions about the cultivation of apple-trees, and the assurance, given after a slow and circumspect observation of the sky, that a thunder-storm was coming up, and that it would probably rain within an hour. As our own me- teorological observations corroborated this proph- ecy, we turned our backs on the back of the Prin- cipal Inhabitant and proceeded to the store. 192 A SUMMER CRUISE ON It was a square wooden building, painted white on one side, red on another, blue on a third, and yellow on a fourth, and contained a little, appar- ently, of everything on the earth or beneath the earth. We made our purchases under the scru- tiny of three or four of the islanders, who eyed us attentively, in profound silence, evidently much perplexed to reconcile our red shirts and fish- stained trousers, with something in our appear- ance and speech that was not exactly in congruity with such garb. The Assyrian, whose long walk had made him drouthy, drew the storekeeper aside from these spectators, and asked if he had any- thing to drink. The answer was a decided nega- tive, nothing of the kind was to be had on the island. We departed with a realizing sense of the effi- ciency of the Maine Law, and made the best of our way to Mackerel Cove, where we arrived consid- erably after sunset. The thunder-storm had be- gun, and the rain was already falling. We were very tired and hungry, and anxious to get on board the Helen, whose single mast and graceful hull were visible in the middle of the harbor. We hailed her, and after shouting for some time we saw the Skipper come on deck. He replied to our hail, but the distance was such that his answer was unintelligible, and we could make nothing of his gesticulations. We could see, how- ever, that the dory was absent from the sloop, and, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 193 as no one but the Skipper appeared on deck, could easily conjecture that the Professor had gone on one of those untimely expeditions to which he was addicted, and had taken the Pilot with him. Here was a predicament. But there was no help for it. We lighted our cigars, and, tired as we were, paced up and down the beach to keep ourselves warm, for it was raining hard, and the air had become chilly. At length, as it was grow- ing dark, we dimly saw at the mouth of the cove the returning boat. It grew dark so fast that we lost sight of her before she gained the sloop, but after the Professor got on board, the Skipper took the place of the Pilot, and, guided by our shouts, came for us. In explanation of the absence of the boat, he said the Professor had been " scow-banging," a term new to us. It meant that, as the Helen sailed into the Mackerel Cove, she passed a school of the fish from which the harbor derives its name, and the Professor, who was peculiarly fond of mackerel- fishing, had taken the Pilot and the dory, as soon as the sloop came to anchor, and had gone in pur- suit, the chase of mackerel with a boat being called by the fishermen " scow-banging." They had caught plenty, and by the time we got on board, and had changed our wet clothes for dry ones, the Pilot placed on the supper-table a heap of delicious broiled mackerel. We fell to with avidity, but the Assyrian turned with disdain 9 M 194 A SUMMER CRUISE ON from the mug of tea which the Skipper set before him. " Skipper," he said, " I am wet to the bones, nothing will dry me but whiskey. Let us have some lemonade." The Skipper opened the locker in which the lemons were kept, and, after rummaging for some time, declared that the lemons were all gone, the last had been used in making that pail of punch for our friends of the yacht. The Assyrian growled a little at this announce- ment, but at length said : " Well, well, never mind, we must do without lemons. Whiskey and hot water and sugar make a very good drink ; let us have the whiskey." The Skipper slowly produced the jug, and I saw by his countenance that something was the mat- ter. He said nothing, however, but handed the vessel to the Assyrian, who placed a tumbler be- fore him, and began to turn the jug upside down. Nothing came ; it was empty. The Assyrian looked at the Skipper, and the Skipper looked at him. They understood each other without speak- ing. The whiskey had not given out solely in consequence of our liberality to the people of the yacht. During our absence ashore, the Skipper had been entertaining some of his Swampscott or Cape Ann friends. His hospitality was pardon- able, perhaps commendable, but the consequence, at that particular time and place, was rather dis- THE COAST -OF NEW ENGLAND. 195 " Skipper," said the Assyrian, after he had for some time contemplated that individual's physiog- nomy, " what is the nearest large town on our course eastward ? " "Boothbay." " How far is it ? " " Fifty or sixty miles." " Can we get lemons there ? " " Certainly." " And whiskey ? " " Very likely." " Make sail for Boothbay as soon as it is light to-morrow. And now, Skipper, get out half a dozen bottles of ale, and let us have some clean mugs. 196 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXIV. FLOUNDER-FISHING. CATCHING A HALIBUT. NOTWITHSTANDING the Assyrian's impatience to reach Boothbay, we found, when we came on deck Friday morning, that there was little induce- ment to get under way. The air was chill and damp, the sky covered with dense clouds, threat- ening imminent rain, and, worse than all, there was not the slightest breath of wind. To get out of the cove we should have to tug at the oar for at least an hour, and on gaining the open sea might find ourselves still becalmed. So we con- cluded to have breakfast before we started, and while that was in preparation, we dropped our lines over the side of the sloop and caught a num- ber of large flounders. The Rev. David Badham says the best time for taking the flounder is at dawn, when he is on the prowl for a breakfast : " He that intends a flounder to surprise, Must start betimes, and fish before sunrise." The same authority declares that it is far better entertainment to fish for flounders than to eat them. The Frieslanders, however, think other- wise, and have been at the trouble of naturalizing THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 197 them in fish-ponds. The flounders, too, about Memel, on the Baltic, are held in esteem as food. Mr. Franks, in his " Northern Memoirs," com- mends them for their game qualities. " These fish," he says, " are bold as buccaneers, of much more confidence than caution, and so fond of a worm that they will go to the banquet though they die at the board ; they are endowed with great resolution, and struggle stoutly for the victory when hooked ; they are also more than ordinarily difficult to deal with by reason of their build, which is altogether flat, as it were a level. The flounder, I must further tell you, delights to dwell among stones ; besides, he is a great admirer of deeps and ruinous decays, yet as fond as any fish of moderate streams ; and none beyond him, except the perch, that is more solicitous to rifle into ruins, insomuch that a man would fancy him an antiquary, considering he is so affected with relics." The French fishermen account for the distorted mouth of the flounder by the following legend : St. Christopher, a martyr of the third century, one day took it into his head to bless the fishes and to preach to them. All the inhabitants of the deep came and listened with attention and respect except the flounder, who derided the holy man by making faces at him. The Saint, indignant at the insult, cursed the whole brood, and con- demned them forever after to exhibit themselves with mouths awry. 198 A SUMMER CRUISE ON In the course of ages the rebuke thus given by Saint Christopher seems to have wrought a change in the character of the flounder, for a Greek legend, still current at Constantinople, ascribes the discordant color of the two sides of the fish to the fact that when the Turks conquered Constan- tinople in 1453, some priests at a church near the Silivria gate were frying flounders for dinner just as the Infidels entered the city, and were among the first victims of the massacre. The fish, filled with pious respect for the Church, expressed their horror at the sacrilegious deed by jumping out of the frying-pan into a neighboring stream, whence they made their way to the sea, completely cooked on one side. In token of the miracle, the entire species has ever since exhibited the mark of the fire, generally on the right side ; though, now and. then, an eccentric individual displays it on the left side. After breakfast a faint breeze sprung up, and, assisted by the tide, we slowly drifted out of the cove, and about the middle of the forenoon reached the open sea. The wind what there was of it and tide still serving, the Skipper proposed to run southward a few miles out of our course to Drunken Ledge and fish for halibut. We as- sented, and about noon anchored in the neighbor- hood of a formidable reef, over which the sea was foaming splendidly, while all around was calm and smooth. These rocks lie in the ocean, on the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 199 edge of Casco Bay, about five miles from the nearest islands. Taking lines stouter and with larger hooks than those we used for cod-fishing, we baited with pieces of flounder and tried our luck. In the course of half an hour we caught several skates, large cod, haddocks, and one or two hake. But these were not what we came for, and the impatient Assyrian was already talking of Boothbay and his everlast- ing lemons, when suddenly a tremendous jerk, fol- lowed by a rapid rushing of the line through his fingers, put a stop to his grumbling. He had hooked a halibut at last. "Let her run!" shouted the Pilot. "Hold tight, but don't pull her in I Let her play awhile!" " Go it, lemons ! " added the Professor, as the Assyrian sprang from the bench of the cockpit where he had been lazily reclining, and with eager eyes, and teeth deeply set in his cigar, began to " play " his prize. After a long and exciting contest the subdued halibut was at length brought to the surface in an exhausted condition, and was skilfully hoisted on board by the Pilot, who exclaimed, as he laid the monster on deck, "A hundred-pounder, by George ! " The delight of the Assyrian was boundless. He got upon the top of the cabin, and, swinging his hat, gave three cheers. 200 A SUMMER CRUISE ON " Hurrah, hurrah, hurrah ! " Then, protesting that his exertions in the strug- gle had made him faint, and that we ought to cel- ebrate the victory by a drink all round, he sent the Skipper into the forepeak for a bottle of ale, which order he presently countermanded for a bottle of claret, declaring that such an achieve- ment demanded the nobler liquor, and as the high song of Odin the Old says : " Ale 's not so good Tor the children of men As people have boasted." The claret was brought, and we drank to the health of the halibut, who by this time was gasping his last on deck. It was truly a noble fish, lacking but a few inches of six feet in length. The body was much larger in proportion to the breadth than in its kin- dred, the flounder, and was smooth and of a dark- brown color on the right side, the left side being whitish without spots. The lower jaw was longer than the upper, and both jaws were furnished with two rows of strong, sharp teeth. The lips were large and fleshy, and the "eyes of remarkable size, between two and three inches in diameter. The halibut is not found in the Mediterranean, but is common on the coasts of Scotland and Ire- land, and on the east coast of England, though it is not plentiful on the southern coast of that coun- try. It flourishes best in northern latitudes, and THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 201 the Greenlanders often subsist for a considerable period exclusively on its flesh, which is cut into slips and dried in the sun. The Norwegians and Icelanders also salt and barrel it largely for home consumption. We voted to have a piece of the halibut for din- ner, for which meal the Pilot had already kindled his furnace, and the Skipper accordingly cut off a huge chunk near the side fins, which he said was the best part of the fish. The Assyrian was de- termined that it should be cooked properly, and so he overhauled the receipts at the end of Frank Forrester's Fish and Fishing, of which we had a copy on board, till he found Soyer's receipt to boil halibut, which he read to the assembled crew, as follows : " ' A halibut ' and this, O Pilot, applies to a piece as well as to the whole animal ' must be well rubbed over with salt and lemon ' " here he shook his head at the Skipper "'before it is put in the water; have ready a large halibut- kettle'" "What the deuce is a halibut-kettle?" inter- posed the Pilot. " Never mind," said the Assyrian, " any kettle will do, if it is only big enough. Hear what comes next. ' A large halibut-kettle half full of cold water, and to every six quarts of water put one pound of salt ; lay the fish in, and place it over a moderate fire ; a halibut of eight pounds ' and 202 A SUMMER CRUISE ON that, Pilot, will apply to eight pounds of halibut ' may be allowed to simmer twenty minutes, or rather more ; thus it will be about three quarters of an hour altogether in the water ; when it begins to crack very slightly, lift it up with the drainer and cover a clean white napkin over it ; if you intend serving the sauce over your fish, dish it up with a napkin,' hem, hem," continued the Assy- rian, after a brief pause, as he ran his eye over the rest of the receipt, " I guess we may as well stop here. Let the drainer and the napkin and the sauce go, the amount of it is, Captain, you must rub it with salt, put a lot of salt in the water, and let it boil for somewhat more than half an hour." " I knew all that forty years ago," growled the old man, as he turned to his furnace and put on his kettle. Until a recent period the fishermen on the banks of Newfoundland had such a hatred and contempt for the halibut, that when they chanced to catch one, they " spritsail-yarded " it, by thrust- ing a piece of wood through its gills, and letting it go to starve to death ; but we found it made an agreeable dinner, in spite of its coarseness and dry ness. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 203 CHAPTER XXV. A STORM OFF CAPE SEGUIN. BOOTHBAY. THE COAST-SURVEY SCHOONER. WE sat long at table that day, and when we went on deck about three o'clock it was raining, and the wind was beginning to blow pretty hard. We made sail at once in the direction of Booth- bay, but in the course of a couple of hours the wind rose to a gale. The sea grew very rough, and at length, almost every minute a wave would break over our vessel, and, sweeping along the deck, deluge the cockpit with water. We flbsed the cabin to keep it dry, and, gathering at the stern, watched the sea, not without anxiety. The air was so thick with mist that we could see noth- ing but the raging waves around us, and could not tell where we were going, though the sloop was plunging along at a fearful rate, her bows almost continually under water, and her mast, which we now found was badly sprung, opening wide cracks at every tug of the sails. There was considerable danger of the mast's going overboard, and in that case we should have been completely at the mercy of the waves, on a coast every inch of which was rock-bound, so that, if our vessel struck, she would be pounded to pieces in ten minutes, in such a gale. 204 A SUMMER CRUISE ON We drove madly along, the grim old Pilot at the helm, and the anxious Skipper, arrayed in oil-skin to shed the wet, clinging to the mast and keeping a sharp lookout ahead. Suddenly the mist rose and rolled away before a sweeping blast, and then we saw Seguin lighthouse, and knew where we were. It was a superb and terrible sight, such as Lowell saw in a storm from Appledore : " North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers You would never dream of in smooth weather, That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing, and gnashing, and snarling together." But the poet saw it safe on dry land, while to us, dashing along in our little egg-shell, the view of these wild reefs, with the waves foaming and flashing over them directly in our course, was a prospect of beauty not unmixed with dread. It was growing late, and the gale was evidently on the increase. The sea was white with foam on the surface, but the great waves, as they came leaping and roaring at us, had a black and angry look not pleasant to behold. Our aged pilot, as he sat clutching the helm, his hat drawn tightly over his brows to keep it from blowing off, glanced uneasily from time to time at the laboring and groaning mast, whose wide seams were alternately opening and shutting, but he said nothing. He had weathered many a harder gale, though never in so poor a craft. The Assyrian, clinging to the cover of the cabin for support, and with strong THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 205 symptoms of sea-sickness in his face, at length broke out as a whooping billow swept over us, sousing him from head to foot: " Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground ; long heath, brown furze, anything ! I say, Skipper, this is coming it rather strong. Can't we put in somewhere ? " The Skipper had been for some minutes watch- ing a large schooner about a mile ahead of us, and, coming aft, said that it was hardly possible to weather Cape Newagin in such a storm, even if our mast held, about which he had great doubts. The schooner ahead of us was running for shelter into Sheepscut Bay, where there was an excellent harbor, and we could easily follow her in. The Pilot, after an emphatic reference to " that d d old stick," as he called the mast, assented to this opinion, and our course was accordingly changed to the northward. Following the lead of the schooner for several miles, we reached about nightfall a beautiful and perfectly sheltered harbor, which the Skipper called sometimes Southport and sometimes Aben- acook, it bearing both names apparently. There were a few scattered houses on the shore, but nothing that could be called a village. We an- chored in the midst of a number of vessels which had, like ourselves, sought refuge there from the gale, though all except the schooner that we fol- lowed had put in earlier in the day. The storm, 206 A. SUMMER CRUISE ON as we afterwards learned, raged all along the coast, and did considerable damage to the shipping. The weather had grown so cold as to be uncom- fortable even in our snug cabin, and so, after has- tily swallowing some supper, we stripped off our wet clothes and turned into our berths long before our usual hour of going to sleep. I lay awake half the night listening to the rain pattering on the deck, and when we arose next morning it was still pouring hard. It was so cold that the seamen got the stove out of the forepeak, and we soon had a fire in the cabin, to which the rain confined us all the forenoon. The schooner we had followed into this harbor was bound for Boothbay, and after dinner got underway and passed into Townsend Cut, a passage of some miles in length leading into Townsend Harbor, as the port of Boothbay is called. We followed, and, the rain having ceased, had a" delightful sail through a most singular strait narrow, like a river of moderate size, and bordered on both sides by meadows green to the water's edge, with oc- casional groves ringing the banks. We should have had no suspicion that this passage was not a river had it not been for the seaweed growing on its rocky edges. We reached Boothbay in the course of an hour, and came to anchor a short distance off the town, which seemed to be of considerable size. The Assyrian immediately put on his shore clothes, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 207 and getting the Skipper to row him to the nearest wharf, went in search of lemons and whiskey. After a protracted absence he returned disconso- late. Lemons he had got, but whiskey was not to be obtained for love or money ; the place, he said, was drier than Sahara. He brought us, however, letters and papers, so that his visit was not alto- gether fruitless. As we sat reading the papers, a boat from the town came alongside with one man in it, a re- spectable looking person, who produced an empty bottle, and asked if we could let him have a little brandy, for which he would pay. His wife, he said, was sick, and the doctor had prescribed brandy, but none was to be had in the town. The Assyrian's sympathies were touched by this appeal, and he gave the man a couple of bot- tles of ale, assuring him that he would have been welcome to brandy if we had not unfortunately got out of everything of the sort. He was still ex- pressing his admiration of the stranger's conjugal devotion, when we were hailed by a boat ap- proaching from another quarter of the town. This, too, contained a single individual, and he too produced a bottle, and, strange to say, he like- wise had a sick wife, for whom the doctor had pre- scribed brandy. The Assyrian's eyes began to open. " I say, my dear fellow," he remarked to the man in the boat, "are all the women in Boothbay sick, and 208 A SUMMER CRUISE ON has the doctor prescribed brandy for all of them ? You 're the second chap that has been here within ten minutes with the same story. Had n't you better call a town-meeting, and confer together, so as to have a little variety in your pretences ? " The man laughed, and explained that, as no liquor could be bought in town, the only way they had to get it was by buying it of vessels in the harbor, and they had found the pretence of sick- ness useful in inducing their visitors to violate the law by selling to them. Shortly after this fellow left us, the Professor, who had been scrutinizing the craft in the harbor through the telescope, pointed out a schooner at some distance which he recognized as the United States Coast-Survey vessel, the Hassler, and said he knew one of her officers. The Assyrian snapped his fingers in delight. " I know one too," he said, " and a right good fel- low he is. Let us go on board. We shall find something there to wet our whistles with, I know." In a few minutes we were all in the dory, and the Skipper soon rowed us alongside of the schoon- er. We were cordiallv received by the three of- ficers on board, and found the Assyrian's predic- tion amply verified. As we sat in the cabin, whose spaciousness seemed magnificent, compared with that of the Helen, I was startled by the sud- den apparition at my elbow of an ebony complex- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 209 ioned individual, bearing a tray containing decan- ters, glasses, lemons, and a pitcher of hot water. How he had got into the cabin was inconceivable, for he certainly had not descended by the only visible entrance. His coming, so sudden and so noiseless, made me think of the genii of the ring and of the lamp that waited on Aladdin. But though he came in so questionable a manner, " the prince of darkness was a gentleman." Pla- cing the tray before us, he vanished as silently as he came behind a curtain. We spent a merry evening, and on parting, our friends of the Hassler invited us to dine with them on board the schooner on the morrow, remarking, by way of enticement, that their steward had been to market that afternoon, and had brought back a capital leg of veal. We accepted the invitation, as Governor Gardiner of Massachusetts accepted his renomination, " Promptly, unhesitatingly, joy- ously." " Farewell," said the Assyrian, as he descended the side of the schooner into our boat. " If I were a Cockney, I would say to you as Byron said to his mistress, ' Farewell ! if ever fondest prayer For other's veal availed on high, Mine will not all be lost in air ! '" We got back to the sloop a little before mid- night, and to celebrate the discoveiy of the Hass- 210 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ler, fired off, before we turned in, all our remain- ing rockets, blue-lights, and Roman candles. The next morning (Sunday) was serene and mild. After breakfast, two of the officers of the Hassler came to visit us in their cutter, and the Assyrian proposed that, as we were going for the first time in several weeks to have a Christian din- ner, we should all go to church. To this reason- able proposal we assented, and, dressing ourselves in our best clothes, went ashore in state, in man- of-war style, with the United States officers ; and after rambling awhile on the beach, proceeded in search of a meeting-house. A very deaf old fel- low; whom we made to understand by much shout- ing what we wanted, conducted us to a sort of garret, where we found a small and singularly hard-favored congregation, who greeted our en- trance with a stare which was prolonged through- out the whole service. Presently the minister entered, and he too fixed his eyes upon us as we sat in a row on a back bench, and seldom removed his gaze, except when he shut his eyes to pray. It was a Methodist meeting, and notwithstand- ing the homeliness of the place and the people, the sermon was a sound discourse, full of practical good sense. The Assyrian listened with devout attention, and, when we came out, declared that he could now eat the fatted calf with a good con- science. Re-embarking in the cutter, we were soon on board the Hassler, where dinner was THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 211 speedily served, in fine style, by the mysterious gentleman in black, who came and went in the most absolute silence. After dinner, we adjourned with our cigars to the deck, and spent the afternoon in conversation, which was prolonged, by jest and song and story, far into the evening. Tea was served on deck, soon after sunset, by the speechless African, whose silence to this day I know not whether to ascribe to absolute dumbness or to his sense of discipline and propriety. At length we bade our friends farewell, and re- turned to the Helen about 10 o'clock. The night was so fine, and the air so warm, that we lingered on deck till after midnight. Our parting com- mand to the Skipper was to get under way at day- light, and make sail for the nearest large town to the eastward. 212 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXVI. FROM BOOTHBAY EASTWARD. MACKEREL AND MACK- EREL-FISHING. WE rose at sunrise on Monday morning, and at six o'clock took our last look of Boothbay, and hoisted sail for the eastward. It was a delicious morning, " So cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, " that we could scarcely believe, with old George Herbert, that so sweet a day must die. The fearful storm, the bleak blasts, the pelting rains, through which we had so lately passed, seemed far off and incredible. The gentle blue heavens hang- ing above us, with not a cloud to speck their se- rene azure, the sparkling waters rippling so gayly around us, and the soft and low breeze that wafted the Helen slowly along, were in such exquisite and perfect harmony with the aspect of surround- ing nature, with the green shores, the delicately- wooded islands, and the distant mountain-peaks, wreathed with soft and shadowy mists, that it seemed monstrous to think of so fair a scene dis- turbed by tempests or overwhelmed by snow and ice. Amid such brilliant sunshine one could hard- ly even credit the coming of night. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 213 As we drifted down the harbor, we steered close to the Hassler, in hopes of seeing our friends and bidding them a last good-by. But no one was visible save the silent African, who stood leaning over the rail, watching the schools of mackerel that were here and there rippling the surface of the water. He said nothing, but courteously touched his hat as we swept by. The mackerel, as usual, excited the Professor's piscatory rage, and he invited me to jump into the dory with him, and go and catch a mess for breakfast, for which meal the Pilot was leisurely making preparations. The wind was so light that the smoke of our fur- nace ascended like the smoke of a sacrifice, and at the rate at which the sloop was going we could easily overtake her. As we were now getting fairly into the region of mackerel-fishing, the Skip- per had taken care to provide bait, which he pur- chased from a vessel with a bait-mill on board. Taking a bucket of the stuff, composed of hard- heads ground up, which the mackerel-fishers use to toll their prey within reach, we entered the dory and rowed toward the nearest school, its presence being easily detected by the ripple which the fishes make in passing through the water. When within two or three rods of them, the Pro- fessor dropped the oars and threw several handfuls of the bait toward the mackerel. Our lines, which were loaded only with light sinkers, were already baited with pieces of hardhead, and we threw them 214 A SUMMER CRUISE ON quickly out. Instantly there was a rush at them, a sharp, quick bite, and we each pulled in a mack- erel. For a few minutes we drew in fish as fast as we could bait and throw out our lines ; often, indeed, not stopping to put on fresh bait, for the merest shred of skin hanging to the hook was suf- ficient. We had caught about thirty in quick succession, the fish following as our boat floated along on the tide, when suddenly they ceased to bite, something had alarmed them, and they had gone off like a flash to reappear at the distance of an eighth of a mile. As we had already more than enough for breakfast, we did not pursue them, but regained the sloop and turned our cap- tures over to the Pilot, who soon had the choicest of them in his frying-pan. This was my first experience of mackerel-fish- ing, and very pleasant I found it. The author of " Wild Sports of the West of Ireland" described it truly when he said : " There is not on sea or river, always excepting angling for salmon, any sport comparable to this delightful amusement ; full of life and bustle, everything about it is animated and exhilarating: a brisk breeze, a fair sky, the boat in quick and constant motion, all is calcu- lated to interest and excite. He who has experi- enced the glorious sensations of sailing on the Western Ocean, a bright autumnal sky above, a deep-green lucid swell around, a steady breeze, and as much of it as the hooker can stand up to, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 215 will estimate the exquisite enjoyment our morn- ing's mackerel-fishing afforded." I have not yet seen any fish so handsome as the mackerel, so elegant in form, so' beautiful and bril- liant in color. The upper part of the body is dark green in hue, the lower part silvery white, but along the sides are wavy bands of mixed and fluc- tuating colors like those of changeable silk. The size of the fish varies from ten to twenty inches in length, and the average weight is two pounds. Those we caught were small, weighing not more than a pound each. The mackerel was well known to the ancients, and those taken near the Island of Paros were particularly celebrated. The famous fish -sauce called garum, made from their entrails, was in- vented by the Greeks. The mackerel of the Mediterranean, however, are poor and tasteless, compared with those of the Atlantic, and though Apicius wrote many receipts for sauces to dress them in, and to pour over them at table, it is cer- tain that the ancients hardly considered them fit to eat fresh, but preferred them salted, as the Span- iards do to this day. The physician Celsus, eigh- teen hundred years ago, pronounced them very heavy food, gravissimum alimentum. Oppian, a Greek of the second century, who wrote a long poem on fish and fishing, compares the mackerel's fondness for brilliant colors and his readiness to bite at a bit of red rag, to the rashness of an in- fant playing with fire : 216 A SUMMER CRUISE ON "Just so the little smiling boy admires The candle's painted blaze and curling spires ; Extends his hand, but dear experience gains, The greatest beauty gives the greatest pains." JElian, another Greek writer, not long after- ward, tells one of the strangest fish-stories on record, to the effect that certain fishermen had formed a league with a tribe of mackerel, which they supplied with food, and in return the mack- erel scoured the seas for them, and lured within reach of their nets and lines whole schools of their own species. The alliance between the fishermen and these decoys was, says JElian, of a most sacred and inviolable character, and even subsisted, by some mode of tradition, among the descendants of the contracting parties for many generations. It has been supposed, until recently, that the mackerel was a migratory fish, and that toward winter it retired to the polar regions, where it kept itself warm by getting under the ice. Dr. Anderson gives a minute description of their line of march in the spring, and represents them as pouring in succession along the coasts of Iceland, Scotland, and Ireland, dividing, as they approach the English Channel, into two columns, one of which continues its onward course along the west of France, Spain, and Portugal, and streams through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediter- ranean ; while the other passes up the Channel, along the northern coast of France and the oppo- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 217 site coast of England, and, swarming through the North Sea, arrives about July off the shores of Jutland, whence it sends a detachment into the Baltic, while the main army continues along the coast of Norway till it again reaches its Arctic winter quarters. The facts, however, do not sus- tain this theory ; for while mackerel are seldom seen in English waters till May, they appear still earlier in the Mediterranean, and at Montpelier, in the South of France, the fishermen call them, in their peculiar dialect, pds cFAvril, or April fish, from their recurrence in that month. Another theory, once in vogue to account for their disappearance during the winter, was that they plunged themselves in the mud at the bottom of the ocean a few miles from shore. A French admiral, quoted by Lace"pede, declared that he had seen them with their heads stuck in the sand in such compact masses that the bottom of the sea was literally paved with them. It is now believed that the mackerel retires to mid-ocean to spend the winter, as great schools have occasionally been seen far out in the Atlantic, as low as the twentieth degree of north latitude, early in May, swimming northward ; while, on the other hand, they have been seen in December in higher latitude, swimming southward. The mackerel is said to be particularly fond of human flesh, though how this taste was detected I am unable to say. Old Eric Pontoppidan, Bishop to 218 A SUMMER CRUISE ON of Bergen, to whose famous work on the Natural History of Norway we are indebted for the first notice of the sea-serpent, and for the only authen- tic account of the Kraken, and for that remarkably concise chapter " On the Snakes of Norway," which disposes of the subject in six words, " There are no snakes in Norway," relates a fearful story of the mackerel. A Norwegian sailor was bathing in a state of nature on his native coast, when his white skin attracted a shoal of these fierce and greedy little fishes, who gathered round him in such numbers and such force that they bore him out to sea for some distance, nibbling and gnawing him so desperately that before his com- rades who were not far off, in their ship could rescue him, he was so exhausted and maimed that he expired soon after they got him into their boat. The mackerel is taken in great abundance on the coasts of the British islands, and is pursued in boats, and not in large vessels as in our American waters. As the fish soon become unfit for food, the mackerel dealers have been allowed, since 1698, to cry their commodity for sale through the streets of London on Sunday. At the fishing towns on the coast the mackerel season is one of great bustle and activity. The high prices obtained for early cargoes, and the large returns gained by the enormous numbers of fish sometimes captured in a single night, stimulate the fishermen to great THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 219 exertions. In May, 1807, the first Brighton boat- load of mackerel sold at Billingsgate market for forty guineas a hundred, or nearly two dollars for each fish. On the other hand, they were so plen- tiful at Dover in 1808 that sixty were sold for a shil- ling. At Brighton, in June of the same year, the quantity of mackerel in the water was so great that the fishermen of one boat could not drag in their nets, but had to let nets and fish sink together. On a Sunday in March, 1833, four Hastings boats brought on shore 10,800 mackerel, and on the next day two boats brought 7,000. The first voyagers to New England noticed the abundance on our coast of the mackerel, which the Indians called Wawwunnekeseag, a word expressive of its fatness. Winthrop relates that in 1633 the ship Griffin, two days before her arrival at Boston, lost a passenger by drowning as he was casting forth a line to catch mackerel. Allerton, one of the Mayflower pilgrims, received mackerel for sale on " half profits " at New Haven in 1653. Seven years after, the Commissioners of the Colonies of New England recommended to the Colonial Legis- latures to regulate the mackerel trade, because " the fish is the most staple commodity of this country." The mackerel fishery at Cape Cod was held by the Plymouth Colony as public" prop- erty, and its profits appropriated to public uses. It was rented from time to time to individuals, and a part of the fund to support the first free school es- tablished in America was derived from it. 220 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Before the Revolution, the mackerel fishery was largely prosecuted on the coast of New England by sloops fitted out for the purpose, of which Mas- sachusetts had about a hundred, while the town of Scituate alone owned upward of thirty in 1770. Afterward, this branch of industry decayed, and for a considerable period boats only were used. But about the beginning of this centuiy, a vessel was sent to Mount Desert to catch mackerel, and made so profitable a trip that the business soon revived, and became more prosperous than ever. At present, about 1,000 vessels and 5,000 seamen from Massachusetts are employed in the mackerel fishing, and, beside the numbers of the fish which are sold to be eaten fresh, nearly 300,000 barrels are annually inspected in Massachusetts, which are worth about $1,500,000. The salted mackerel are sold chiefly in the Slave States, but a large proportion of the poorer quality is exported to South America, and to the East and West Indies. When a mackerel vessel reaches a place where the fish are supposed to be plentiful, the master furls all his sails except the mainsail, brings his vessel's bow to the wind, ranges his crew at intervals along one of her sides, and, without a mackerel in sight, attempts to- i-aise a school by throwing over bait. The baiter stands amidships, with the bait-box outside the rail, and with a tin- cup nailed to a long handle, he scatters the bait on the water. If the mackerel appear, the men THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 221 throw out short lines, to the hooks of which a glittering pewter jig is affixed. The fish, if they bite at all, generally bite rapidly, and are hauled in as fast as the most active man can throw out and draw in a line. As they pull them on board, the fisherman, with a jerk, throws the fish into a barrel standing beside him. So ravenously do they bite, that sometimes a barrelful is caught in fifteen minutes by a single man. Some active young men will haul in and jerk off a fish and throw out the line for another with a single mo- tion, and repeat the act in so rapid succession that their arms seem continually on the swing. " To be high-line," that is, to catch the greatest number of fish, says Sabine, " is an object of earnest desire among the ambitious ; and the muscular ease, the precision, and adroitness of movement which such men exhibit in the strife, are admirable. While the school remains alongside, and will take the hook, the excitement of the men, and the rushing noise of the fish in their beautiful and manifold evolutions in the water, arrest the attention of the most careless observer." Sometimes, after thousands have been caught by the ten or twelve men of the crew, the mackerel sud- denly disappear. The lines are then thrown aside, and all hands go to work to dress the fish, the cap- tain or mate first counting them, and noting down in the fish-book what each man has caught. The mackerel are split and cleaned, and soaked awhile 222 A SUMMER CRUISE ON in barrels of salt-water. They are then washed and handed to the salter, who puts a handful of salt in the bottom of a barrel, takes a fish in his right hand, rolls it in salt, and places it skin downward in the barrel, till he comes to the top layer, which is placed skins up and well covered with salt. When the vessel returns to port, the fish are sent on shore to be sorted into three or four qualities, weighed, re-packed, re-salted, and re-pickled. The mackerel fishery, as pursued by the New- Englanders, is a toilsome and perilous calling, and success in it can only be achieved by great energy and activity. It is carried on chiefly in schooners, averaging fifty tons, which follow their prey to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and even to the bleak and stormy coast of Labrador. It is well described in Whittier's poem, " The Fisherman," of which I quote a few stanzas : " Now, brothers, for the icebergs Of frozen Labrador, Floating spectral in the moonshine, Along the low, black shore ! Where like snow the gannet's feathers On Brador's rocks are shed, And the noisy murre are flying Like black scuds overhead. " Where in mist the rock is hiding, And the sharp reef lurks below, And the white squall smites in summer, And the autumn tempests blow j THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 223 Where through gray and rolling vapor, From evening unto mom A thousand boats are hailing, Horn answering unto horn. There we '11 drop our lines and gather Old ocean's treasures in, Where'er the mottled mackerel Turns up a steel-dark fin. The sea 's our field of harvest, Its scaly tribes our grain ; We '11 reap the teeming waters As at home they reap the plain I " Our wet hands spread the carpet, And light the hearth of home ; From our fish, as in the olden time, The silver coin shall come. As the demon fled the chamber Where the fish of Tobit lay, So ours from all our dwellings Shall frighten want away. " Though the mist upon our jackets In the bitter air congeals, And our lines wind stiff and slowly From off the frozen reels ; Though the fog be dark around us, And the storm blow high and loud, We will whistle down the wild wind. And laugh beneath the cloud ! " 224 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXVII. THE ISLAND OF MONHEGAN. OWL'S HEAD. FLAT BURGLARY. THE breeze freshened as we gained the open sea, and though the swell was very rough from the ef- fects of the recent storm, we swept along delight- fully through a host of islands, fair to look upon, though not possessing the romantic beauty of the isles of Casco Bay. This part of the coast of Maine is interesting from its legendary and histor- ical associations. We passed in the course of the forenoon the Island of Monhegan, which comprises a thousand acres of good land, well cultivated by about a hundred inhabitants, a remarkably intel- ligent and prosperous people, who form a pure de- mocracy and manage their public business entirely without officers of any kind, their only public edi- fice being a school-house, which serves on Sundays for a church. Close to Monhegan is an islet called Mananas, on a rocky ledge, in the centre of which was dis- covered, in 1808, an inscription in characters sup- posed to be Runic, and of which a copy has been sent to the Society of Antiquaries at Copenhagen. If the Vinland of the Northmen was in New Eng- land, there can be no doubt that those bold sea- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 225 rovers must have lingered long and lovingly on this coast of Maine, which so much resembles that of their own Norway, with its deep fiords, its rocky isles, and its sea-washed mountains. At all events, it pleased my fancy to imagine the adventurous Biorn, and his companions sailing along the track we were pursuing, gazing with wondering eyes on the same islands and headlands, unchanged in any material aspect by the lapse of a thousand years. I repeated to myself the words of the poet just quoted, who has sought all along these shores the themes of his song. " What sea-worn barks are those which throw The light spray from each rushing prow ? Have they not in the North Sea's blast Bowed to the waves the straining mast ? Their frozen sails, the low, pale sun Of Thule's night has shone upon j Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep, Round icy drift, and headland steep, Wild Jutland's wives, and Lochlin's daughters, Have watched them fading o'er the waters ; Lessening through driving mist and spray, Like white-winged sea-birds on their way ! " Onward they glide, and now I view Their iron-armed and stalwart crew ; Joy glistens in each wild, blue eye, Turned to green earth and summer sky : Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide ; Bared to the sun and soft, warm air, Streams back the Norseman's yellow hair. I see the gleam of axe and spear, The sound of smitten shields I hear, 10* o 226 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Keeping a harsh and fitting time To Saga's chant and Runic rhyme ; Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung His gray and naked isles among, Or muttered low, at midnight hour, Round Odin's mossy stone of power." The earliest attempts of the English at coloniz- ing New England were made here early in the sev- enteenth century by Sir Ferdinando Gorges. The navigator Gosnold was here in 1602, and Martin Pring in 1603. Captain John Smith visited Mon- hegan in 1614 for purposes of trade, and a settle- ment was made on the island in 1618, two years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth. A little farther to the eastward, on the island of Mount Desert, the mission of St. Saviour had been found- ed in 1613 by the French Jesuit, Father Pierre Baird, and destroyed, together with other French settlements in Maine, by Sir Samuel Argal of Vir- ginia. At a later period, the adventurous Baron de St. Castine came from Canada and built a for- tress on the site of the town which now bears his name. He married the daughter of the great Mo- docawando, the most powerful sachem of the East, and had a wild and romantic career till his castle was taken and plundered by Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Massachusetts. Over these waters during the same period had cruised the Huguenot La Tour, the Baron d'Estienne, the Lord of Aca- dia, of whom Whittier sings : THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 227 " St. Saviour had looked On the heretic sail, As the songs of the Huguenot Rose on the gale. The pale, ghostly fathers Remembered her well, And had cursed her while passing With taper and bell ; But the men of Monhegan, Of Papists abhorred, Had welcomed and feasted The heretic Lord. They had loaded his shallop With dun-fish and ball, With stores for his larder, And steel for his wall." The breeze being fair and steady, we held on our course without stopping, till, at 6 P. M., we reached Owl's Head, an exceedingly picturesque promontory where a large white lighthouse crowned a high rock rising abruptly from the water. Here we anchored in a broad channel between the mainland and two islands, amid a fleet of vessels. This channel is much frequented by coasters and fishermen, and five hundred sail have been seen passing Owl's Head in one day. After supper the Assyrian persuaded the Artist and me to go ashore and walk with him to the large town of Rockland, where, he was assured by the Skipper, that whiskey could be obtained without fail. To make a proper impression on the people of that place, he arrayed himself in his best attire, putting on for the occasion, for the first time, a 228 A SUMMER CRUISE ON fashionable stove-pipe hat which he had carefully reserved for a great emergency. In spite of his remonstrances, we perversely adhered to ouf red shirts, fishy pantaloons, and old felt hats, and con- sequently made rather a rowdy appearance by the side of '" Our oiled and curled Assyrian bull." We set off at a good round pace, and the dis- tance to Rockland, according to the Skipper, being only three miles, and the weather fine, though growing cold, we were highly pleased at the pros- pect of stretching our legs in a moderate walk, after being cramped up in the little sloop. We went on cheerfully for perhaps a couple of miles, on a road bordered by woods, till we met a man driving a wagon apparently on his way to Owl's Head. We stopped and asked : " Is this the road to Rockland ? " Wai, it is." " How far is it ? " " Wai, a little mor'n three miles." The wagoner drove on, leaving us not very well satisfied with the result of our inquiries. We kept on, however, for about a mile farther, where we encountered a traveller on foot, who assured us that Rockland was still about three miles distant. The distance was evidently diminishing, and we pushed vigorously onward, till at length, after walking, as we computed, in all about five miles, we reached the town of which we were in search, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 229 about 9 P. M. To our surprise, it proved to be a handsome, city-like place, with well-built brick blocks and granite sidewalks. The whole popula- tion appeared to be in the street, returning, as we learned, from a brass-band concert. The Assyrian, perceiving that most of the shops were shut, directed his steps to a hotel, where he made inquiries as to the fluid resources of the town. The answer was discouraging. Nothing stronger than lager-bier was to be had for love or money. Unwilling to credit so fearful a state of destitution in a place of such size and apparent business, our thirsty friend went forth to explore, leaving us to peruse the newspapers and gather the news of the last few weeks. In about half an hour he re- turned tolerably successful. He had found, at an apothecary's, several bottles of Wolfe's Aromatic Schiedam Schnapps, which, in spite of its preten- sions to be medicine, he said was really a pretty good article of gin, though abominably diluted with water. Still, it was fit for drink, and, in the absence of better liquor, might be endured. We set out at once on our return, each alter- nately bearing the precious package, which was confoundedly heavy, and reached Owl's Head just at midnight, scarcely able to stand, we were so fatigued, from want of practice in walking for the last month. The weather had changed greatly in the course of the evening. It had grown quite cold, and the clouds indicated speedy rain. With 230 4 SUMMER CRUISE ON some difficulty, standing on the shore, we detected the Helen amid a crowd of vessels of all sizes. The Assyrian hailed her: " Hallo ! the Helen, the Helen ahoy ! " There was no response. In fact, all on board were sound asleep, having turned in, under the idea, gathered from some idle remark of one of us as we left them, that we should stay at Rockland all night. The Assyrian hailed again repeatedly, and with the utmost force of his lungs, and we joined him in the outcry. There was still no an- swer from the sloop ; but men on board other ves- sels halloed at us in wrath for making such a dis- turbance, and dogs on the shore set up a furious barking. There was evidently no use in attempting to rouse our sleeping friends, and so we walked about the village for a while, seeking for a tavern. None was to be seen. At length, growing desperate with fatigue and cold, we tried to raise the in- mates of several dwellings in succession, but with- out effect; we could not waken a soul. There must be something peculiarly sleep-provoking in the atmosphere of Owl's Head, for we made din enough to rouse the Seven Sleepers. Our next effort was in search of a boat, and we prowled in the dark and the rain, which now began to fall, for some distance along the shore. We found only two skiffs, one of which was full of wa- ter, and the other was moored beyond our reach except by swimming. We turned again to the vil- THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 231 lage, and found at length a ruinous cooper-shop, in which we took refuge from the rain, and made an attempt to sleep. With a stick of wood for a pillow, we lay down on a pile of shavings, and for a few minutes slumbered ; but the cold wind blew so keenly through the chasms in the walls of the hut, that we soon woke, and were forced to rise and move about to keep warm*. At length it occurred to me that the school-house of the vil- lage would probably afford us a comfortable shel- ter, if we could find it. We remembered enough of the feats of our school-boy days to be confident that we could get into any village edifice of the sort in New England. As the rain had somewhat abated, we sallied forth and happily in a few minutes found the building which we sought, a house of one story with a single chimney, windows high above the ground, and no fence around it. After reconnoi- tring it carefully, till satisfied that it was indeed the school-house, we assisted the Assyrian to clamber up to a window which had fortunately been left a little open. That gentleman, after much effort, at last got his knee upon the win- dow-sill, and, pushing up the sash, thrust in his head. At this moment two or three quick screams and outcries. " Thieves ! murder ! help ! " evi- dently from a female voice, broke upon our hor- rified ears. They were followed by a rough 232 A SUMMER CRUISE ON voice demanding with an oath what we wanted. It was no time for explanations. And in fact none were needed by us. We had mistaken a dwelling for a school-house, and were breaking into a bedroom, that was all. The Assyrian, expecting each instant a pistol-shot or a blow on his head from out of the darkness, let go the sash, which, in its desf ent, struck off his new hat, which fell, of course, within the room. He then dropped himself to the ground, and we all ran away as fast as we could, not caring to make our appearance in Rockland again next morning in the character of burglars caught in the act of breaking into a dwell- ing-house at Owl's Head. We again took refuge in the cooper's shop, congratulating ourselves that it was not the fash- ion on the coast of Maine to sleep with pistols under the pillow, and wondering at the taste which led people to build their dwellings in the same fashion that they did their school-houses. We made another attempt to sleep in the- shav- ings, but the cold still kept us awake. We, there- fore, again descended to the shore, and, after long walking on the beach, found a boat with oars, which some fisherman had left ready to go out in to his daily task at dawn. We took the liberty of borrowing it, and were soon on board the sloop. Stopping merely to wake the Skipper and send him back with the borrowed boat, we turned into our berths, and, wrapped in warm blankets, were soon oblivious of all our troubles. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 233 CHAPTER XXVIII. FIRE AND WATER. PULPIT HARBOR. THE CUSK. A STRANGE FISH. THE Professor and the two seamen, who had all had their natural share of sleep while the rest of us were wandering dismally in the midnight cold and darkness of Owl's Head, rose at four in the morning, and got the sloop under way wliile we yet slept. The wind at starting was moderate, but in the course of an hour it had risen to a gale, accompanied by squalls of rain and mist, which made the air so thick that the land was totally hidden from sight, and the pilot could not tell where to steer. The pitching of the ves- sel in the heavy sea aroused me a little after five, and leaving the Artist and the Assyrian asleep in their berths, I went on deck. The only object in sight, beside the white waves and the driving clouds that enveloped us, was a schooner ahead, pursuing the same course with ourselves. We were at the entrance to Penobscot Bay, six or seven miles from the mainland, and the seamen thought not far from the west side of the North Fox Island. We followed the schooner for a mile or two, and at length caught sight of land at no great 234 A SUMMER CRUISE ON distance, which proved to be the Fox Island. The schooner kept close to the shore, and pres- ently disappeared from our view within a narrow opening in the rocky coast, which we now dimly perceived. It was a harbor not down on the charts, and unknown to our seamen, but they said that as the schooner had got in, we could of course follow, and it was not advisable to keep the sea in such a storm, with our unsound mast. The Pilot, who by this time had got his great iron furnace ablaze with coals, ready for cooking breakfast, now steered for the entrance of the harbor, which was very narrow, with a huge black rock rising right in the middle. This narrow channel was so strikingly pictu- resque, that I went below to wake the Artist and the Assyrian, leaving the Skipper and the Pro- fessor standing at the bows vigilantly scanning the water as we approached, and looking out sharply for reefs and rocks, of which they occasionally gave notice to the Pilot. I had succeeded, by considerable shaking and punching, in restoring the sleepers to a glimmering of consciousness, when a tremendous uproar on deck called me to the companion-way to see what the matter was. A terrible and yet laughable sight met my eyes. As the sloop was surging on into the entrance of the harbor, the Skipper discovered a sunken reef right ahead of the vessel. He shouted to the THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 235 Pilot to put his helm hard up, and the Professor ran aft to assist in shifting the boom. Before he could reach the stern a squall struck the sloop, and the boom, as it swung over, hit the Professor, who, to save himself, clung to the spar, and was carried half over the side of the vessel, while, at the same time, the boom knocked off the Pilot's hat. To this particular article of apparel the old man had a special attachment, generated probably by the long series of years during which it had crowned his venerable head. He therefore with one hand made a desperate grab at the beaver, which he caught ere it reached the water, while with the other he pushed out the boom, to which the Professor was still hanging, with his heels clinging to the rail of the vessel. The Pilot, at the same time, gave a prodigious kick at the tiller to put it hard up, but missed it, and hit his fur- nace, which toppled incontinently over. The glowing coals fell, some into a basket of shav- ings and kindlings under the bench, which runs around the cockpit, and these highly combustible materials immediately blazed up ; other coals set fire to the dry space beneath the bench, to which the rain never penetrated ; others yet, falling upon the wet deck, caused a great gushing up of steam and smoke. This was precisely the aspect of affairs when I stuck my head out of the cabin, followed by the half-asleep Artist and Assyrian. The volumes 236 A SUMMER CRUISE ON of flame and smoke and steam that whirled in our faces, together with the howling of the storm and the frowning look of the black rock that guards the mouth of the harbor, to which we were so close that it seemed right over our heads, were well calculated to give a slight shock to our nerves. So sudden and unexpected a combination of the dangers of shipwreck and of fire at sea was really exciting, though we could not help laughing at the droll attitudes into which the wayward boom had knocked our friends. There being several buckets at hand, and our vessel so low in the water that we could fill them by merely leaning over the side, the fire was easily got under, and the sloop, having glided past the reef, whose presence in the way had caused the commotion, and which she cleared with a slight touch without damage, we sailed into the harbor, and presently were in still water. This harbor, as we learned afterward, is called Pulpit Harbor, from the great, high, isolated rock at the entrance, which the church-going New- Englanders have likened to a pulpit, as in the case of so many other " pulpit-rocks " on their coast. It is one of the finest havens I ever saw, if not the very finest. Except the narrow en- trance it was land-locked, and as calm and shel- tered as an inland pond. Its diameter seemed to be about half a mile, and it was surrounded by low hills, sloping gently to the water's edge. The THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 237 summits of the hills were covered with woods, but on their cleared and grassy slopes cattle and sheep were pasturing. A few fishermen's houses were in sight, and beside the schooner we had followed in, there were half a dozen small fishing-vessels at anchor in front of the hamlet. We anchored in the middle of the harbor, just opposite the entrance, through which we had a view of the turbulent sea without. The storm, however, was abating, the rain had ceased, and by the time we had finished breakfast the sun broke from the clouds. Nowhere, I am sure, did he smile on a lovelier or more peaceful scene of rural beauty. Nothing could exceed the exquisite fresh- ness of the green hillsides, and the groves that bounded the landward view were a tasteful and natural frame to the picture. Seaward, we looked as through some mighty portal, half in ruins, over the black and jagged rocks of the entrance, and thence across ten miles of ocean to the mainland, where the picturesque Camden Mountains reared their bold summits in full view. These mountains are not far from the shore, and form a remark- ably beautiful, though short and isolated range, rising to the height of fifteen hundred feet above the surrounding plain. They lie directly opposite the entrance to Pulpit Harbor. To complete the charm of the landscape, a num- ber of large fish-hawks, whose huge fagot-like nests we could see through the telescope on the 238 A SUMMER CRUISE ON branches of a grove of tall pines, were wheeling high in the air with their wings wide extended and apparently motionless, watching a school of mackerel near Pulpit Rock, and occasionally de- scending and seizing fishes, which they carried to their nests, uttering as they went fierce screams of triumph and delight. About the middle of the forenoon the Assyrian remembered the schnapps he had purchased at Rockland. He looked around the cabin for it, but the package was nowhere visible. He exam- ined the lockers and poked about the fore-peak. It was not to be found. Proceeding to the dock, he hailed the Skipper, who was just going ashore for water, and had already got a few strokes of his oars from the sloop, and asked him what he had done with the schnapps ? " Schnapps," repeated the Skipper, slowly back- ing water, and evidently wondering what scrape he had got into now. " I don't know anything about schnapps. There has n't been any schnapps on board." And he came alongside. The As- syrian signed to him to remain, and for a few mo- ments hung down his head as if lost in thought. At last he spoke : " I remember now, I left the package in that infernal cooper's shop at Owl's Head. The fates are against me. I shall drink water for the rest of the cruise." And stepping into the dory to avoid our gibes, he told the Skip- per he would go with him to the nearest spring, and make trial of his new beverage. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 239 While they were absent, we got out our lines and fished. The water was very deep and fish abundant. We caught cod, haddock, whiting, skate, and a large Greenland sculpin, a handsome monster with a dark-brown back, and sides and belly adorned with circular spots of yellow and white. We caught also a smaller specimen of the sculpin family, or of some species akin to it, which the Professor thought was a bullhead. It was about six inches in length, and was of a light- brown color, with half a dozen dark bands passing around it. A fish resembling a hake, of which we caught several, the largest thirty inches in length, and five pounds in weight, the Pilot called a cusk. The liver, he said, was full of oil of a kind good for burns. Its color throughout was that of dark slate. Its head was covered with rough scales. The mouth was large, and the jaws filled with sharp teeth. The back fin and the tail fin were edged with blue and white. This fish is not com- mon on our coast, and in winter sells in Boston market for twice as much as the cod. In Great Britain it is called the torsk, or tusk, and seems to frequent only the northern shores of the island. It is caught among the Orkney Islands, and plen- tifully near Shetland. Still farther north it is very abundant, especially on the coasts of Iceland, Norway, and the Faroe Islands. As its stomach is usually found empty, there is a notion among 240 A SUMMER CRUISE ON the European fishermen that it lives on the juice of sea-weeds. We had the cusk cooked for din- ner, and found its flesh firm to toughness, but sa- vory enough. When salted, the Pilot said some people preferred it to cod, as the flesh swells much in boiling, and divides into thick flakes. The Skipper and the Assyrian not having re- turned when dinner was nearly ready, we sounded the horn to recall them. They obeyed the sum- mons, and during dinner the Assyrian descanted on the beauties of North Fox Island, which he declared to be the finest island ,he had yet seen. A winding strait about a mile broad separates it from the South Fox Island. This strait is called the Thoroughfare, and coasters and fishing-vessels often pass through it. The island was well stocked with sheep, and the flowers were peculiarly bril- liant in hue from the effect of sea air. The Assy- rian had parleyed with sundry of the people, who lived, he said, in very good houses ; and he had learned that the island formed the town of North Haven, that it contained eight hundred inhab- itants, four small villages, as many stores, one church, and eleven school-houses, and, lastly, that its staple product was hay. The only natural curiosity was a huge rocking-bowlder, on the top of a hill adjoining Pulpit Harbor. After dinner, the Artist and I went with the Professor in the dory to dredge near the mouth of the harbor. Before we began, the beauty of THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 241 the sea-weeds on a ledge near by us attracted our attention, and we landed on the rocks, and gath- ered a great quantity of " These many-colored, variegated forms, Broideries strange, Wrought by the sea-nymphs from their golden hair, And wove by moonlight. From narrow cells scooped in the rocks, we take These fairy textures, lightly moored at morn. Down sunny slopes, outstretching to the deep, We roam at noon, and gather shapes like these. Note now the painted webs from verdurous isles, Festooned and spangled in sea-caves, and say What hues of land can rival tints like these, Torn from the scarfs and gonfalons of kings Who dwell beneath the waters 1 " The result of our dredging was a few fine speci- mens of sea-cucumbers, the largest we had yet seen. About the middle of the afternoon a great school of mackerel came into the harbor, and we all got into the dory, except the seamen, and anchored alongside of Pulpit Rock, to intercept them as they came out. Our bait, which we threw out by handfuls, soon attracted them, and a lively scene ensued. For about half an hour we pulled in mackerel as fast as we could throw out and haul in our lines. After catching upward of a hundred, we desisted, as we really did not know what to do with the fish, and did not care to capture them merely to throw back into the sea. 11 p 242 A SUMMER CRUISE ON A thunder-storm confined us to the sloop for the rest of the day. Before sundown it cleared up, and as the setting sun descended directly be- hind the opposite mountains, we were favored with a strange and magnificent spectacle. After the storm, the sky had become perfectly clear of clouds, except a dense mass that rested on the mountain peaks. As the sun went down, these clouds gathered around the summit of Magunti- cook, the loftiest peak of the mountains, and as- sumed the form of a crown, which was presently suffused and glorified with a rich rosy hue. For nearly half an hour this superb circlet remained motionless on the brow of the mountain, till it gradually melted away as the shades of evening advanced. Before the twilight vanished we began to fish, as the Professor thought we might find the place abundant in hake. In a few minutes I hauled up a lobster, in whose tail my hook had somehow got fast. It was in fine condition, and weighed twelve pounds. As we had been for some days without lobster, the unlucky crustacean went at once into the Pilot's pot. We were catching whiting pretty freely, when, just as it was growing dark, an exclamation of surprise from the Assyrian called us to his side. He had caught what we at first glance supposed to be a conger-eel. But, on looking closely, it proved to be a fish of the sculpin family, and of an THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 243 entirely new and strange species. It was so queer and savage-looking that none of us ventured to touch it or take it from the hook. We inspected and measured it while the Assyrian held it at arm's length, and, after we had satisfied our curi- osity, the Professor brought out a keg of alcohol, over which he held it, and cutting the fish-line, let it drop into the preserving fluid. Its body was shaped like that of an eel, but its head was square and blunt, with an almost human face. It had a steady, stony expression in its deep-set eyes. Its length was thirty inches, and its circumference eight inches. But its most remarkable peculiarity was its color, which was a ghastly white, except at the tail, where it shaded into a rosy hue. There is no fish like this described by any writer on ichthyology, and none of us had ever seen anything of the sort before. The Pilot, who had fished in our waters for more than half a cen- tury, declared that he had never seen or heard of such a creature in all his experience. Subse- quently, during the cruise, we showed it to a great number of fishermen, none of whom, however, had ever seen any fish like it. On turning in that night, we left our baited lines hanging over the vessel's side, and in the morning found we had caught a fish resembling the other in everything, except that it was of a lead color instead of a pale white. 244 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXIX. FLAPJACKS. DEER ISLAND. A DRUNKEN PILOT TO MOUNT DESERT. I WENT on deck before sunrise next morning, to see how Pulpit Harbor looked at that hour. The weather was clear and mild, and the Megun- ticook peaks were tipped with the rosy hues of dawn, while we lay still in deep shadow. I found the Pilot sitting on the taffrail, pipe in mouth, and absorbed in the study of the bewildering inscrip- tions on a package of yeast-powder which he had bought in Portland. He was evidently meditating some great stroke of culinary art. By much se- vere scrutiny and some muttered spelling, he at last mastered the directions on the package, and proceeded to open it with the air of a man who knew what he was about. I ventured to inquire what was in the wind. He answered, with his wonted brevity and directness, " Flapjacks." By the time the flapjacks were concocted and the frying-pan ready for their reception, we were all on deck and intently observing the process of preparing them. The old man poured a quantity of the batter into his pan, which was already siz- zling with fat, and when the huge cake was suffi- ciently done, proceeded to turn it with a knife. THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND, 245 He did not succeed very well in this difficult oper- ation, and the Assyrian remonstrated : " That 's a lubberly way of doing it, Uncle Widger. You should loosen the flapjack with your knife, and then, taking the frying-pan in your hand, throw the flapjack into the air in such a way that it will turn a summersault and come down soft side into the pan. That 's the way to turn flapjacks." " I should like to see you do it," said the old man. " Do it ! " rejoined the confident Assyrian ; " I can do it as easy as I can eat the flapjack after it is done. Here, let me take your knife and I '11 show you the trick." He carefully loosened the flapjack from the bot- tom of the pan, and then, seizing the handle with both hands, while we stood aside to give him room, he tossed up the frying-pan with consider- able force, giving at the same time a scientific twist to his wrists for the purpose of making the flapjack turn over in the air, while he stood ready to catch it. Unluckily, this last flourish was not successful, for the flapjack, instead of falling per- pendicularly, went with a slant over the stern into the sea. The discomfited Assyrian made no attempt to retrieve this disaster by trying again, but silently handed back the frying-pan to the Pilot, and took refuge in the cabin. The mirth of the old man 246 A SUMMER CRUISE ON at his instructor's failure was pleasant to behold. He laughed and chuckled with infinite glee, and though he made great efforts to suppress his mer- riment and preserve a sober aspect, his delight ran over perpetually at his eyes and would break out every few minutes into a sudden roar. It was not till breakfast was over, and we had made sail and got out of the harbor and on the open sea, that he resumed his wonted gravity. Our course was northeast, toward Deer Island, on the eastern side of Penobscot Bay. This island is ten miles long by five miles broad, and has two or three thousand inhabitants. We sailed for sev- eral hours through a group of smaller islands, steering for a channel, which, on the chart, ran between Deer Island and Little Deer Island, and communicated with Edgemoggin Reach. On reaching the spot indicated on the chart as a nav- igable strait, we found it, to our astonishment, dry land, and were forced to come to anchor near a number of fishing-vessels which, like ourselves, had apparently been caught in this trap. On inquiry we learned that the strait was pass- able only at high water, and, while waiting for the tide to rise, the Professor and the Assyrian went out in the dory to dredge, while the Artist and I rambled over the rocky bottom of the chan- nel through which, when it should be filled by the tide, our vessel was to sail into Edgemoggin Reach. It was a broad, irregular, ragged chasm, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 247 worn apparently by the action of the water, and its high, rocky shores were honey-combed with caves and gullies. Behind a huge promontory, at which our stroll terminated, we found about a dozen young ladies arrayed in pantaloons and long leather boots, hard at work digging clams, which they put into baskets and carried on their should- ers to a large scow lying in the mud not far off. They were a lively set of damsels, and had a pleasant propensity for playing practical jokes upon each other of rather a rough sort. We amused ourselves by watching their gambols and their labors, and by retorting the occasional gibes with which they favored us, until the rising tide obliged them to desist from work. After a s.mart skirmish among themselves, in which their baskets and handfuls of mud were freely used as missiles, they embarked in their scow and rowed away, with a parting injunction to us to go home to our anxious mothers in time for tea. At 2 P. M. it was high tide, and the Skipper, who had been on shore seeking for a pilot, came on board with one of the Deer-Islanders, a singu- larly queer-looking fellow, who had offered for half a dollar to navigate the sloop through the channel. We hoisted sail immediately, and, with a boisterous wind, were soon scudding over the places on which I had walked dry-shod but a few hours before. It was a sufficiently perilous pas- sage. There was little enough water anywhere, 248 A SUMMER CRUISE ON and the channel was diversified by huge patches of rock, some sunken and others rising to the surface. Our new pilot, instead of attending to his duty, gave himself wholly up to the contem- plation of a heap of sea-cucumbers, the fruit of the Professor's dredging, which lay on deck. He was very voluble when he first came on board, but the moment his eyes lighted on these strange ani- mals he was struck dumb with astonishment. He fell on his hands and knees before the heap, which he scrutinized in every possible way, by handling, smelling, and touching with his tongue. Mean- time we were running at a furious rate amid rocks and shoals, which the old Pilot at the helm was avoiding as best he could, until the anxious Skip- per, forgetting in alarm for our safety his habitual politeness, touched the new-comer with his foot, and told him to get up and mind his business. He rose reluctantly to his feet, his eyes still fixed on the sea-cucumbers, exclaiming, " Lor-a- mighty, gosh ninety, what ar ye going to do with them ? " " Cook 'em," said the Assyrian, who had been eying the fellow with intense disgust, " and if we get on the rocks we '11 cook you. So you had bet- ter look out sharp." The hint was taken, and the islander, withdraw- ing his gaze from the sea-cucumbers, glanced at the surrounding waters, and presently gave to our old Pilot some directions how to steer. Here a THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 249 new difficulty arose. The old man did not com- prehend the terms used by the new-comer, and for a while great confusion and uproar raged on the sloop, which seemed likely to terminate only in her going to pieces on the rocks. The two pilots grew angry and excited, and bawled their mutual wrath at each other from the adverse ends of the vessel, till the Skipper interposed, and took upon himself the part of interpreter. For a little while everything went well enough, till the irresistible sea-cucumbers again attracted the islander's attention. Quitting his post at the bow, he ran to the heap, and fell again on his knees to examine them, asking, at the same time, a volley of incoherent questions. The irritated Skipper, seizing him by the arm, led him back to the bow, where he talked to him earnestly for a minute or two, and then came aft to the cockpit, where we were all gathered. " The fellow 's as drunk as a loon," he whispered to us through his set teeth. " I did n't find it out till just now. 'T will be a wonder if we ever get safe into the Reach with such a chap for pilot." Here was a pleasant prospect, truly ! The wind was blowing almost a gale, and, as we knew by our own examination while the tide was out, the channel through which we were passing abounded with reefs and shoals. The soberest Palinurus would have found it hard enough, apparently, to guide a vessel through, and we were trusting to 11* 250 . A SUMMER CRUISE ON the skill of a drunken loafer, whose wits, at the best, were evidently none of the brightest or steadiest. To do the fellow justice, however, he did know the channel perfectly, and we got at last safely into Edgemoggin Reach, a broad sound run- ning for several miles between Deer Island and the mainland. With this sound our seamen were well acquainted, and beside, we had a good chart of it, so that we needed no further pilotage. There was something in the aspect of the Deer- Islander which strongly excited the ire of the Assyrian, who stepped up to him as he was about to get into the dory to be rowed ashore by the Skipper. Taking him gently by the throat, he solemnly admonished him never again to under- take, while drunk, to act as pilot, assuring him that he had run a very close chance of being flung overboard, and might not, on a second like occa- sion, escape so easily. He gave him a few shakes to settle this advice in his memory, and then politely assisted him into the dory, which the Skip- per was holding alongside. The fellow appeared to be somewhat abashed by the Assyrian's parting injunction, and for a mo- ment hung his head in silence. But, before the Skipper had rowed a dozen strokes, the islander suddenly resumed his confident air, and, calling to his companion to back water, as if he had forgotten something, stood up in the stern of the boat, with much difficulty keeping his balance, and addressed us with drunken gravity : THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 251 " I say, can't you give me some of them cow- cumbers to take hum to my old woman ? " We lay-to till the Skipper returned, and then made a splendid run down Edgemoggin Reach, which, from one end to the other, was white with foam. There cannot be a finer sheet of water in the world than this Reach, which is bounded on every side by superb views. Far before us, on the right, rose the blue summit of Isle Haut, as the early French navigators named it, a moun- tain rising from the waves. Before us the peaks of Mount Desert came gradually into view, at first misty and blue, then green and wooded, until, as we advanced, still loftier summits showed themselves in grim and stony desolation. 252 A SUMMER CRUISE ON CHAPTER XXX. MOUNT DESERT. BASS HARBOR. AN UNBENDING DEACON. BAR HARBOR. FAREWELL TO EDEN. END OF THE CRUISE. THE approach to Mount Desert by sea is mag- nificent. The island is a mass of mountains crowded together, and seemingly rising from the water. As you draw near, they resolve them- selves into thirteen distinct peaks, the highest of which is about two thousand feet above the neighboring ocean. It is difficult to conceive of any finer combination of land and water than this view, which has been admirably painted by Charles Dix. Certainly only in the tropics can it be excelled, only in the gorgeous islands of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. On the coast of America it has no rival, except, perhaps, at the Bay of Rio Janeiro. None of us knew anything of the localities of Mount Desert, and we therefore put into the first harbor that we saw on the coast, which proved to be Bass Harbor. We landed about sunset, and, not finding the village very attractive, the Assy- rian, the Artist, and I started for Southwest Harbor, which was described to us as the place of most resort on the island. The Professor, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 253 wishing to dredge in these waters, which were new to him, preferred to remain on board with the seamen, promising to bring the sloop around to Southwest Harbor next day. We could not obtain at Bass Harbor any con- veyance, all the horses of the place being absent on some rustic excursion. So we walked through the forest for several miles, after dark, and for the last hour of the way had a fine night- view of the mountains, serene and solemn in the mystical star- light. About 11 P. M. we reached our destina- tion, a public house, kept by a deacon, which had been recommended to us at Bass Harbor. We were cold, hungry, and exceedingly tired, and our hearts sank as we saw, on approaching the house, which we recognized by the descrip- tion that had been given us, that no light was visible, and that apparently everybody had gone to bed. " If they sleep here as soundly as they do at Owl's Head," said the Assyrian, as he pounded the front door with his fist, " our prospects of going to bed supperless may be pronounced first- rate. At all events, I give you fair notice I shall attempt no more school-houses." Our apprehensions were groundless. The land- lord speedily appeared, having fortunately just got into bed as we began to knock. He took us into the kitchen, which was tolerably warm, and pro- duced some cold meat and apple-pie. The As- 254 A SUMMER CRUISE ON Syrian, considering the cruise at an end as soon as we landed on Mount Desert, had already taken back his verbal pledge of abstinence made at Pul- pit Harbor, and was desirous of warming himself with something more heating than water. He therefore meekly asked the landlord if he could n't give us something to drink. The deacon smiled, and suggested milk. "I have a weak stomach," said the Assyrian, " and never drink anything so strong as milk." The deacon smiled still more blandly, and his smile expanded into a slight laugh as he proposed cold tea. " Bah ! " said the disgusted Assyrian ; " why don't you offer us dishwater at once. Can't you give us some whiskey ? " "No." " Brandy ? " No." "Ale? cider?" " No, nothing of the kind." The deacon was inflexible, and we went to bed in a state of the most perfect sobriety. Next morning, after breakfast, we hired of the deacon a one-horse wagon, and a quiet-looking beast of a mare, to convey us to Bar Harbor on the northeast side of the island, which we had satis- fied ourselves by inquiry of the deacon's guests was the best place to stop at, if we desired to be near the finest scenery. A drive of several miles over THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 255 a rough mountain-road brought us to Somesville, a village at the head of a broad sound which runs up from the ocean several miles. Here we dined at the house of a publican, who was also a sinner, for, being a Democrat, he held the Maine Law at defiance, and openly gloried in the impunity with which he daily violated it, though he had been re- peatedly harassed with prosecutions. After dinner, we drove for several miles through a forest where nothing living was visible but squir- rels, rabbits, partridges, and an occasional eagle soaring overhead. We passed no house, nor sign of human handiwork, except a ruined mill, near which, as we descended a steep hill, the harness of our conveyance broke. The deacon's mare, which up to this moment had been the most ami- able and exemplary of animals, now manifested a frightful perversity of disposition. After a vigor- ous attempt to run away, which was baffled by turning her head into the bushes that lined the road, she suddenly stood stock still, and com- menced kicking with her hind legs, with a force, precision, and rapidity that resembled more the working of a powerful machine than anything of the animal nature. It was admirable to witness, but extremely inconvenient to submit to. In a minute the front part of the wagon was dashed to splinters, and the Artist and I, who occupied the front seat, the Artist driving, were both badly bruised. We jumped out, and succeeded in quiet- 256 A SUMMER CRUISE ON ing the mare, though not till the harness was broken in half a dozen places. As we were yet three or four miles from Bar Harbor, and there was no house for several miles behind us, and we had not a particle of cord or string with which to mend the harness, we found ourselves in something of a dilemma. Just at this moment a wagon, the first we had seen during the day's ride, approached from the direction of Bar Harbor. There were two men in it, who stopped as they came to the scene of our disaster. The Assyrian uttered an exclamation, and sprang for- ward with outstretched hands. They were class- mates of his, whom he had not seen since he left college, years before, and whom he least of all ex- pected to meet on a lonely road in the heart of the hills of Mount Desert. The rencounter was exceedingly opportune. They were guests at Bar Harbor, whither we were bound, and they were now on their way to a lake, high up among the mountains, to fish for trout. With the aid of their lines we repaired the harness, and parting from our friends, who prom- ised to bring us a mess of trout for supper, made our way without further impediment to Bar Har- bor, where we found excellent quarters in the house of Mr. Roberts, the Postmaster and princi- pal trader of the village. At this place, which adjoins the finest scenery of the island, we spent two days exploring the recesses of Otter Creek, THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 257 whose wild mountain-passes equal in grandeur the Notch of the White Hills, and rambling about the gigantic cliffs of Great Head, Schooner Head, and the other bold rocky promontories rising for hun- dreds of feet directly from the sea, which make the island so fascinating to the landscape and ma- rine painter. Mount Desert has an area of about a hundred square miles, and is divided into three towns, Tremont, Eden, and Mount Desert. The popula- tion is not far from seven thousand, and a large part of the island is under cultivation. The north- ern part especially is remarkable for rural beauty ; but the centre and southeast portions remain in native wildness, and are yet the haunt of the deer and the bear, though the latter animal is now rarely met with. The sublime and romantic appearance of the island from the sea, on which its mountains are visible to a great distance, naturally attracted the attention of the earliest European navigators on our coast, and it figures prominently in the narra- tives of the first French and English explorers. According to some accounts, a French colony and mission was established there as early as 1608, on the western side of the Sound, and flourished for five years or more, till it was destroyed by the English. There is a picture of the ruins of this settlement, and of the grave of the Jesuit Du Thet, in the Alnambay Uli Awikhigan, a Catholic 258 A SUMMER CRUISE ON prayer-book, published in New York in 1858, for the benefit of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Micmac, and other tribes of the Abnaki Indians, in whose language it is written. The first perma- nent settlement, however, of Mount Desert was made by Abraham Somes, in 1761, from whom the Sound, at the head of which he built his house, is to this day locally known as Somes's Sound. Of late years, Mount Desert has become a fa- vorite resort for artists and for sea- side summer loungers. But it needs the hand of cultivated taste .for the full development of its matchless natural beauties, which, at present, are to a great degree hidden by the monotonous covering of an American forest of the secondary growth. The "forest primeval" has been cut down, and the woods that have succeeded it have neither grand- eur nor variety. Half a century of judicious clearing, and still more judicious sparing of the trees where they ought to be spared, surround- ing these savage mountains with lovely glades and charming, yet stately groves, converting the swamps into rich meadows, and creating a pictu- resque and proper contrast of light and shade, of rural grace and of wild and stern grandeur, would make this island, with its mighty cliffs and sombre ravines and multitudinous ocean beaches, a place of pilgrimage from the ends of the earth, to all lovers of the beautiful and sublime in nature. It THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 259 is impossible to conceive of any finer field for the exercise of the highest genius of the landscape gardener. On the third day we rode back to the head of the Sound, where we found the Helen at an- chor. We left the mare and the wagon in charge of the Postmaster, and embarking, floated with the tide through scenery strikingly resembling the Hudson as it passes through the Highlands, to Southwest Harbor. Here the Assyrian and I went ashore to settle with the Deacon for the use of his mare, not without some misgivings that we might be embarrassed in effecting a settlement, from the fact that we had not brought the animal back. The Deacon, however, readily received our statement of the case, and said he could send for the animal when he wanted her. We all sat down upon a log in a sort of shipyard, near his premises, and, Yankee-like, whittled diligently while we discussed the terms of payment, which, after a protracted session, were arranged liberally and satisfactorily. Re-embarking, we made sail for Bar Harbor. The wind proving light and the currents adverse, we made little progress, and were twelve or four- teen hours in going as many miles. About sun- set, as we slowly rounded Schooner Head, I picked up a baited cod-line which lay on the deck, and dropped it overboard, merely to occupy myself with pulling it in again. It had run out to the extent 260 A SUMMER CRUISE ON of about two hundred feet, when, feeling a smart bite, I drew it up with a fine, lively haddock, weighing four pounds. This was the last of our sea-fishing. We reached the harbor at midnight, and our Summer Cruise was ended. The next day I embarked on the steamer for Rockland and Boston, while the Artist and the Assyrian left the island by way of a bridge, which, at its northern end, connects Mount Desert with the mainland. The Professor and the seamen, after we bade them farewell, hoisted sail with a fair wind for Edgemoggin Reach, and thence back to Portland and Swampscott, where they arrived in due time. It is related of the Caliph Abdalrahman, the mightiest and most magnificent of the Moorish monarchs of Spain, that he wrote toward the close of his life the following declaration : " I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace ; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot ; they amount to fourteen. O man ! place not thy confidence in this present world ! " The Caliph Abdalrahman must have been hard to please. For my part, I can confidently say THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND. 261 that during our cruise I enjoyed at least twice as many happy days as fell to the lot of his Majesty during his whole reign ; and such, I am sure, would be the avowal, on their part, of my friends the Professor, the Artist, and the Assyrian. THE END. Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co.