“The sun once more touched the fields,
Mounting to heaven from the fair flowing
Deep-running Ocean.”
Now we saw countless3 sails of mackerel fishers abroad on the deep, one fleet in the north just pouring round the Cape4, another standing5 down toward Chatham, and our host’s son went off to join some lagging member of the first which had not yet left the Bay.
Before we left the light-house we were obliged to anoint our shoes faithfully with tallow, for walking on the beach, in the salt water and the sand, had turned them red and crisp. To counterbalance this, I have remarked that the seashore, even where muddy, as it is not here, is singularly clean; for notwithstanding the spattering of the water and mud and squirting of the clams9 while walking to and from the boat, your best black pants retain no stain nor dirt, such as they would acquire from walking in the country.
We have heard that a few days after this, when the Provincetown Bank was robbed, speedy emissaries from Provincetown made particular inquiries10 concerning us at this light-house. Indeed, they traced us all the way down the Cape, and concluded that we came by this unusual route down the back-side and on foot, in order that we might discover a way to get off with our booty when we had committed the robbery. The Cape is so long and narrow, and so bare withal, that it is wellnigh impossible for a stranger to visit it without the knowledge of its inhabitants generally, unless he is wrecked11 on to it in the night. So, when this robbery occurred, all their suspicions seem to have at once centred on us two travellers who had just passed down it. If we had not chanced to leave the Cape so soon, we should probably have been arrested. The real robbers were two young men from Worcester County who travelled with a centre-bit, and are said to have done their work very neatly13. But the only bank that we pried14 into was the great Cape Cod15 sand-bank, and we robbed it only of an old French crown piece, some shells and pebbles16, and the materials of this story.
Again we took to the beach for another day (October 13), walking along the shore of the resounding18 sea, determined19 to get it into us. We wished to associate with the Ocean until it lost the pond-like look which it wears to a country-man. We still thought that we could see the other side. Its surface was still more sparkling than the day before, and we beheld20 “the countless smilings of the ocean waves”; though some of them were pretty broad grins, for still the wind blew and the billows broke in foam21 along the beach. The nearest beach to us on the other side, whither we looked, due east, was on the coast of Galicia, in Spain, whose capital is Santiago, though by old poets’ reckoning it should have been Atlantis or the Hesperides; but heaven is found to be farther west now. At first we were abreast23 of that part of Portugal entre Douro e Mino, and then Galicia and the port of Pontevedra opened to us as we walked along; but we did not enter, the breakers ran so high. The bold headland of Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, jutted24 toward us next, with its vain brag25, for we flung back,—“Here is Cape Cod,—Cape Land’s-Beginning.” A little indentation toward the north,—for the land loomed27 to our imaginations by a common mirage28,—we knew was the Bay of Biscay, and we sang:—
“There we lay, till next day.
In the Bay of Biscay O!”
A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and farther yet the pillars which Hercules set up; concerning which when we inquired at the top of our voices what was written on them,—for we had the morning sun in our faces, and could not see distinctly,—the inhabitants shouted Ne plus ultra (no more beyond), but the wind bore to us the truth only, plus ultra (more beyond), and over the Bay westward29 was echoed ultra (beyond). We spoke30 to them through the surf about the Far West, the true Hesperia, ἕω πέρας or end of the day, the This Side Sundown, where the sun was extinguished in the Pacific, and we advised them to pull up stakes and plant those pillars of theirs on the shore of California, whither all our folks were gone,—the only ne plus ultra now. Whereat they looked crestfallen31 on their cliffs, for we had taken the wind out of all their sails.
We could not perceive that any of their leavings washed up here, though we picked up a child’s toy, a small dismantled32 boat, which may have been lost at Pontevedra.
The Cape became narrower and narrower as we approached its wrist between Truro and Provincetown, and the shore inclined more decidedly to the west. At the head of East Harbor Creek34, the Atlantic is separated but by half a dozen rods of sand from the tide-waters of the Bay. From the Clay Pounds the bank flatted off for the last ten miles to the extremity35 at Race Point, though the highest parts, which are called “islands” from their appearance at a distance on the sea, were still seventy or eighty feet above the Atlantic, and afforded a good view of the latter, as well as a constant view of the Bay, there being no trees nor a hill sufficient to interrupt it. Also the sands began to invade the land more and more, until finally they had entire possession from sea to sea, at the narrowest part. For three or four miles between Truro and Provincetown there were no inhabitants from shore to shore, and there were but three or four houses for twice that distance.
As we plodded36 along, either by the edge of the ocean, where the sand was rapidly drinking up the last wave that wet it, or over the sand-hills of the bank, the mackerel fleet continued to pour round the Cape north of us, ten or fifteen miles distant, in countless numbers, schooner37 after schooner, till they made a city on the water. They were so thick that many appeared to be afoul of one another; now all standing on this tack39, now on that. We saw how well the New-Englanders had followed up Captain John Smith’s suggestions with regard to the fisheries, made in 1616,—to what a pitch they had carried “this contemptible40 trade of fish,” as he significantly styles it, and were now equal to the Hollanders whose example he holds up for the English to emulate41; notwithstanding that “in this faculty,” as he says, “the former are so naturalized, and of their vents42 so certainly acquainted, as there is no likelihood they will ever be paralleled, having two or three thousand busses, flat-bottoms, sword-pinks, todes, and such like, that breeds them sailors, mariners43, soldiers, and merchants, never to be wrought44 out of that trade and fit for any other.” We thought that it would take all these names and more to describe the numerous craft which we saw. Even then, some years before our “renowned sires” with their “peerless dames” stepped on Plymouth Rock, he wrote, “Newfoundland doth yearly freight neir eight hundred sail of ships with a silly, lean, skinny, poor-john, and cor fish,” though all their supplies must be annually45 transported from Europe. Why not plant a colony here then, and raise those supplies on the spot? “Of all the four parts of the world,” says he, “that I have yet seen, not inhabited, could I have but means to transport a colony, I would rather live here than anywhere. And if it did not maintain itself, were we but once indifferently well fitted, let us starve.” Then “fishing before your doors,” you “may every night sleep quietly ashore8, with good cheer and what fires you will, or, when you please, with your wives and family.” Already he anticipates “the new towns in New England in memory of their old,”—and who knows what may be discovered in the “heart and entrails” of the land, “seeing even the very edges,” etc., etc.
All this has been accomplished46, and more, and where is Holland now? Verily the Dutch have taken it. There was no long interval47 between the suggestion of Smith and the eulogy48 of Burke.
Still one after another the mackerel schooners49 hove in sight round the head of the Cape, “whitening all the sea road,” and we watched each one for a moment with an undivided interest. It seemed a pretty sport. Here in the country it is only a few idle boys or loafers that go a-fishing on a rainy day; but there it appeared as if every able-bodied man and helpful boy in the Bay had gone out on a pleasure excursion in their yachts, and all would at last land and have a chowder on the Cape. The gazetteer50 tells you gravely how many of the men and boys of these towns are engaged in the whale, cod, and mackerel fishery, how many go to the banks of Newfoundland, or the coast of Labrador, the Straits of Belle51 Isle52 or the Bay of Chaleurs (Shalore the sailors call it); as if I were to reckon up the number of boys in Concord53 who are engaged during the summer in the perch54, pickerel, bream, hornpout, and shiner fishery, of which no one keeps the statistics,—though I think that it is pursued with as much profit to the moral and intellectual man (or boy), and certainly with less danger to the physical one.
One of my playmates, who was apprenticed55 to a printer, and was somewhat of a wag, asked his master one afternoon if he might go a-fishing, and his master consented. He was gone three months. When he came back, he said that he had been to the Grand Banks, and went to setting type again as if only an afternoon had intervened.
I confess I was surprised to find that so many men spent their whole day, ay, their whole lives almost, a-fishing. It is remarkable56 what a serious business men make of getting their dinners, and how universally shiftlessness and a grovelling57 taste take refuge in a merely ant-like industry. Better go without your dinner, I thought, than be thus everlastingly59 fishing for it like a cormorant60. Of course, viewed from the shore, our pursuits in the country appear not a whit22 less frivolous61.
I once sailed three miles on a mackerel cruise myself. It was a Sunday evening after a very warm day in which there had been frequent thunder-showers, and I had walked along the shore from Cohasset to Duxbury. I wished to get over from the last place to Clark’s Island, but no boat could stir, they said, at that stage of the tide, they being left high on the mud. At length I learned that the tavern-keeper, Winsor, was going out mackerelling with seven men that evening, and would take me. When there had been due delay, we one after another straggled down to the shore in a leisurely62 manner, as if waiting for the tide still, and in India-rubber boots, or carrying our shoes in our hands, waded63 to the boats, each of the crew bearing an armful of wood, and one a bucket of new potatoes besides. Then they resolved that each should bring one more armful of wood, and that would be enough. They had already got a barrel of water, and had some more in the schooner. We shoved the boats a dozen rods over the mud and water till they floated, then rowing half a mile to the vessel64 climbed aboard, and there we were in a mackerel schooner, a fine stout65 vessel of forty-three tons, whose name I forget. The baits were not dry on the hooks. There was the mill in which they ground the mackerel, and the trough to hold it, and the long-handled dipper to cast it overboard with; and already in the harbor we saw the surface rippled67 with schools of small mackerel, the real Scomber vernalis. The crew proceeded leisurely to weigh anchor and raise their two sails, there being a fair but very slight wind;—and the sun now setting clear and shining on the vessel after the thundershowers, I thought that I could not have commenced the voyage under more favorable auspices68. They had four dories and commonly fished in them, else they fished on the starboard side aft where their fines hung ready, two to a man. The boom swung round once or twice, and Winsor cast overboard the foul38 juice of mackerel mixed with rain-water which remained in his trough, and then we gathered about the helmsman and told stories. I remember that the compass was affected69 by iron in its neighborhood and varied70 a few degrees. There was one among us just returned from California, who was now going as passenger for his health and amusement. They expected to be gone about a week, to begin fishing the next morning, and to carry their fish fresh to Boston. They landed me at Clark’s Island, where the Pilgrims landed, for my companions wished to get some milk for the voyage. But I had seen the whole of it. The rest was only going to sea and catching71 the mackerel. Moreover, it was as well that I did not remain with them, considering the small quantity of supplies they had taken.
Now I saw the mackerel fleet on its fishing-ground, though I was not at first aware of it. So my experience was complete.
It was even more cold and windy to-day than before, and we were frequently glad to take shelter behind a sand-hill. None of the elements were resting. On the beach there is a ceaseless activity, always something going on, in storm and in calm, winter and summer, night and day. Even the sedentary man here enjoys a breadth of view which is almost equivalent to motion. In clear weather the laziest may look across the Bay as far as Plymouth at a glance, or over the Atlantic as far as human vision reaches, merely raising his eyelids72; or if he is too lazy to look after all, he can hardly help hearing the ceaseless dash and roar of the breakers. The restless ocean may at any moment cast up a whale or a wrecked vessel at your feet. All the reporters in the world, the most rapid stenographers, could not report the news it brings. No creature could move slowly where there was so much life around. The few wreckers were either going or coming, and the ships and the sand-pipers, and the screaming gulls73 overhead; nothing stood still but the shore. The little beach-birds trotted74 past close to the water’s edge, or paused but an instant to swallow their food, keeping time with the elements. I wondered how they ever got used to the sea, that they ventured so near the waves. Such tiny inhabitants the land brought forth75! except one fox. And what could a fox do, looking on the Atlantic from that high bank? What is the sea to a fox? Sometimes we met a wrecker with his cart and dog,—and his dog’s faint bark at us wayfarers76, heard through the roaring of the surf, sounded ridiculously faint. To see a little trembling dainty-footed cur stand on the margin77 of the ocean, and ineffectually bark at a beach-bird, amid the roar of the Atlantic! Come with design to bark at a whale, perchance! That sound will do for farmyards. All the dogs looked out of place there, naked and as if shuddering78 at the vastness; and I thought that they would not have been there had it not been for the countenance79 of their masters. Still less could you think of a cat bending her steps that way, and shaking her wet foot over the Atlantic; yet even this happens sometimes, they tell me. In summer I saw the tender young of the Piping Plover80, like chickens just hatched, mere58 pinches of down on two legs, running in troops, with a faint peep, along the edge of the waves. I used to see packs of half-wild dogs haunting the lonely beach on the south shore of Staten Island, in New York Bay, for the sake of the carrion81 there cast up; and I remember that once, when for a long time I had heard a furious barking in the tall grass of the marsh82, a pack of half a dozen large dogs burst forth on to the beach, pursuing a little one which ran straight to me for protection, and I afforded it with some stones, though at some risk to myself; but the next day the little one was the first to bark at me. under these circumstances I could not but remember the words of the poet:—
“Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As his ingratitude83;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
“Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.”
Sometimes, when I was approaching the carcass of a horse or ox which lay on the beach there, where there was no living creature in sight, a dog would unexpectedly emerge from it and slink away with a mouthful of offal.
The sea-shore is a sort of neutral ground, a most advantageous85 point from which to contemplate86 this world. It is even a trivial place. The waves forever rolling to the land are too far-travelled and untamable to be familiar. Creeping along the endless beach amid the sun-squall and the foam, it occurs to us that we, too, are the product of sea-slime.
It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in it. Strewn with crabs87, horse-shoes, and razor-clams, and whatever the sea casts up,—a vast morgue, where famished88 dogs may range in packs, and crows come daily to glean89 the pittance90 which the tide leaves them. The carcasses of men and beasts together lie stately up upon its shelf, rotting and bleaching91 in the sun and waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, and tucks fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature, inhumanly92 sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling93 at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray.
We saw this forenoon what, at a distance, looked like a bleached94 log with a branch still left on it. It proved to be one of the principal bones of a whale, whose carcass, having been stripped of blubber at sea and cut adrift, had been washed up some months before. It chanced that this was the most conclusive95 evidence which we met with to prove, what the Copenhagen antiquaries assert, that these shores were the Furdustrandas which Thorhall, the companion of Thorfinn during his expedition to Vinland in 1007. sailed past in disgust. It appears that after they had left the Cape and explored the country about Straum-Fiordr (Buzzards’ Bay!), Thorhall, who was disappointed at not getting any wine to drink there, determined to sail north again in search of Vinland. Though the antiquaries have given us the original Icelandic. I prefer to quote their translation, since theirs is the only Latin which I know to have been aimed at Cape Cod.
“Cum parati erant, sublato
velo, cecinit Thorhallus:
Eò redeamus, ubi conterranei
sunt nostri! faciamus aliter,
expansi arenosi peritum,
lata navis explorare curricula:
dum procellam incitantes gladii
moræ impatientes, qui terram
collaudant, Furdustrandas
inhabitant et coquunt balænas.”
In other words: “When they were ready and their sail hoisted97, Thorhall sang: Let us return thither98 where our fellow-countrymen are. Let us make a bird[1] skilful99 to fly through the heaven of sand,[2] to explore the broad track of ships; while warriors100 who impel101 to the tempest of swords,[3] who praise the land, inhabit Wonder-Strands102, and cook whales.’” And so he sailed north past Cape Cod, as the antiquaries say, “and was shipwrecked on to Ireland.”
Though once there were more whales cast up here, I think that it was never more wild than now. We do not associate the idea of antiquity104 with the ocean, nor wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable always. The Indians have left no traces on its surface, but it is the same to the civilized105 man and the savage106. The aspect of the shore only has changed. The ocean is a wilderness107 reaching round the globe, wilder than a Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very wharves108 of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side residences. Serpents, bears, hyenas109, tigers, rapidly vanish as civilization advances, but the most populous110 and civilized city cannot scare a shark far from its wharves. It is no further advanced than Singapore, with its tigers, in this respect. The Boston papers had never told me that there were seals in the harbor. I had always associated these with the Esquimaux and other outlandish people. Yet from the parlor111 windows all along the coast you may see families of them sporting on the flats. They were as strange to me as the merman would be. Ladies who never walk in the woods, sail over the sea. To go to sea! Why, it is to have the experience of Noah,—to realize the deluge112. Every vessel is an ark.
We saw no fences as we walked the beach, no birchen riders, highest of rails, projecting into the sea to keep the cows from wading113 round, nothing to remind us that man was proprietor114 of the shore. Yet a Truro man did tell us that owners of land on the east side of that town were regarded as owning the beach, in order that they might have the control of it so far as to defend themselves against the encroachments of the sand and the beach-grass,—for even this friend is sometimes regarded as a foe115; but he said that this was not the case on the Bay side. Also I have seen in sheltered parts of the Bay temporary fences running to low-water mark, the posts being set in sills or sleepers116 placed transversely.
After we had been walking many hours, the mackerel fleet still hovered117 in the northern horizon nearly in the same direction, but farther off, hull118 down. Though their sails were set they never sailed away, nor yet came to anchor, but stood on various tacks119 as close together as vessels120 in a haven121, and we in our ignorance thought that they were contending patiently with adverse122 winds, beating eastward; but we learned afterward123 that they were even then on their fishing-ground, and that they caught mackerel without taking in their mainsails or coming to anchor, “a smart breeze” (thence called a mackerel breeze) “being,” as one says, “considered most favorable” for this purpose. We counted about two hundred sail of mackerel fishers within one small arc of the horizon, and a nearly equal number had disappeared southward. Thus they hovered about the extremity of the Cape, like moths124 round a candle; the lights at Race Point and Long Point being bright candles for them at night,—and at this distance they looked fair and white, as if they had not yet flown into the light, but nearer at hand afterward, we saw how some had formerly125 singed126 their wings and bodies.
A village seems thus, where its able-bodied men are all ploughing the ocean together, as a common field. In North Truro the women and girls may sit at their doors, and see where their husbands and brothers are harvesting their mackerel fifteen or twenty miles off, on the sea, with hundreds of white harvest wagons127, just as in the country the farmers’ wives sometimes see their husbands working in a distant hillside field. But the sound of no dinner-horn can reach the fisher’s ear.
Having passed the narrowest part of the waist of the Cape, though still in Truro, for this township is about twelve miles long on the shore, we crossed over to the Bay side, not half a mile distant, in order to spend the noon on the nearest shrubby128 sand-hill in Provincetown, called Mount Ararat, which rises one hundred feet above the ocean. On our way thither we had occasion to admire the various beautiful forms and colors of the sand, and we noticed an interesting mirage, which I have since found that Hitchcock also observed on the sands of the Cape. We were crossing a shallow valley in the Desert, where the smooth and spotless sand sloped upward by a small angle to the horizon on every side, and at the lowest part was a long chain of clear but shallow pools. As we were approaching these for a drink in a diagonal direction across the valley, they appeared inclined at a slight but decided33 angle to the horizon, though they were plainly and broadly connected with one another, and there was not the least ripple66 to suggest a current; so that by the time we had reached a convenient part of one we seemed to have ascended129 several feet. They appeared to lie by magic on the side of the vale, like a mirror left in a slanting131 position. It was a very pretty mirage for a Provincetown desert, but not amounting to what, in Sanscrit, is called “the thirst of the gazelle,” as there was real water here for a base, and we were able to quench132 our thirst after all.
Professor Rafn, of Copenhagen, thinks that the mirage which I noticed, but which an old inhabitant of Provincetown, to whom I mentioned it, had never seen nor heard of, had something to do with the name “Furdustrandas,” i.e. Wonder-Strands, given, as I have said, in the old Icelandic account of Thorfinn’s expedition to Vinland in the year 1007, to a part of the coast on which he landed. But these sands are more remarkable for their length than for their mirage, which is common to all deserts, and the reason for the name which the Northmen them-selves give,—“because it took a long time to sail by them,”—is sufficient and more applicable to these shores. However, if you should sail all the way from Greenland to Buzzards’ Bay along the coast, you would get sight of a good many sandy beaches. But whether Thorfinn saw the mirage here or not, Thor-eau, one of the same family, did; and perchance it was because Lief the Lucky had, in a previous voyage, taken Thor-er and his people off the rock in the middle of the sea, that Thor-eau was born to see it.
This was not the only mirage which I saw on the Cape. That half of the beach next the bank is commonly level, or nearly so, while the other slopes downward to the water. As I was walking upon the edge of the bank in Wellfleet at sundown, it seemed to me that the inside half of the beach sloped upward toward the water to meet the other, forming a ridge133 ten or twelve feet high the whole length of the shore, but higher always opposite to where I stood; and I was not convinced of the contrary till I descended134 the bank, though the shaded outlines left by the waves of a previous tide but half-way down the apparent declivity135 might have taught me better. A stranger may easily detect what is strange to the oldest inhabitant, for the strange is his province. The old oysterman, speaking of gull-shooting, had said that you must aim under, when firing down the bank.
A neighbor tells me that one August, looking through a glass from Naushon to some vessels which were sailing along near Martha’s Vineyard, the water about them appeared perfectly136 smooth, so that they were reflected in it, and yet their full sails proved that it must be rippled, and they who were with him thought that it was mirage, i.e. a reflection from a haze137.
From the above-mentioned sand-hill we over-looked Provincetown and its harbor, now emptied of vessels, and also a wide expanse of ocean. As we did not wish to enter Provincetown before night, though it was cold and windy, we returned across the Deserts to the Atlantic side, and walked along the beach again nearly to Race Point, being still greedy of the sea influence. All the while it was not so calm as the reader may suppose, but it was blow, blow, blow,—roar, roar, roar,—tramp, tramp, tramp,—without interruption. The shore now trended nearly east and west.
Before sunset, having already seen the mackerel fleet returning into the Bay, we left the sea-shore on the north of Provincetown, and made our way across the Desert to the eastern extremity of the town. From the first high sand-hill, covered with beach-grass and bushes to its top, on the edge of the desert, we overlooked the shrubby hill and swamp country which surrounds Provincetown on the north, and protects it, in some measure, from the invading sand. Notwithstanding the universal barrenness, and the contiguity138 of the desert, I never saw an autumnal landscape so beautifully painted as this was. It was like the richest rug imaginable spread over an uneven139 surface; no damask nor velvet140, nor Tyrian dye or stuffs, nor the work of any loom26, could ever match it. There was the incredibly bright red of the Huckleberry, and the reddish brown of the Bayberry, mingled141 with the bright and living green of small Pitch-Pines, and also the duller green of the Bayberry, Boxberry, and Plum, the yellowish green of the Shrub-oaks, and the various golden and yellow and fawn-colored tints142 of the Birch and Maple143 and Aspen,—each making its own figure, and, in the midst, the few yellow sand-slides on the sides of the hills looked like the white floor seen through rents in the rug. Coming from the country as I did, and many autumnal woods as I had seen, this was perhaps the most novel and remarkable sight that I saw on the Cape. Probably the brightness of the tints was enhanced by contrast with the sand which surrounded this tract144. This was a part of the furniture of Cape Cod. We had for days walked up the long and bleak145 piazza146 which runs along her Atlantic side, then over the sanded floor of her halls, and now we were being introduced into her boudoir. The hundred white sails crowding round Long Point into Provincetown Harbor, seen over the painted hills in front, looked like toy ships upon a mantel-piece.
The peculiarity147 of this autumnal landscape consisted in the lowness and thickness of the shrubbery, no less than in the brightness of the tints. It was like a thick stuff of worsted or a fleece, and looked as if a giant could take it up by the hem7, or rather the tasselled fringe which trailed out on the sand, and shake it, though it needed not to be shaken. But no doubt the dust would fly in that case, for not a little has accumulated underneath149 it. Was it not such an autumnal landscape as this which suggested our high-colored rugs and carpets? Hereafter when I look on a richer rug than usual, and study its figures, I shall think, there are the huckleberry hills, and there the denser150 swamps of boxberry and blueberry: there the shrub-oak patches and the bayberries, there the maples151 and the birches and the pines. What other dyes are to be compared to these? They were warmer colors than I had associated with the New England coast.
After threading a swamp full of boxberry, and climbing several hills covered with shrub-oaks, without a path, where shipwrecked men would be in danger of perishing in the night, we came down upon the eastern extremity of the four planks152 which run the whole length of Provincetown street. This, which is the last town on the Cape, lies mainly in one street along the curving beach fronting the southeast. The sand-hills, covered with shrubbery and interposed with swamps and ponds, rose immediately behind it in the form of a crescent, which is from half a mile to a mile or more wide in the middle, and beyond these is the desert, which is the greater part of its territory, stretching to the sea on the east and west and north. The town is compactly built in the narrow space, from ten to fifty rods deep, between the harbor and the sand-hills, and contained at that time about twenty-six hundred inhabitants. The houses, in which a more modern and pretending style has at length prevailed over the fisherman’s hut, stand on the inner or plank153 side of the street, and the fish and store houses, with the picturesque-looking windmills of the Salt-works, on the water side. The narrow portion of the beach between, forming the street, about eighteen feet wide, the only one where one carriage could pass another, if there was more than one carriage in the town, looked much “heavier” than any portion of the beach or the desert which we had walked on, it being above the reach of the highest tide, and the sand being kept loose by the occasional passage of a traveller. We learned that the four planks on which we were walking had been bought by the town’s share of the Surplus Revenue, the disposition154 of which was a bone of contention155 between the inhabitants, till they wisely resolved thus to put it under foot. Yet some, it was said, were so provoked because they did not receive their particular share in money, that they persisted in walking in the sand a long time after the sidewalk was built. This is the only instance which I happen to know in which the surplus revenue proved a blessing156 to any town. A surplus revenue of dollars from the treasury157 to stem the greater evil of a surplus revenue of sand from the ocean. They expected to make a hard road by the time these planks were worn out. Indeed, they have already done so since we were there, and have almost forgotten their sandy baptism.
As we passed along we observed the inhabitants engaged in curing either fish or the coarse salt hay which they had brought home and spread on the beach before their doors, looking as yellow as if they had raked it out of the sea. The front-yard plots appeared like what indeed they were, portions of the beach fenced in, with Beach-grass growing in them, as if they were sometimes covered by the tide. You might still pick up shells and pebbles there. There were a few trees among the houses, especially silver abeles, willows158, and balm-of-Gileads; and one man showed me a young oak which he had transplanted from behind the town, thinking it an apple-tree. But every man to his trade. Though he had little woodcraft, he was not the less weatherwise, and gave us one piece of information; viz., he had observed that when a thunder-cloud came up with a flood-tide it did not rain. This was the most completely maritime159 town that we were ever in. It was merely a good harbor, surrounded by land dry, if not firm,—an inhabited beach, whereon fishermen cured and stored their fish, without any back country. When ashore the inhabitants still walk on planks. A few small patches have been reclaimed160 from the swamps, containing commonly half a dozen square rods only each. We saw one which was fenced with four lengths of rail; also a fence made wholly of hogshead-staves stuck in the ground. These, and such as these, were all the cultivated and cultivable land in Provincetown. We were told that there were thirty or forty acres in all, but we did not discover a quarter part so much, and that was well dusted with sand, and looked as if the desert was claiming it. They are now turning some of their swamps into Cranberry161 Meadows on quite an extensive scale.
Yet far from being out of the way. Provincetown is directly in the way of the navigator, and he is lucky who does not run afoul of it in the dark. It is situated162 on one of the highways of commerce, and men from all parts of the globe touch there in the course of a year.
The mackerel fleet had nearly all got in before us, it being Saturday night, excepting that division which had stood down towards Chatham in the morning; and from a hill where we went to see the sun set in the Bay we counted two hundred goodly looking schooners at anchor in the harbor at various distances from the shore, and more were yet coming round the Cape. As each came to anchor, it took in sail and swung round in the wind, and lowered its boat. They belonged chiefly to Wellfleet, Truro, and Cape Ann. This was that city of canvas which we had seen hull down in the horizon. Near at hand, and under bare poles, they were unexpectedly black-looking vessels, μέλαιναι νῆες. A fisherman told us that there were fifteen hundred vessels in the mackerel fleet, and that he had counted three hundred and fifty in Provincetown Harbor at one time. Being obliged to anchor at a considerable distance from the shore on account of the shallowness of the water, they made the impression of a larger fleet than the vessels at the wharves of a large city. As they had been manœuvring out there all day seemingly for our entertainment, while we were walking north-westward along the Atlantic, so now we found them flocking into Provincetown Harbor at night, just as we arrived, as if to meet us, and exhibit themselves close at hand. Standing by Race Point and Long Point with various speed, they reminded me of fowls163 coming home to roost.
These were genuine New England vessels. It is stated in the Journal of Moses Prince, a brother of the annalist, under date of 1721, at which time he visited Gloucester, that the first vessel of the class called schooner was built at Gloucester about eight years before, by Andrew Robinson; and late in the same century one Cotton Tufts gives us the tradition with some particulars, which he learned on a visit to the same place. According to the latter, Robinson having constructed a vessel which he masted and rigged in a peculiar148 manner, on her going off the stocks a bystander cried out, “O, how she scoons!” whereat Robinson replied, “A schooner let her be!” “From which time,” says Tufts, “vessels thus masted and rigged have gone by the name of schooners; before which, vessels of this description were not known in Europe.” (See Mass. Hist. Coll., Vol. IX., 1st Series, and Vol. I., 4th Series.) Yet I can hardly believe this, for a schooner has always seemed to me—the typical vessel.
According to C. E. Potter of Manchester, New Hampshire, the very word schooner is of New England origin, being from the Indian schoon or scoot, meaning to rush, as Schoodic, from scoot and anke, a place where water rushes. N. B. Somebody of Gloucester was to read a paper on this matter before a genealogical society, in Boston, March 3, 1859, according to the Boston Journal, q. v.
Nearly all who come out must walk on the four planks which I have mentioned, so that you are pretty sure to meet all the inhabitants of Provincetown who come out in the course of a day, provided you keep out yourself. This evening the planks were crowded with mackerel fishers, to whom we gave and from whom we took the wall, as we returned to our hotel. This hotel was kept by a tailor, his shop on the one side of the door, his hotel on the other, and his day seemed to be divided between carving164 meat and carving broadcloth.
The next morning, though it was still more cold and blustering165 than the day before, we took to the Deserts again, for we spent our days wholly out of doors, in the sun when there was any, and in the wind which never failed. After threading the shrubby hill country at the southwest end of the town, west of the Shank-Painter Swamp, whose expressive166 name—for we understood it at first as a landsman naturally would—gave it importance in our eyes, we crossed the sands to the shore south of Race Point and three miles distant, and thence roamed round eastward through the desert to where we had left the sea the evening before. We travelled five or six miles after we got out there, on a curving line, and might have gone nine or ten, over vast platters of pure sand, from the midst of which we could not see a particle of vegetation, excepting the distant thin fields of Beach-grass, which crowned and made the ridges167 toward which the sand sloped upward on each side;—all the while in the face of a cutting wind as cold as January; indeed, we experienced no weather so cold as this for nearly two months afterward. This desert extends from the extremity of the Cape, through Provincetown into Truro, and many a time as we were traversing it we were reminded of “Riley’s Narrative” of his captivity168 in the sands of Arabia, notwithstanding the cold. Our eyes magnified the patches of Beach-grass into cornfields in the horizon, and we probably exaggerated the height of the ridges on account of the mirage. I was pleased to learn afterward, from Kalm’s Travels in North America, that the inhabitants of the Lower St. Lawrence call this grass (Calamagrostis arenaria), and also Sea-lyme grass (Elymus arenarius), seigle de me; and he adds, “I have been assured that these plants grow in great plenty in Newfoundland, and on other North American shores; the places covered with them looking, at a distance, like cornfields; which might explain the passage in our northern accounts [he wrote in 1749] of the excellent wine land [Vinland det goda, Translator], which mentions that they had found whole fields of wheat growing wild.”
The Beach-grass is “two to four feet high, of a seagreen color,” and it is said to be widely diffused169 over the world. In the Hebrides it is used for mats, pack-saddles, bags, hats, etc.; paper has been made of it at Dorchester in this State, and cattle eat it when tender. It has heads somewhat like rye, from six inches to a foot in length, and it is propagated both by roots and seeds. To express its love for sand, some botanists170 have called it Psamma arenaria, which is the Greek for sand, qualified171 by the Latin for sandy,—or sandy sand. As it is blown about by the wind, while it is held fast by its roots, it describes myriad172 circles in the sand as accurately173 as if they were made by compasses.
It was the dreariest174 scenery imaginable. The only animals which we saw on the sand at that time were spiders, which are to be found almost everywhere whether on snow or ice-water or sand,—and a venomous-looking, long, narrow worm, one of the myriapods, or thousand-legs. We were surprised to see spider-holes in that flowing sand with an edge as firm as that of a stoned well.
In June this sand was scored with the tracks of turtles both large and small, which had been out in the night, leading to and from the swamps. I was told by a terræ filius who has a “farm” on the edge of the desert, and is familiar with the fame of Provincetown, that one man had caught twenty-five snapping-turtles there the previous spring. His own method of catching them was to put a toad175 on a mackerel-hook and cast it into a pond, tying the line to a stump176 or stake on shore. Invariably the turtle when hooked crawled up the line to the stump, and was found waiting there by his captor, however long afterward. He also said that minks177, muskrats178, foxes, coons, and wild mice were found there, but no squirrels. We heard of sea-turtle as large as a barrel being found on the beach and on East Harbor marsh, but whether they were native there, or had been lost out of some vessel, did not appear. Perhaps they were the Salt-water Terrapin179, or else the Smooth Terrapin, found thus far north. Many toads180 were met with where there was nothing but sand and beach-grass. In Truro I had been surprised at the number of large light-colored toads everywhere hopping181 over the dry and sandy fields, their color corresponding to that of the sand. Snakes also are common on these pure sand beaches, and I have never been so much troubled by mosquitoes as in such localities. At the same season strawberries grew there abundantly in the little hollows on the edge of the desert standing amid the beach-grass in the sand, and the fruit of the shadbush or Amelanchier, which the inhabitants call Josh-pears (some think from juicy?), is very abundant on the hills. I fell in with an obliging man who conducted me to the best locality for strawberries. He said that he would not have shown me the place if he had not seen that I was a stranger, and could not anticipate him another year; I therefore feel bound in honor not to reveal it. When we came to a pond, he being the native did the honors and carried me over on his shoulders, like Sindbad. One good turn deserves another, and if he ever comes our way I will do as much for him.
In one place we saw numerous dead tops of trees projecting through the otherwise uninterrupted desert, where, as we afterward learned, thirty or forty years before a flourishing forest had stood, and now, as the trees were laid bare from year to year, the inhabitants cut off their tops for fuel.
We saw nobody that day outside of the town; it was too wintry for such as had seen the Backside before, or for the greater number who never desire to see it, to venture out; and we saw hardly a track to show that any had ever crossed this desert. Yet I was told that some are always out on the Back-side night and day in severe weather, looking for wrecks182, in order that they may get the job of discharging the cargo183, or the like,—and thus shipwrecked men are succored184. But, generally speaking, the inhabitants rarely visit these sands. One who had lived in Provincetown thirty years told me that he had not been through to the north side within that time. Sometimes the natives themselves come near perishing by losing their way in snow-storms behind the town.
The wind was not a Sirocco or Simoon, such as we associate with the desert, but a New England northeaster,—and we sought shelter in vain under the sand-hills, for it blew all about them, rounding them into cones185, and was sure to find us out on whichever side we sat. From time to time we lay down and drank at little pools in the sand, filled with pure fresh water, all that was left, probably, of a pond or swamp. The air was filled with dust like snow, and cutting sand which made the face tingle186, and we saw what it must be to face it when the weather was drier, and, if possible, windier still,—to face a migrating sand-bar in the air, which has picked up its duds and is off,—to be whipped with a cat, not o’ nine-tails, but of a myriad of tails, and each one a sting to it. A Mr. Whitman, a former minister of Wellfleet, used to write to his inland friends that the blowing sand scratched the windows so that he was obliged to have one new pane187 set every week, that he might see out.
On the edge of the shrubby woods the sand had the appearance of an inundation188 which was overwhelming them, terminating in an abrupt189 bank many feet higher than the surface on which they stood, and having partially190 buried the out-side trees. The moving sand-hills of England, called Dunes191 or Downs, to which these have been likened, are either formed of sand cast up by the sea, or of sand taken from the land itself in the first place by the wind, and driven still farther inward. It is here a tide of sand impelled192 by waves and wind, slowly flowing from the sea toward the town. The northeast winds are said to be the strongest, but the northwest to move most sand, because they are the driest. On the shore of the Bay of Biscay many villages were formerly destroyed in this way. Some of the ridges of beach-grass which we saw were planted by government many years ago, to preserve the harbor of Provincetown and the extremity of the Cape. I talked with some who had been employed in the planting. In the “Description of the Eastern Coast,” which I have already referred to, it is said: “Beach-grass during the spring and summer grows about two feet and a half. If surrounded by naked beach, the storms of autumn and winter heap up the sand on all sides, and cause it to rise nearly to the top of the plant. In the ensuing spring the grass mounts anew; is again covered with sand in the winter; and thus a hill or ridge continues to ascend130 as long as there is a sufficient base to support it, or till the circumscribing193 sand, being also covered with beach-grass, will no longer yield to the force of the winds.” Sand-hills formed in this way are sometimes one hundred feet high and of every variety of form, like snow-drifts, or Arab tents, and are continually shifting. The grass roots itself very firmly. When I endeavored to pull it up, it usually broke off ten inches or a foot below the surface, at what had been the surface the year before, as appeared by the numerous offshoots there, it being a straight, hard, round shoot, showing by its length how much the sand had accumulated the last year; and sometimes the dead stubs of a previous season were pulled up with it from still deeper in the sand, with their own more decayed shoot attached,—so that the age of a sand-hill, and its rate of increase for several years, is pretty accurately recorded in this way.
Old Gerard, the English herbalist, says, p. 1250: “I find mention in Stowe’s Chronicle, in Anno 1555, of a certain pulse or pease, as they term it, wherewith the poor people at that time, there being a great dearth194, were miraculously195 helped: he thus mentions it. In the month of August (saith he), in Suffolke, at a place by the sea side all of hard stone and pibble, called in those parts a shelf, lying between the towns of Orford and Aldborough, where neither grew grass nor any earth was ever seen; it chanced in this barren place suddenly to spring up without any tillage or sowing, great abundance of peason, whereof the poor gathered (as men judged) above one hundred quarters, yet remained some ripe and some blossoming, as many as ever there were before: to the which place rode the Bishop196 of Norwich and the Lord Willoughby, with others in great number, who found nothing but hard, rocky stone the space of three yards under the roots of these peason, which roots were great and long, and very sweet.” He tells us also that Gesner learned from Dr. Cajus that there were enough there to supply thousands of men. He goes on to say that “they without doubt grew there many years before, but were not observed till hunger made them take notice of them, and quickened their invention, which commonly in our people is very dull, especially in finding out food of this nature. My worshipful friend Dr. Argent hath told me that many years ago he was in this place, and caused his man to pull among the beach with his hands, and follow the roots so long until he got some equal in length unto his height, yet could come to no ends of them.” Gerard never saw them, and is not certain what kind they were.
In Dwight’s Travels in New England it is stated that the inhabitants of Truro were formerly regularly warned under the authority of law in the month of April yearly, to plant beachgrass, as elsewhere they are warned to repair the highways. They dug up the grass in bunches, which were afterward divided into several smaller ones, and set about three feet apart, in rows, so arranged as to break joints197 and obstruct198 the passage of the wind. It spread itself rapidly, the weight of the seeds when ripe bending the heads of the grass, and so dropping directly by its side and vegetating199 there. In this way, for instance, they built up again that part of the Cape between Truro and Provincetown where the sea broke over in the last century. They have now a public road near there, made by laying sods, which were full of roots, bottom upward and close together on the sand, double in the middle of the track, then spreading brush evenly over the sand on each side for half a dozen feet, planting beachgrass on the banks in regular rows, as above described, and sticking a fence of brush against the hollows.
The attention of the general government was first attracted to the danger which threatened Cape Cod Harbor from the inroads of the sand, about thirty years ago, and commissioners200 were at that time appointed by Massachusetts, to examine the premises201. They reported in June, 1825, that, owing to “the trees and brush having been cut down, and the beach-grass destroyed on the seaward side of the Cape, opposite the Harbor,” the original surface of the ground had been broken up and removed by the wind toward the Harbor,—during the previous fourteen years,—over an extent of “one half a mile in breadth, and about four and a half miles in length.”—“The space where a few years since were some of the highest lands on the Cape, covered with trees and bushes,” presenting “an extensive waste of undulating sand “;—and that, during the previous twelve months, the sand “had approached the Harbor an average distance of fifty rods, for an extent of four and a half miles!” and unless some measures were adopted to check its progress, it would in a few years destroy both the harbor and the town. They therefore recommended that beach-grass be set out on a curving line over a space ten rods wide and four and a half miles long, and that cattle, horses, and sheep be prohibited from going abroad, and the inhabitants from cutting the brush.
I was told that about thirty thousand dollars in all had been appropriated to this object, though it was complained that a great part of this was spent foolishly, as the public money is wont202 to be. Some say that while the government is planting beach-grass behind the town for the protection of the harbor, the inhabitants are rolling the sand into the harbor in wheelbarrows, in order to make house-lots. The Patent-Office has recently imported the seed of this grass from Holland, and distributed it over the country, but probably we have as much as the Hollanders.
Thus Cape Cod is anchored to the heavens, as it were, by a myriad little cables of beach-grass, and, if they should fail, would become a total wreck12, and erelong go to the bottom. Formerly, the cows were permitted to go at large, and they ate many strands of the cable by which the Cape is moored203, and well-nigh set it adrift, as the bull did the boat which was moored with a grass rope; but now they are not permitted to wander.
A portion of Truro which has considerable taxable property on it has lately been added to Provincetown, and I was told by a Truro man that his townsmen talked of petitioning the legislature to set off the next mile of their territory also to Provincetown, in order that she might have her share of the lean as well as the fat, and take care of the road through it; for its whole value is literally204 to hold the Cape together, and even this it has not always done. But Provincetown strenuously205 declines the gift.
The wind blowed so hard from the northeast that, cold as it was, we resolved to see the breakers on the Atlantic side, whose din6 we had heard all the morning; so we kept on eastward through the Desert, till we struck the shore again northeast of Provincetown, and exposed ourselves to the full force of the piercing blast. There are extensive shoals there over which the sea broke with great force. For half a mile from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak. Of this part of the coast it is said: “A northeast storm, the most violent and fatal to seamen206, as it is frequently accompanied with snow, blows directly on the land: a strong current sets along the shore; add to which that ships, during the operation of such a storm, endeavor to work northward207, that they may get into the bay. Should they be unable to weather Race Point, the wind drives them on the shore, and a shipwreck103 is inevitable208. Accordingly, the strand96 is everywhere covered with the fragments of vessels.” But since the Highland209 Light was erected210, this part of the coast is less dangerous, and it is said that more shipwrecks211 occur south of that light, where they were scarcely known before.
This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,—more tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale212, a clear, cold day, with only one sail in sight, which labored213 much, as if it were anxiously seeking a harbor. It was high tide when we reached the shore, and in one place, for a considerable distance, each wave dashed up so high that it was difficult to pass between it and the bank. Further south, where the bank was higher, it would have been dangerous to attempt it. A native of the Cape has told me that, many years ago, three boys, his playmates, having gone to this beach in Wellfleet to visit a wreck, when the sea receded214 ran down to the wreck, and when it came in ran before it to the bank, but the sea following fast at their heels, caused the bank to cave and bury them alive.
It was the roaring sea, θάλασσα ἠχήεσσα,—
ἀμφὶ δὲ τ’ ἄκραι
Ἠϊόνες βοόωσιν, ἐρευγομένης ἁλὸς ἔξω.
And the summits of the bank
As we stood looking on this scene we were gradually convinced that fishing here and in a pond were not, in all respects, the same, and that he who waits for fair weather and a calm sea may never see the glancing skin of a mackerel, and get no nearer to a cod than the wooden emblem216 in the State House.
Having lingered on the shore till we were well-nigh chilled to death by the wind, and were ready to take shelter in a Charity-house, we turned our weather-beaten faces toward Provincetown and the Bay again, having now more than doubled the Cape.
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lustre
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| n.光亮，光泽；荣誉 | |
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eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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din
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| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
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hem
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| n.贴边，镶边；vt.缝贴边；(in)包围，限制 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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clams
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| n.蛤；蚌，蛤( clam的名词复数 )v.（在沙滩上）挖蛤( clam的第三人称单数 ) | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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wrecked
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| adj.失事的，遇难的 | |
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wreck
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| n.失事，遇难；沉船；vt.(船等)失事，遇难 | |
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neatly
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| adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地 | |
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pried
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| v.打听，刺探（他人的私事）( pry的过去式和过去分词 )；撬开 | |
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cod
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| n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗 | |
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pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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resound
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| v.回响 | |
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resounding
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| adj. 响亮的 | |
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determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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foam
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| v./n.泡沫，起泡沫 | |
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whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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jutted
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| v.（使）突出( jut的过去式和过去分词 )；伸出；（从…）突出；高出 | |
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brag
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| v./n.吹牛，自夸；adj.第一流的 | |
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loom
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| n.织布机，织机；v.隐现，(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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loomed
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| v.隐约出现，阴森地逼近( loom的过去式和过去分词 )；隐约出现，阴森地逼近 | |
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mirage
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景 | |
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westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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crestfallen
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| adj. 挫败的，失望的，沮丧的 | |
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dismantled
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| 拆开( dismantle的过去式和过去分词 )； 拆卸； 废除； 取消 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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34
creek
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| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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35
extremity
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| n.末端，尽头；尽力；终极；极度 | |
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36
plodded
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| v.沉重缓慢地走（路）( plod的过去式和过去分词 )；努力从事；沉闷地苦干；缓慢进行（尤指艰难枯燥的工作） | |
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37
schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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38
foul
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| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
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39
tack
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| n.大头钉；假缝，粗缝 | |
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40
contemptible
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| adj.可鄙的，可轻视的，卑劣的 | |
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41
emulate
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| v.努力赶上或超越，与…竞争；效仿 | |
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42
vents
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| （气体、液体等进出的）孔、口( vent的名词复数 )； （鸟、鱼、爬行动物或小哺乳动物的）肛门； 大衣等的)衩口； 开衩 | |
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43
mariners
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| 海员，水手（mariner的复数形式） | |
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44
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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45
annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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46
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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47
interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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48
eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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49
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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50
gazetteer
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| n.地名索引 | |
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51
belle
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| n.靓女 | |
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52
isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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53
concord
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| n.和谐；协调 | |
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54
perch
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| n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于 | |
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55
apprenticed
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| 学徒，徒弟( apprentice的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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57
grovelling
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| adj.卑下的，奴颜婢膝的v.卑躬屈节，奴颜婢膝( grovel的现在分词 )；趴 | |
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58
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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59
everlastingly
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| 永久地，持久地 | |
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60
cormorant
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| n.鸬鹚，贪婪的人 | |
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61
frivolous
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| adj.轻薄的；轻率的 | |
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62
leisurely
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| adj.悠闲的；从容的，慢慢的 | |
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63
waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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66
ripple
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| n.涟波，涟漪，波纹，粗钢梳；vt.使...起涟漪，使起波纹； vi.呈波浪状，起伏前进 | |
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67
rippled
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| 使泛起涟漪（ripple的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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68
auspices
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| n.资助，赞助 | |
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69
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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70
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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71
catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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72
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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73
gulls
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| n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 ) | |
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74
trotted
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| 小跑，急走( trot的过去分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走 | |
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75
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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76
wayfarers
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| n.旅人，（尤指）徒步旅行者( wayfarer的名词复数 ) | |
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77
margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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78
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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79
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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80
plover
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| n.珩，珩科鸟，千鸟 | |
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81
carrion
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| n.腐肉 | |
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82
marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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83
ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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84
warp
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| vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见 | |
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85
advantageous
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| adj.有利的；有帮助的 | |
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86
contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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87
crabs
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| n.蟹( crab的名词复数 )；阴虱寄生病；蟹肉v.捕蟹( crab的第三人称单数 ) | |
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88
famished
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| adj.饥饿的 | |
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89
glean
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| v.收集(消息、资料、情报等) | |
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90
pittance
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| n.微薄的薪水，少量 | |
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91
bleaching
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| 漂白法，漂白 | |
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92
inhumanly
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| adv.无人情味地，残忍地 | |
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93
nibbling
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| v.啃，一点一点地咬（吃）( nibble的现在分词 )；啃出（洞），一点一点咬出（洞）；慢慢减少；小口咬 | |
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94
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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95
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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96
strand
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| vt.使（船）搁浅，使（某人）困于（某地） | |
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97
hoisted
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| 把…吊起，升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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98
thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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99
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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100
warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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101
impel
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| v.推动；激励，迫使 | |
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102
strands
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| n.（线、绳、金属线、毛发等的）股( strand的名词复数 )；缕；海洋、湖或河的)岸；（观点、计划、故事等的）部份v.使滞留，使搁浅( strand的第三人称单数 ) | |
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103
shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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104
antiquity
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| n.古老；高龄；古物，古迹 | |
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105
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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106
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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107
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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108
wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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109
hyenas
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| n.鬣狗( hyena的名词复数 ) | |
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110
populous
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| adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的 | |
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111
parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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112
deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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113
wading
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的现在分词 ) | |
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114
proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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115
foe
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| n.敌人，仇敌 | |
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116
sleepers
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| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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117
hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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118
hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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119
tacks
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| 大头钉( tack的名词复数 )； 平头钉； 航向； 方法 | |
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120
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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121
haven
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| n.安全的地方，避难所，庇护所 | |
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122
adverse
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| adj.不利的；有害的；敌对的，不友好的 | |
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123
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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124
moths
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| n.蛾( moth的名词复数 ) | |
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125
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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126
singed
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| v.浅表烧焦( singe的过去式和过去分词 )；（毛发）燎，烧焦尖端[边儿] | |
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127
wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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128
shrubby
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| adj.灌木的，灌木一般的，灌木繁茂著的 | |
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129
ascended
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| v.上升，攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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130
ascend
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| vi.渐渐上升，升高；vt.攀登，登上 | |
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131
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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132
quench
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| vt.熄灭，扑灭；压制 | |
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133
ridge
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| n.山脊；鼻梁；分水岭 | |
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134
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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135
declivity
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| n.下坡，倾斜面 | |
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136
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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137
haze
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| n.霾，烟雾；懵懂，迷糊；vi.(over)变模糊 | |
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138
contiguity
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| n.邻近，接壤 | |
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139
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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140
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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141
mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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142
tints
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| 色彩( tint的名词复数 )； 带白的颜色； （淡色）染发剂； 痕迹 | |
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143
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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144
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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145
bleak
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| adj.(天气)阴冷的；凄凉的；暗淡的 | |
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146
piazza
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| n.广场；走廊 | |
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147
peculiarity
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| n.独特性，特色；特殊的东西；怪癖 | |
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148
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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149
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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150
denser
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| adj. 不易看透的, 密集的, 浓厚的, 愚钝的 | |
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151
maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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152
planks
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| （厚）木板( plank的名词复数 )； 政纲条目，政策要点 | |
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153
plank
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| n.板条，木板，政策要点，政纲条目 | |
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154
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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155
contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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156
blessing
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| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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157
treasury
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| n.宝库；国库，金库；文库 | |
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158
willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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159
maritime
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| adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的 | |
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160
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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161
cranberry
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| n.梅果 | |
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162
situated
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| adj.坐落在...的，处于某种境地的 | |
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163
fowls
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| 鸟( fowl的名词复数 )； 禽肉； 既不是这； 非驴非马 | |
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164
carving
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| n.雕刻品，雕花 | |
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165
blustering
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| adj.狂风大作的，狂暴的v.外强中干的威吓( bluster的现在分词 )；咆哮；（风）呼啸；狂吹 | |
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166
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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167
ridges
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| n.脊( ridge的名词复数 )；山脊；脊状突起；大气层的)高压脊 | |
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168
captivity
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| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
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169
diffused
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| 散布的，普及的，扩散的 | |
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170
botanists
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| n.植物学家，研究植物的人( botanist的名词复数 ) | |
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171
qualified
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| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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172
myriad
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| adj.无数的；n.无数，极大数量 | |
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173
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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174
dreariest
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| 使人闷闷不乐或沮丧的( dreary的最高级 )； 阴沉的； 令人厌烦的； 单调的 | |
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175
toad
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆 | |
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176
stump
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| n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走 | |
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177
minks
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| n.水貂( mink的名词复数 )；水貂皮 | |
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178
muskrats
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| n.麝鼠（产于北美，毛皮珍贵）( muskrat的名词复数 ) | |
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179
terrapin
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| n.泥龟；鳖 | |
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180
toads
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| n.蟾蜍，癞蛤蟆( toad的名词复数 ) | |
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181
hopping
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| n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式 | |
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182
wrecks
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| n.沉船( wreck的名词复数 )；（事故中）遭严重毁坏的汽车（或飞机等）；（身体或精神上）受到严重损伤的人；状况非常糟糕的车辆（或建筑物等）v.毁坏[毁灭]某物( wreck的第三人称单数 )；使（船舶）失事，使遇难，使下沉 | |
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183
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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184
succored
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| v.给予帮助( succor的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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185
cones
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| n.（人眼）圆锥细胞；圆锥体( cone的名词复数 )；球果；圆锥形东西；（盛冰淇淋的）锥形蛋卷筒 | |
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186
tingle
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| vi.感到刺痛，感到激动；n.刺痛，激动 | |
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187
pane
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| n.窗格玻璃，长方块 | |
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188
inundation
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| n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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189
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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190
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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191
dunes
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| 沙丘( dune的名词复数 ) | |
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192
impelled
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| v.推动、推进或敦促某人做某事( impel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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193
circumscribing
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| v.在…周围划线( circumscribe的现在分词 )；划定…范围；限制；限定 | |
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194
dearth
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| n.缺乏，粮食不足，饥谨 | |
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195
miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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196
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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197
joints
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| 接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语） | |
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198
obstruct
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| v.阻隔，阻塞(道路、通道等)；n.阻碍物，障碍物 | |
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199
vegetating
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| v.过单调呆板的生活( vegetate的现在分词 )；植物似地生长；（瘤、疣等）长大 | |
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200
commissioners
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| n.专员( commissioner的名词复数 )；长官；委员；政府部门的长官 | |
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201
premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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202
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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203
moored
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| adj. 系泊的 动词moor的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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204
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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205
strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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206
seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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207
northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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208
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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209
highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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210
ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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211
shipwrecks
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| 海难，船只失事( shipwreck的名词复数 )； 沉船 | |
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212
gale
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| n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等） | |
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213
labored
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| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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214
receded
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| v.逐渐远离( recede的过去式和过去分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题 | |
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215
vomited
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216
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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