The "Isola della Rena" (Sable Island?) appears on the chart of "Nuova Francia" and Norumbega, accompanying the "Discourse" above referred to in Ramusio"s third volume, edition 1556-65. Champlain speaks of there being at the Isle of Sable, in 1604, "gra.s.s pastured by oxen (_boeufs_) and cows which the Portuguese carried there more than sixty years ago,"
_i.e._ sixty years before 1613; in a later edition he says, which came out of a Spanish vessel which was lost in endeavoring to settle on the Isle of Sable; and he states that De la Roche"s men, who were left on this island seven years from 1598, lived on the flesh of these cattle which they found "_en quantie)_," and built houses out of the wrecks of vessels which came to the island ("perhaps Gilbert"s"), there being no wood or stone. Lescarbot says that they lived "on fish and the milk of cows left there about eighty years before by Baron de Leri and Saint Just." Charlevoix says they ate up the cattle and then lived on fish.
Haliburton speaks of cattle left there as a rumor. De Leri and Saint Just had suggested plans of colonization on the Isle of Sable as early as 1515 (1508?) according to Bancroft, referring to Charlevoix. These are but a few of the instances which I might quote.
Cape Cod is commonly said to have been discovered in 1602. We will consider at length under what circ.u.mstances, and with what observation and expectations, the first Englishmen whom history clearly discerns approached the coast of New England. According to the accounts of Archer and Brereton (both of whom accompanied Gosnold), on the 26th of March, 1602, old style. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold set sail from Falmouth, England, for the North part of Virginia, in a small bark called the _Concord_, they being in all, says one account, "thirty-two persons, whereof eight mariners and sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery to return with the ship for England, the rest remain there for population." This is regarded as "the first attempt of the English to make a settlement within the limits of New England." Pursuing a new and a shorter course than the usual one by the Canaries, "the 14th of April following" they had sight of Saint Mary"s, an island of the Azores. As their sailors were few and "none of the best" (I use their own phrases), and they were "going upon an unknown coast," they were not "overbold to stand in with the sh.o.r.e but in open weather"; so they made their first discovery of land with the lead. The 23d of April the ocean appeared yellow, but on taking up some of the water in a bucket, "it altered not either in color or taste from the sea azure." The 7th of May they saw divers birds whose names they knew, and many others in their "English tongue of no name." The 8th of May "the water changed to a yellowish green, where at seventy fathoms" they "had ground." The 9th, they had upon their lead "many glittering stones,"--"which might promise some mineral matter in the bottom." The 10th, they were over a bank which they thought to be near the western end of St. John"s Island, and saw schools of fish. The 12th, they say, "continually pa.s.sed fleeting by us sea-oare, which seemed to have their movable course towards the northeast." On the 13th, they observed "great beds of weeds, much wood, and divers things else floating by," and "had smelling of the sh.o.r.e much as from the southern Cape and Andalusia in Spain." On Friday, the 14th, early in the morning they descried land on the north, in the lat.i.tude of forty-three degrees, apparently some part of the coast of Maine.
Williamson (History of Maine) says it certainly could not have been south of the central Isle of Shoals. Belknap inclines to think it the south side of Cape Ann. Standing fair along by the sh.o.r.e, about twelve o"clock the same day, they came to anchor and were visited by eight savages, who came off to them "in a Biscay shallop, with sail and oars,"--"an iron grapple, and a kettle of copper." These they at first mistook for "Christians distressed." One of them was "apparelled with a waistcoat and breeches of black serge, made after our sea-fashion, hoes and shoes on his feet; all the rest (saving one that had a pair of breeches of blue cloth) were naked." They appeared to have had dealings with "some Basques of St. John de Luz, and to understand much more than we," say the English, "for want of language, could comprehend." But they soon "set sail westward, leaving them and their coast." (This was a remarkable discovery for discoverers.)
"The 15th day," writes Gabriel Archer, "we had again sight of the land, which made ahead, being as we thought an island, by reason of a large sound that appeared westward between it and the main, for coming to the west end thereof, we did perceive a large opening, we called it Shoal Hope. Near this cape we came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took great store of cod-fish, for which we altered the name and called it Cape Cod. Here we saw skulls of her-ring, mackerel, and other small fish, in great abundance. This is a low sandy shoal, but without danger; also we came to anchor again in sixteen fathoms, fair by the land in the lat.i.tude of forty-two degrees. This Cape is well near a mile broad, and lieth northeast by east. The captain went here ash.o.r.e, and found the ground to be full of peas, strawberries, whortleberries, etc., as then unripe, the sand also by the sh.o.r.e somewhat deep; the firewood there by us taken in was of cypress, birch, witch-hazel, and beach. A young Indian came here to the captain, armed with his bow and arrows, and had certain plates of copper hanging at his ears; he showed a willingness to help us in our occasions."
"The 16th we trended the coast southerly, which was all champaign and full of gra.s.s, but the islands somewhat woody."
Or, according to the account of John Brereton, "riding here," that is, where they first communicated with the natives, "in no very good harbor, and withal doubting the weather, about three of the clock the same day in the afternoon we weighed, and standing southerly off into sea the rest of that day and the night following, with a fresh gale of wind, in the morning we found ourselves embayed with a mighty headland; but coming to an anchor about nine of the clock the same day, within a league of the sh.o.r.e, we hoisted out the one half of our shallop, and Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, myself and three others, went ash.o.r.e, being a white sandy and very bold sh.o.r.e; and marching all that afternoon with our muskets on our necks, on the highest hills which we saw (the weather very hot), at length we perceived this headland to be parcel of the main, and sundry islands lying almost round about it; so returning towards evening to our shallop (for by that time the other part was brought ash.o.r.e and set together), we espied an Indian, a young man of proper stature, and of a pleasing countenance, and after some familiarity with him, we left him at the sea side, and returned to our ship, where in five or six hours" absence we had pestered our ship so with codfish, that we threw numbers of them overboard again; and surely I am persuaded that in the months of March, April, and May, there is upon this coast better fishing, and in as great plenty, as in Newfoundland; for the skulls of mackerel, herrings, cod, and other fish, that we daily saw as we went and came from the sh.o.r.e, were wonderful,"
etc.
"From this place we sailed round about this headland, almost all the points of the compa.s.s, the sh.o.r.e very bold; but as no coast is free from dangers, so I am persuaded this is as free as any. The land somewhat low, full of goodly woods, but in some places plain."
It is not quite clear on which side of the Cape they landed. If it was inside, as would appear from Brereton"s words, "From this place we sailed round about this headland almost all the points of the compa.s.s,"
it must have been on the western sh.o.r.e either of Truro or Wellfleet. To one sailing south into Barnstable Bay along the Cape, the only "white, sandy, and very bold sh.o.r.e" that appears is in these towns, though the bank is not so high there as on the eastern side. At a distance of four or five miles the sandy cliffs there look like a long fort of yellow sandstone, they are so level and regular, especially in Wellfleet,--the fort of the land defending itself against the encroachments of the Ocean. They are streaked here and there with a reddish sand as if painted. Farther south the sh.o.r.e is more flat, and less _obviously_ and abruptly sandy, and a little tinge of green here and there in the marshes appears to the sailor like a rare and precious emerald. But in the Journal of Pring"s Voyage the next year (and Salterne, who was with Pring, had accompanied Gosnold) it is said, "Departing hence [_i.e._ from Savage Rocks] we bore unto that great gulf which Captain Gosnold overshot the year before." [2]
So they sailed round the Cape, calling the southeasterly extremity "Point Cave," till they came to an island which they named Martha"s Vineyard (now called No Man"s Land), and another on which they dwelt awhile, which they named Elizabeth"s Island, in honor of the Queen, one of the group since so called, now known by its Indian name Cuttyhunk.
There they built a small storehouse, the first house built by the English in New England, whose cellar could recently still be seen, made partly of stones taken from the beach. Bancroft says (edition of 1837), the ruins of the fort can no longer be discerned. They who were to have remained becoming discontented, all together set sail for England with a load of sa.s.safras and other commodities, on the 18th of June following.
The next year came Martin Pring, looking for sa.s.safras, and thereafter they began to come thick and fast, until long after sa.s.safras had lost its reputation.
These are the oldest acounts which we have of Cape Cod, unless, perchance. Cape Cod is, as some suppose, the same with that "Kial-ar-nes" or Keel-Cape, on which, according to old Icelandic ma.n.u.scripts, Thorwald, son of Eric the Red, after sailing many days southwest from Greenland, broke his keel in the year 1004; and where, according to another, in some respects less trustworthy ma.n.u.script, Thor-finn Karlsefue ("that is, one who promises or is destined to be an able or great man"; he is said to have had a son born in New. England, from whom Thorwaldsen the sculptor was descended), sailing past, in the year 1007, with his wife Gudrida, Snorre Thorbrandson, Biarne Grinolfson, and Thorhall Garnlason, distinguished Nors.e.m.e.n, in three ships containing "one hundred and sixty men and all sorts of live stock"
(probably the first Norway rats among the rest), having the land "on the right side" of them, "roved ash.o.r.e," and found "_Or-oefi_ (trackless deserts)," and "_Strand-ir lang-ar ok sand-ar_ (long narrow beaches and sand-hills)," and "called the sh.o.r.es _Furdustrand-ir_ (Wonder-Strands), because the sailing by them seemed long."
According to the Icelandic ma.n.u.scripts, _Thorwald_ was the first, then,--unless possibly one Biarne Heriulfson (_i.e._ son of Heriulf) who had been seized with a great desire to travel, sailing from Iceland to Greenland in the year 986 to join his father who had migrated thither, for he had resolved, says the ma.n.u.script, "to spend the following winter, like all the preceding ones, with his father,"--being driven far to the southwest by a storm, when it cleared up saw the low land of Cape Cod looming faintly in the distance; but this not answering to the description of Greenland, he put his vessel about, and, sailing northward along the coast, at length reached Greenland and his father.
At any rate, he may put forth a strong claim to be regarded as the discoverer of the American continent.
These Northmen were a hardy race, whose younger sons inherited the ocean, and traversed it without chart or compa.s.s, and they are said to have been "the first who learned the art of sailing on a wind."
Moreover, they had a habit of casting their door-posts overboard and settling wherever they went ash.o.r.e. But as Biarne, and Thorwald, and Thorfinn have not mentioned the lat.i.tude and longitude distinctly enough, though we have great respect for them as skilful and adventurous navigators, we must for the present remain in doubt as to what capes they did see. We think that they were considerably further north.
If time and s.p.a.ce permitted, I could present the claims of other several worthy persons. Lescarbot, in 1609, a.s.serts that the French sailors had been accustomed to frequent the Newfoundland Banks from time immemorial, "for the codfish with which they feed almost all Europe and supply all sea-going vessels," and accordingly "the language of the nearest lands is half Basque"; and he quotes Postel, a learned but extravagant French author, born in 1510, only six years after the Basques, Bretons, and Normans are said to have discovered the Grand Bank and adjacent islands, as saying, in his _Charte Geographique_, which we have not seen: "Terra haec ob lucrosissimam piscationis utilitatem summa litterarum memoria a Gallis adiri solita, et ante mille s.e.xcentos annos frequentari solita est; sed eo quod sit urbibus inculta et vasta, spreta est." "This land, on account of its very lucrative fishery, was accustomed to be visited by the Gauls from the very dawn of history, and more than sixteen hundred years ago was accustomed to be frequented; but because it was unadorned with cities, and waste, it was despised."
It is the old story. Bob Smith discovered the mine, but I discovered it to the world. And now Bob Smith is putting in his claim.
But let us not laugh at Postel and his visions. He was perhaps better posted up than we; and if he does seem to draw the long bow, it may be because he had a long way to shoot,--quite across the Atlantic, If America was found and lost again once, as most of us believe, then why not twice? especially as there were likely to be so few records of an earlier discovery. Consider what stuff history is made of,--that for the most part it is merely a story agreed on by posterity. Who will tell us even how many Russians were engaged in the battle of the Chernaya, the other day? Yet no doubt, Mr. Scriblerus, the historian, will fix on a definite number for the schoolboys to commit to their excellent memories. What, then, of the number of Persians at Salamis? The historian whom I read knew as much about the position of the parties and their tactics in the last-mentioned affair, as they who describe a recent battle in an article for the press now-a-days, before the particulars have arrived. I believe that, if I were to live the life of mankind over again myself (which I would not be hired to do), with the Universal History in my hands, I should not be able to tell what was what.
Earlier than the date Postel refers to, at any rate. Cape Cod lay in utter darkness to the civilized world, though even then the sun rose from eastward out of the sea every day, and, rolling over the Cape, went down westward into the Bay. It was even then Cape and Bay,--ay, the Cape of _Codfish_, and the Bay of the _Ma.s.sachusetts_, perchance.
Quite recently, on the 11th of November, 1620, old style, as is well known, the Pilgrims in the _Mayflower_ came to anchor in Cape Cod harbor.
They had loosed from Plymouth, England, the 6th of September, and, in the words of "Mourts" Relation," "after many difficulties in boisterous storms, at length, by G.o.d"s providence, upon the 9th of November, we espied land, which we deemed to be Cape Cod, and so afterward it proved.
Upon the 11th of November we came to anchor in the bay, which is a good harbor and pleasant bay, circled round except in the entrance, which is about four miles over from land to land, compa.s.sed about to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sa.s.safras, and other sweet wood. It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may safely ride. There we relieved ourselves with wood and water, and refreshed our people, while our shallop was fitted to coast the bay, to search for an habitation."
There we put up at Fuller"s Hotel, pa.s.sing by the Pilgrim House as too high for us (we learned afterward that we need not have been so particular), and we refreshed ourselves with hashed fish and beans, beside taking in a supply of liquids (which were not intoxicating), while our legs were refitted to coast the back-side. Further say the Pilgrims: "We could not come near the sh.o.r.e by three quarters of an English mile, because of shallow water; which was a great prejudice to us; for our people going on sh.o.r.e were forced to wade a bow-shot or two in going aland, which caused many to get colds and coughs; for it was many times freezing cold weather." They afterwards say: "It brought much weakness amongst us"; and no doubt it led to the death of some at Plymouth.
The harbor of Provincetown is very shallow near the sh.o.r.e, especially about the head, where the Pilgrims landed. When I left this place the next summer, the steamer could not get up to the wharf, but we were carried out to a large boat in a cart as much as thirty rods in shallow water, while a troop of little boys kept us company, wading around, and thence we pulled to the steamer by a rope. The harbor being thus shallow and sandy about the sh.o.r.e, coasters are accustomed to run in here to paint their vessels, which are left high and dry when the tide goes down.
It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were there, I had joined a party of men who were smoking and lolling over a pile of boards on one of the wharves (_nihil humanum a me, etc_.), when our landlord, who was a sort of t.i.thing-man, went off to stop some sailors who were engaged in painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from time to time by other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had just got out of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom there to lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked that, as I thought, they might as well let the men paint, for all us. It was not noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in the company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain contradiction of the law of G.o.d, which he quoted, and if they did not have some such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, and paint, and they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good argument enough, if he had not put it in the name of religion. The next summer, as I sat on a hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon the meeting-house windows being open, my meditations were interrupted by the noise of a preacher who shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, I fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things could have been more disgusting or disheartening. I wished the t.i.thing-man would stop him.
[Ill.u.s.tration: The day of rest]
The Pilgrims say: "There was the greatest store of fowl that ever we saw."
We saw no fowl there, except gulls of various kinds; but the greatest store of them that ever we saw was on a flat but slightly covered with water on the east side of the harbor, and we observed a man who had landed there from a boat creeping along the sh.o.r.e in order to get a shot at them, but they all rose and flew away in a great scattering flock, too soon for him, having apparently got their dinners, though he did not get his.
It is remarkable that the Pilgrims (or their reporter) describe this part of the Cape, not only as well wooded, but as having a deep and excellent soil, and hardly mention the word _sand_. Now what strikes the voyager is the barrenness and desolation of the land. _They_ found "the ground or earth sand-hills, much like the downs in Holland, but much better the crust of the earth, a spit"s depth, excellent black earth."
_We_ found that the earth had lost its crust,--if, in-deed, it ever had any,--and that there was no soil to speak of. We did not see enough black earth in Provincetown to fill a flower-pot, unless in the swamps.
They found it "all wooded with oaks, pines, sa.s.safras, juniper, birch, holly, vines, some ash, walnut; the wood for the most part open and without underwood, fit either to go or ride in." We saw scarcely anything high enough to be called a tree, except a little low wood at the east end of the town, and the few ornamental trees in its yards,--only a few small specimens of some of the above kinds on the sand-hills in the rear; but it was all thick shrubbery, without any large wood above it, very unfit either to go or ride in. The greater part of the land was a perfect desert of yellow sand, rippled like waves by the wind, in which only a little Beach-gra.s.s grew here and there.
They say that, just after pa.s.sing the head of East Harbor Creek, the boughs and bushes "tore" their "very armor in pieces" (the same thing happened to such armor as we wore, when out of curiosity we took to the bushes); or they came to deep valleys, "full of brush, wood-gaile, and long gra.s.s," and "found springs of fresh water."
For the most part we saw neither bough nor bush, not so much as a shrub to tear our clothes against if we would, and a sheep would lose none of its fleece, even if it found herbage enough to make fleece grow there.
We saw rather beach and poverty-gra.s.s, and merely sorrel enough to color the surface. I suppose, then, by Woodgaile they mean the Bay berry.
All accounts agree in affirming that this part of the Cape was _comparatively_ well wooded a century ago. But notwithstanding the great changes which have taken place in these respects, I cannot but think that we must make some allowance for the greenness of the Pilgrims in these matters, which caused them to see green. We do not believe that the trees were large or the soil was deep here. Their account may be true particularly, but it is generally false. They saw literally, as well as figuratively, but one side of the Cape. They naturally exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness of the land, for they were glad to get to any land at all after that anxious voyage. Everything appeared to them of the color of the rose, and had the scent of juniper and sa.s.safras. Very different is the general and off-hand account given by Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six years earlier, and speaks like an old traveller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too much of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it.
In his "Description of New England," printed in 1616, after speaking of Accomack, since called Plymouth, he says: "Cape Cod is the next presents itself, which is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with shrubby pines, _hurts_ [i.e. whorts, or whortleberries], and such trash, but an excellent harbor for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle."
Champlain had already written, "Which we named _Cap Blanc_ (Cape White), because they were sands and downs (_sables et dunes_) which appeared thus."
When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter says again, "The land for the crust of the earth is a spit"s depth,"--that would seem to be their recipe for an earth"s crust,--"excellent black mould and fat in some places." However, according to Bradford himself, whom some consider the author of part of "Mourt"s Relation," they who came over in the _Fortune_ the next year were somewhat daunted when "they came into the harbor of Cape Cod, and there saw nothing but a naked and barren place."
They soon found out their mistake with respect to the goodness of Plymouth soil. Yet when at length, some years later, when they were fully satisfied of the poorness of the place which they had chosen, "the greater part," says Bradford, "consented to a removal to a place called Nausett," they agreed to remove all together to Nauset, now Eastham, which was jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of the most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did actually remove thither accordingly.
It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but few of the qualities of the modern pioneer. They were not the ancestors of the American backwoodsmen. They did not go at once into the woods with their axes. They were a family and church, and were more anxious to keep together, though it were on the sand, than to explore and colonize a New World. When the above-mentioned company removed to Eastham, the church at Plymouth was left, to use Bradford"s expression, "like an ancient mother grown old, and forsaken of her children." Though they landed on Clark"s Island in Plymouth harbor, the 9th of December (O. S.), and the 16th all hands came to Plymouth, and the 18th they rambled about the mainland, and the 19th decided to settle there, it was the 8th of January before Francis Billington went with one of the master"s mates to look at the magnificent pond or lake now called "Billington Sea," about two miles distant, which he had discovered from the top of a tree, and mistook for a great sea. And the 7th of March "Master Carver with five others went to the great ponds which seem to be excellent fishing," both which points are within the compa.s.s of an ordinary afternoon"s ramble,--however wild the country. It is true they were busy at first about their building, and were hindered in that by much foul weather; but a party of emigrants to California or Oregon, with no less work on their hands,--and more hostile Indians,--would do as much exploring the first afternoon, and the Sieur de Champlain would have sought an interview with the savages, and examined the country as far as the Connecticut, and made a map of it, before Billington had climbed his tree. Or contrast them only with the French searching for copper about the Bay of Fundy in 1603, tracing up small streams with Indian guides.
Nevertheless, the Pilgrims were pioneers and the ancestors of pioneers, in a far grander enterprise.
By this time we saw the little steamer _Naushon_ entering the harbor, and heard the sound of her whistle, and came down from the hills to meet her at the wharf. So we took leave of Cape Cod and its inhabitants. We liked the manners of the last, what little we saw of them, very much. They were particularly downright and good-humored. The old people appeared remarkably well preserved, as if by the saltness of the atmosphere, and after having once mistaken, we could never be certain whether we were talking to a coeval of our grandparents, or to one of our own age. They are said to be more purely the descendants of the Pilgrims than the inhabitants of any other part of the State. We were told that "sometimes, when the court comes together at Barnstable, they have not a single criminal to try, and the jail is shut up." It was "to let" when we were there. Until quite recently there was no regular lawyer below Orleans. Who then will complain of a few regular man-eating sharks along the back-side?
One of the ministers of Truro, when I asked what the fishermen did in the winter, answered that they did nothing but go a-visiting, sit about and tell stories,--though they worked hard in summer. Yet it is not a long vacation they get. I am sorry that I have not been there in the winter to hear their yarns. Almost every Cape man is Captain of some craft or other,--every man at least who is at the head of his own affairs, though it is not every one that is, for some heads have the force of _Alpha privative_, negativing all the efforts which Nature would fain make through them. The greater number of men are merely corporals.
It is worth the while to talk with one whom his neighbors address as Captain, though his craft may have long been sunk, and he may be holding by his teeth to the shattered mast of a pipe alone, and only gets half-seas-over in a figurative sense, now. He is pretty sure to vindicate his right to the t.i.tle at last,--can tell one or two good stories at least.
For the most part we saw only the back-side of the towns, but our story is true as far as it goes. We might have made more of the Bay side, but we were inclined to open our eyes widest at the Atlantic. We did not care to see those features of the Cape in which it is inferior or merely equal to the mainland, but only those in which it is peculiar or superior. We cannot say how its towns look in front to one who goes to meet them; we went to see the ocean behind them. They were merely the raft on which we stood, and we took notice of the barnacles which adhered to it, and some carvings upon it.
Before we left the wharf we made the acquaintance of a pa.s.senger whom we had seen at the hotel. When we asked him which way he came to Provincetown, he answered that he was cast ash.o.r.e at Wood End, Sat.u.r.day night, in the same storm in which the _St. John_ was wrecked. He had been at work as a carpenter in Maine, and took pa.s.sage for Boston in a schooner laden with lumber. When the storm came up, they endeavored to get into Provincetown harbor. "It was dark and misty," said he, "and as we were steering for Long Point Light we suddenly saw the land near us,--for our compa.s.s was out of order,--varied several degrees [a mariner always casts the blame on his compa.s.s],--but there being a mist on sh.o.r.e, we thought it was farther off than it was, and so held on, and we immediately struck on the bar. Says the Captain, "We are all lost."
Says I to the Captain, "Now don"t let her strike again this way; head her right on." The Captain thought a moment, and then headed her on. The sea washed completely over us, and wellnigh took the breath out of my body. I held on to the running rigging, but I have learned to hold on to the standing rigging the next time." "Well, were there any drowned?" I asked. "No; we all got safe to a house at Wood End, at midnight, wet to our skins, and half frozen to death." He had apparently spent the time since playing checkers at the hotel, and was congratulating himself on having beaten a tall fellow-boarder at that game. "The vessel is to be sold at auction to-day," he added. (We had heard the sound of the crier"s bell which advertised it.) "The Captain is rather down about it, but I tell him to cheer up and he will soon get another vessel."
At that moment the Captain called to him from the wharf. He looked like a man just from the country, with a cap made of a woodchuck"s skin, and now that I had heard a part of his history, he appeared singularly dest.i.tute,--a Captain without any vessel, only a great-coat! and that perhaps a borrowed one! Not even a dog followed him; only his t.i.tle stuck to him. I also saw one of the crew. They all had caps of the same pattern, and wore a subdued look, in addition to their naturally aquiline features, as if a breaker--a "comber"--had washed over them. As we pa.s.sed Wood End, we noticed the pile of lumber on the sh.o.r.e which had made the cargo of their vessel.
About Long Point in the summer you commonly see them catching lobsters for the New York market, from small boats just off the sh.o.r.e, or rather, the lobsters catch themselves, for they cling to the netting on which the bait is placed of their own accord, and thus are drawn up. They sell them fresh for two cents apiece. Man needs to know but little more than a lobster in order to catch him in his traps. The mackerel fleet had been getting to sea, one after another, ever since midnight, and as we were leaving the Cape we pa.s.sed near to many of them under sail, and got a nearer view than we had had;--half a dozen red-shirted men and boys, leaning over the rail to look at us, the skipper shouting back the number of barrels he had caught, in answer to our inquiry. All sailors pause to watch a steamer, and shout in welcome or derision. In one a large Newfoundland dog put his paws on the rail and stood up as high as any of them, and looked as wise. But the skipper, who did not wish to be seen no better employed than a dog, rapped him on the nose and sent him below. Such is human justice! I thought I could hear him making an effective appeal down there from human to divine justice. He must have had much the cleanest breast of the two.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Provincetown fishing-vessel]
Still, many a mile behind us across the Bay, we saw the white sails of the mackerel fishers hovering round Cape Cod, and when they were all hull-down, and the low extremity of the Cape was also down, their white sails still appeared on both sides of it, around where it had sunk, like a city on the ocean, proclaiming the rare qualities of Cape Cod Harbor.
But before the extremity of the Cape had completely sunk, it appeared like a filmy sliver of land lying flat on the ocean, and later still a mere reflection of a sand-bar on the haze above. Its name suggests a homely truth, but it would be more poetic if it described the impression which it makes on the beholder. Some capes have peculiarly suggestive names. There is Cape Wrath, the northwest point of Scotland, for instance; what a good name for a cape lying far away dark over the water under a lowering sky!
Mild as it was on sh.o.r.e this morning, the wind was cold and piercing on the water. Though it be the hottest day in July on land, and the voyage is to last but four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for you are about to float over melted icebergs. When I left Boston in the steamboat on the 25th of June the next year, it was a quite warm day on sh.o.r.e. The pa.s.sengers were dressed in their thinnest clothes, and at first sat under their umbrellas, but when we were fairly out on the Bay, such as had only their coats were suffering with the cold, and sought the shelter of the pilot"s house and the warmth of the chimney. But when we approached the harbor of Provincetown, I was surprised to perceive what an influence that low and narrow strip of sand, only a mile or two in width, had over the temperature of the air for many miles around. We penetrated into a sultry atmosphere where our thin coats were once more in fashion, and found the inhabitants sweltering.
Leaving far on one side Manomet Point in Plymouth and the Scituate sh.o.r.e, after being out of sight of land for an hour or two, for it was rather hazy, we neared the Coha.s.set Rocks again at Minot"s Ledge, and saw the great Tupelo-tree on the edge of Scituate, which lifts its dome, like an umbelliferous plant, high over the surrounding forest, and is conspicuous for many miles over land and water. Here was the new iron light-house, then unfinished, in the shape of an egg-sh.e.l.l painted red, and placed high on iron pillars, like the ovum of a sea monster floating on the waves,--destined to be phosph.o.r.escent. As we pa.s.sed it at half-tide we saw the spray tossed up nearly to the sh.e.l.l. A man was to live in that egg-sh.e.l.l day and night, a mile from the sh.o.r.e. When I pa.s.sed it the next summer it was finished and two men lived in it, and a light-house keeper said that they told him that in a recent gale it had rocked so as to shake the plates off the table. Think of making your bed thus in the crest of a breaker! To have the waves, like a pack of hungry wolves, eying you always, night and day, and from time to time making a spring at you, almost sure to have you at last. And not one of all those voyagers can come to your relief,--but when your light goes out, it will be a sign that the light of your life has gone out also. What a place to compose a work on breakers! This light-house was the cynosure of all eyes. Every pa.s.senger watched it for half an hour at least; yet a colored cook belonging to the boat, whom I had seen come out of his quarters several times to empty his dishes over the side with a flourish, chancing to come out just as we were abreast of this light, and not more than forty rods from it, and were all gazing at it, as he drew back his arm, caught sight of it, and with surprise exclaimed, "What"s that?" He had been employed on this boat for a year, and pa.s.sed this light every weekday, but as he had never chanced to empty his dishes just at that point, had never seen it before. To look at lights was the pilot"s business; he minded the kitchen fire. It suggested how little some who voyaged round the world could manage to see. You would almost as easily believe that there are men who never yet chanced to come out at the right time to see the sun. What avails it though a light be placed on the top of a hill, if you spend all your life directly under the hill? It might as well be under a bushel. This light-house, as is well known, was swept away in a storm in April, 1851, and the two men in it, and the next morning not a vestige of it was to be seen from the sh.o.r.e.
A Hull man told me that he helped set up a white-oak pole on Minot"s Ledge some years before. It was fifteen inches in diameter, forty-one feet high, sunk four feet in the rock, and was secured by four guys,--but it stood only one year. Stone piled up cob-fashion near the same place stood eight years.