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Cape Cod Railroad," though it is but the beginning of the Cape. As it rained hard, with driving mists, and, as there was no sign of its holding up, we here took that almost obsolete conveyance, the stage, for "as far as it went that day," as we told the driver. We had forgotten how far a stage could go in a day, but we understood that the Cape roads were very "heavy," though they told us that, being of sand, the rain would improve them. This coach was an exceedingly narrow one, but as there was a slight spherical excess over two on a seat, the driver waited till nine passengers had got in, without taking the measure of any of them, and then shut the door after two or three ineffectual slams, as if the fault were all in the hinges or the latch-while we timed our inspirations and expirations so as to assist him.

We were now fairly on the Cape, which extends from Sandwich eastward thirty-five miles, and thence north and northwest thirty more, in all sixty-five, and has an average breadth of about five miles. In the interior it rises to the hight of two hundred, and sometimes perhaps three hundred, feet above the level of the sea. According to Hitchcock, the geologist of the State, it is composed almost entirely of sand, even to the depth of three hundred feet in some places-though there is probably a concealed core of rock a little beneath the surface-and it is of diluvial origin, excepting a small portion at the extremity and elsewhere along the shores, which is alluvial. For the first half of the Cape large blocks of stone are found, here and there, mixed with the sand, but for the last thirty miles boulders, or even gravel, are rarely met with. Hitchcock conjectures that the ocean

has, in course of time, eaten out Boston harbor and other bays in the main land, and that the minute fragments have been deposited by the currents at a distance from the shore, and formed this sand bank. Above the sand, if the surface is subjected to agricultural tests, there is found to be a thin layer of soil gradually diminishing from Barnstable to Truro, where it ceases; but there are many holes and rents in this weatherbeaten garment not, likely to be stitched in time, which reveal the naked flesh of the Cape, and its extremity is completely bare.

I at once got out my book, the eighth volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, printed in 1802, which contains some short notices of the Cape towns, and began to read up to where I was-for in the cars I could not read as fast as I traveled. To those who came from the side of Plymouth, it said:-" "After riding through a body of woods, twelve miles in extent, interspersed with but few houses, the settlement of Sandwich appears, with a more agreeable effect, to the eye of the traveler." Another writer speaks of this as a beautiful village. But I think that our villages will bear to be contrasted only with one another, not with Nature. I have no great respect for the writer's taste, who talks easily about beautiful villages, embellished, perchance, with a "fulling-mill," "a handsome academy," or meeting-house, and "a number of shops for the different mechanic arts;" where the green and white houses of the gentry, drawn up in rows, front on a street of which it would be difficult to tell whether it is most like a desert or a long stable-yard. Such spots can be beautiful only to the weary traveler, or the returning native—or, perchance, the repentant misanthrope; not to him who, with unprejudiced senses, has just come out of the woods, and approaches one of them, by a bare road, through a succession of straggling homesteads where he cannot tell which is the alms-house. However, as for Sandwich, I cannot speak particularly. Ours was but half a Sandwich at most, and that must have fallen on the buttered side some time. I only saw that it was a closely-built town for a small one, with glass-works to improve its sand, and narrow streets in which we turned round and round till we could not tell which way we were going, and the rain came

in, first on this side, and then on that, and I saw that they in the houses were more comfortable than we in the coach. My book also said of this town-"the inhabitants, in general, are substantial livers." that is, I suppose, they do not live like philosophers; but, as the stage did not stop long enough for us to dine, we had no opportunity to test the truth of this statement. It may have referred, however, to the quantity "of oil they would yield." It further said, "the inhabitants of Sandwich generally manifest a fond and steady adherence to the manners, employments and modes of living which characterized their fathers;" which made me think that they were, after all, very much like all the rest of the world; and it added that this was "a resemblance, which, at this day, will constitute no impeachment of either their virtue or taste;" which remark only proves to me that the writer was one with the rest of them. No people ever lived by cursing their fathers, however great a curse their fathers may have been to them. But it must be confessed that ours was old authority, and probably they have changed all that

now.

Our route was along the Bay side, through Barnstable, Yarmouth, Dennis and Brewster, to Orleans, with a range of low hills on our right, running down the Cape. The weather was not favorable for wayside views, but we made the most of such glimpses of land and water as we could get through the rain. The country was, for the most part, bare, or with only a little scrubby wood left on the hills. We noticed in Yarmouth-and, if I do not mistake, in Dennis-large tracts where pitch pines were planted four or five years before. They were in rows, as they appeared when we were abreast of them, and, excepting that there were extensive vacant spaces, seemed to be doing remarkably well. This, we were told, was the only use to which such tracts could be profitably put. Every higher eminence had a pole set up on it, with an old stormcoat or sail tied to it, for a signal, that those on the south side of the Cape, for instance, might know when the Boston packets had arrived on the north. It appeared as if this use must absorb the greater part of the old clothes of the Cape, leaving but few rags for the peddlers. The wind-mills on the hills-large weather-stained octagonal structures—

and the salt-works scattered all along the shore-with their long rows of vats resting on piles driven into the marsh, their low, turtle-like roofs, and their slighter wind-mills-were novel and interesting objects to a countryman. The sand by the roadside was partially covered with bunches of a moss-like plant, Hudsonia tormentosa, which, a woman in the stage told us, was called "poverty grass," because it grew where nothing else would.

I was struck by the pleasant equality which reigned among the stage company, and their broad and invulnerable good humor. They were what is called free and easy, and met one another to advantage, as men who had, at length, learned how to live. They appeared to know each other when they were strangers, they were so simple and downright. They were well met, in an unusual sense, that is, they met as well as they could meet, and did not seem to be troubled with any impediment. They were not afraid, nor ashamed of one another, but were contented to make just such a company as the ingredients allowed. It was evident, that the same foolish respect was not here claimed, for mere wealth and station, that is in many parts of New England; yet, some of them were the "first people,' as they are called, of the various towns through which we passed. Retired seacaptains, in easy circumstances, who talked of farming as sea-captains are wont; an erect, respectable, and trustworthy looking man, in his wrapper, some of the salt of the earth, who had formerly been the salt of the sea; or a more courtly gentleman, who, perchance, had been a representative to the General Court, in his day; or a broad, red-faced Cape Cod man, who had seen too many storms to be easily irritated; or a fisherman's wife, who had been waiting a week for a coaster, to leave Boston, and had at length come by the

cars.

Still we kept on in the rain, or, if we stopped, it was commonly at a postoffice, and we thought, that writing letters, and sorting them against our arrival, must be the principal employment of the inhabitants of the Cape, this rainy day. The Post-office appeared a singularly domestic institution here. Ever and anon the stage stopped before some low shop or dwelling, and a wheelwright or shoemaker appeared in his

shirt sleeves and leather apron, with spectacles newly donned, holding up Uncle Sam's bag, as if it were a slice of home-made cake, for the travelers, while he retailed some piece of gossip to the driver, really as indifferent to the presence of the former, as if they were so much baggage. In one instance, we understood that a woman was the post-mistress, and they said that she made the best one on the road; but we suspected that the letters must be subjected to a very close scrutiny there. While we were stopping, for this purpose, at Dennis, we ventured to put our heads out of the windows, to see where we were going, and saw rising before us, through the mist, singular barren hills, all stricken with poverty grass, looming up as if they were in the horizon, though they were close to us, and we thought we had got to the end of the land on that side, notwithstanding that the horses were still headed that way. Indeed, that part of Dennis which we saw was an exceedingly barren and desolate country, of a character which I can find no name for; such a surface, perhaps, as the bottom of the sea made dry land day before yesterday. It was covered with poverty grass, and there was hardly a tree in sight, but here and there a little weather-stained, one-storied house, with a red roof-for often the roof was painted, though the rest of the house was not-standing bleak and cheerless, yet, with a broad foundation to the land, where the comfort must have been all inside. Yet we read in the Gazeteer, for we carried that, too, with us, that in '37, one hundred and fifty masters of vessels, belonging to this town, sailed from the various ports of the Union. There must be many more houses in the south part of the town, else we cannot imagine where they all lodge when they are at home, if ever they are there; but the truth is, their houses are floating ones, and their home is on the ocean. There were almost no trees at all in this part of Dennis, nor could I learn that they talked of setting out any. It is true, there was a meeting-house, set round with Lombardy poplars, in a hollow square, the rows fully as straight as the studs of a building, and the corners as square; but, if I do not mistake, every one of them was dead. I could not help thinking that they needed a revival here. Our book said, that, in 1795,

there was erected in Dennis "an elegant meeting-house, with a steeple." Perhaps, this was the one; though whether it had a steeple, or had died down so far from sympathy with the poplars, I do not remember. Another meetinghouse in this town was described as a "neat building," but of the meetinghouse in Chatham, a neighboring town, for there was then but one, nothing is said, except that it "is in good repair," both which remarks, I trust, may he understood as applying to the churches spiritual as well as material. However, "elegant meeting-houses," from that Trinity one, on Broadway, to this at Nobscusset, in my estimation, belong to the same category with "beautiful villages." I was never in season to see one. Handsome is that handsome does. What they did for shade here, in warm weather, we did not know, though we read that "fogs are more frequent in Chatham than in any other part of the country; and they serve, in summer, instead of trees, to shelter the houses against the heat of the sun. To those who delight in extensive vision,❞—is it to be inferred that the inhabitants of Chatham do not?-"they are unpleasant, but they are not found to be unhealthful." Probably, also, the unobstructed seabreeze answers the purpose of a fan.

The road, which was quite hilly, here ran near the Bay-shore, having the Bay on one side and "the rough hill of Scargo," said to be the highest land on the Cape, on the other. Of the wide prospect of the Bay, afforded by the suminit of this hill, our guide says:"The view has not much of the beautiful in it, but it communicates a strong emotion of the sublime." That is the kind of communication which we love to have made to us. We passed through the village of Suet, in Dennis, on Suet and Quivet Necks, of which it is said, "when compared with Nobscusset"- -we had a misty recollection of having passed through, or near to, the latter," it may be denominated a pleasant village; but, in comparison with the village of Sandwich, there is little or no beauty in it." However, we liked Dennis well, better than any town we had seen on the Cape, it was SO novel, and, in that stormy day, so sublimely dreary.

Captain John Sears, of Suet, was the first person in this country who obtained pure marine salt by solar evaporation

alone; though it had long been made in a similar way on the coast of France, and elsewhere. This was in the year 1776, at which time, on account of the war, salt was scarce and dear. The Historical Collections contain an interesting account of his experiments, which we read when we first saw the roofs of the salt-works. Barnstable county is the most favorable locality for these works on our coast, there is so little fresh water here emptying into ocean. Quite recently there were about two millions of dollars invested in this business here. But now the Cape is unable to compete with the importers of salt and the manufacturers of it at the West, and, accordingly, her salt-works are fast going to decay. From making salt, they turn to fishing more than ever. The Gazetteer will uniformly tell you, under the head of each town, more correctly than I can, how many go a-fishing, and the value of the fish and oil taken, how much salt is made and used, how many are engaged in the coasting trade, how many in manufacturing palm-leaf hats, leather, boots, shoes, and tinware, and then it has done, and leaves you to imagine the more truly domestic manufactures which are nearly the same all the world over.

Late in the afternoon, we rode through Brewster, so named after Elder Brewster, for fear he would be forgotten else. Who has not heard of Elder Brewster? Who knows who he was? This appeared to be the modern-built town of the Cape, the favorite residence of retired sea-captains. It is said that "there are more masters and mates, of vessels which sail on foreign voyages, belonging to this place than to any other town in the country." There were many of the modern American houses here, such as they turn out at Cambridgeport, standing on the sand; you could almost swear that they had been floated down Charles River, and

drifted across the bay. I call them American, because they are paid for by Americans, and "put up" by American carpenters; but they are little removed from lumber, only eastern stuff disguised with white paint, the least interesting kind of drift-wood to me. Per haps we have reason to be proud of ow naval architecture, and need not go to the Greeks, or the Goths, or the Italians, for the models of our vessels. Seacaptains do not employ a Cambridgeport carpenter to build their floating houses, and for their houses on shore, if they must copy any, it would be more agreeable to the imagination to see one of their vessels turned bottom upward, in the Numidian fashion. We read that," at certain seasons, the reflection of the sun upon the windows of the houses in Wellfleet and Truro [across the inner side of the elbow of the Cape] is discernible with the naked eye, at a distance of eighteen miles and upward, on the county road." This we were pleased to imagine, as we had not seen the sun for twenty-four hours.

At length, we stopped for the night at Higgins's tavern, in Orleans, feeling very much as if we were on a sand-bar in the ocean, and not knowing whether we should see land or water ahead when the mist cleared away. We here overtook two Italian boys, who had waded thus far down the Cape through the sand, with their organs on their backs, and were going on to Provincetown. What a hard lot, we thought, if the Provincetown people should shut their doors against them! Whose yard would they go to next? Yet we concluded that they had chosen wisely to come here, where other music than that of the surf must be rare. Thus the great civilizer sends out its emissaries, sooner or later, to every sandy cape and light-house of the New World, which the census-taker visits, and summons the savage there to surrender.

"I DON'T think much, my young

friend, of those Mormons! I have had some reasons of my own for disliking them!" said Parson Field to me, as we sat together, one August noon, in the porch of his red house at Plainfield.

"Do tell me, sir," said I, settling myself in an easy attitude to hear his story-for a story from Parson Field was not to be despised-his quaint simplicity bringing out, in old-time and expressive phrases, whatever he describes with the clear fidelity of an interior by Mieris. "Do tell me," said I again, with a deeper emphasis; whereat the old gentleman looked at me over his spectacles, and, smiling benignantly into my eager face, began.

"When I first came to Plainfield," said he, 66 more than thirty years ago, I had been a minister of the Lord only ten years, and I had been settled for that period of time in a large city, where I served acceptably to a worthy congregation; but certain reasons of my own induced me to leave that situation, and come here to live, where also I found acceptance, and not many months after I came there was a considerable reviving of the work in this place, and many believed. Of these was a certain Joseph Frazer, a young Scotchman, concerning whom I felt much misgiving, lest he should take the wrong path; but he, in due season, joined himself to the church, and edified the brethren in walk and conversation; so that, when he left Plainfield and settled in the West Indies, we were loth to have him go.

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Some years afterwards we heard he was married there to a lady of Spanish extraction, and a Catholic; and, after ten years elapsed, she died, leaving him one child, a daughter, eight years of age, and with her he came to Plainfield, desiring that the child, whom he had named Adeline, after his own mother, should have a New England training.

"But, wonderful are the way of Providence! On his return to Cuba, he perished in the vessel, which went down in a heavy gale off Cape Hatteras; and

VOL. V.--41

when the news came to his mother, old Mrs. Frazer, she sent for me that I should tell the child Adeline, for she had given proofs of a singular nature, ardent and self-confident in the extreme. I took my hat, and went over to Mrs. Frazer's, with a very heavy heart, for the grief of a child is a fearful thing to me, and to be the bringer of evil tidings, that shall stain the pureness and calm of a child's thoughts with the irreparable shadow of death, is no light thing, nor casily to be done. I entered into the house one day in June: it was a very sweet day, and, as I walked quietly into the low kitchen, I saw Adeline, with her head resting on her hands, and her large eyes eagerly gazing out of the window at the gambols of a scarlet-throated humming-bird. I went close to her, and thought to myself that I would speak, but I did not, for I saw that, in her little pale face, which made me more sad than before; and I had it on my lips to say, Adeline, are you homesick?' (which was the thing of all others I should not say) when suddenly she turned about, and answered the question before I spoke it.

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"Sir,' said she, I wish I was in Cuba. I had just such a humming-bird at home; and I fed it with orange boughs full of white flowers, every day; but you have no orange trees here, and I have no papa!"

"It seemed to me that the child's angel had thus opened the way for me to speak, and I began to say some things about the love of our universal Father, when she laid her little hand on my arm with a fearfully strong pressure. Mr. Field,' said she, is my papa dead?' I never shall forget the eyes that looked that question into mine. I felt like an unveiled spirit before their eager, piercing stare. I did not answer except by a strong quiver of feeling that would run over my features, for I loved her father even as a kinsman, and I needed to say nothing more, for the child fell at my feet quite rigid, and I called Mrs. Frazer, who tried all her nurse-arts to restore little Adeline; but was forced, at last, to send for a physi