Some Of The Swamps Abound With Peat, Which Serves The
Poor Instead Of Firewood.
There are fourteen ponds on this island,
all extremely useful, some lying transversely, almost across it,
which greatly helps to divide it into partitions for the use of
their cattle; others abound with peculiar fish and sea fowls.
Their
streets are not paved, but this is attended with little
inconvenience, as it is never crowded with country carriages; and
those they have in the town are seldom made use of but in the time
of the coming in and before the sailing of their fleets. At my first
landing I was much surprised at the disagreeable smell which struck
me in many parts of the town; it is caused by the whale oil, and is
unavoidable; the neatness peculiar to these people can neither
remove nor prevent it. There are near the wharfs a great many
storehouses, where their staple commodity is deposited, as well as
the innumerable materials which are always wanted to repair and fit
out so many whalemen. They have three docks, each three hundred feet
long, and extremely convenient; at the head of which there are ten
feet of water. These docks are built like those in Boston, of logs
fetched from the continent, filled with stones, and covered with
sand. Between these docks and the town, there is room sufficient for
the landing of goods and for the passage of their numerous carts;
for almost every man here has one: the wharfs to the north and south
of the docks, are built of the same materials, and give a stranger,
at his first landing, an high idea of the prosperity of these
people; and there is room around these three docks for 300 sail of
vessels.
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