The Island For Its Whole Length Is Scalloped
Into Low Hills, Not More Than Twenty Feet High, By The Wind, And,
Excepting A Faint Trail On The Edge Of The Marsh, Is As Trackless
As Sahara.
There are dreary bluffs of sand and valleys ploughed
by the wind, where you might expect to discover the bones of a
caravan.
Schooners come from Boston to load with the sand for
masons' uses, and in a few hours the wind obliterates all traces
of their work. Yet you have only to dig a foot or two anywhere
to come to fresh water; and you are surprised to learn that
woodchucks abound here, and foxes are found, though you see not
where they can burrow or hide themselves. I have walked down the
whole length of its broad beach at low tide, at which time alone
you can find a firm ground to walk on, and probably Massachusetts
does not furnish a more grand and dreary walk. On the seaside
there are only a distant sail and a few coots to break the grand
monotony. A solitary stake stuck up, or a sharper sand-hill than
usual, is remarkable as a landmark for miles; while for music you
hear only the ceaseless sound of the surf, and the dreary peep of
the beach-birds.
There were several canal-boats at Cromwell's Falls passing
through the locks, for which we waited. In the forward part of
one stood a brawny New Hampshire man, leaning on his pole,
bareheaded and in shirt and trousers only, a rude Apollo of a
man, coming down from that "vast uplandish country" to the main;
of nameless age, with flaxen hair, and vigorous, weather-bleached
countenance, in whose wrinkles the sun still lodged, as little
touched by the heats and frosts and withering cares of life as a
maple of the mountain; an undressed, unkempt, uncivil man, with
whom we parleyed awhile, and parted not without a sincere
interest in one another.
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