The Place Was Neat And Scrupulously Clean, And The Dessert Consisted Of Delicious Raspberries, Which Went Far To Dispel Our Partner's Belief That, As Some Theologians Teach, Creation Is Indeed Under A Curse.

But we are making too much of the food question, and will say nothing of the honey, fresh buns,

Country butter, etc., but shall make haste to inquire concerning our night's lodging, for Plymouth is celebrating the Tercentenary this year, and we were informed that it is extremely difficult to find hotel accommodations.

While making inquiries concerning a suitable place to stay, we were approached by a motherly but very officious old lady, clad in black, who, after telling us that she was going to entertain some notable person at her home as a guest when he came to view the pageant, advised us to proceed to the Mayflower Inn, where we were sure of being accommodated for the night. She described this hotel as a beautiful and luxurious inn, situated on the slight elevation of Manomet Point a few miles below the town. We decided to spend the night at Plymouth and passed the road which led to the inn. We found that the nearer hotels were all filled, so we had to turn back and in a cold, dreary rain return to the road we had passed.

As we proceeded on our way we saw a fishing vessel putting out to sea. How many scenes that vessel recalled! We thought how many families had been engaged in this precarious livelihood, where their perilous calling was prosecuted at the risk of life itself. The solitude and awesomeness of a stormy night at sea along this rough and rugged coast is heightened by the wild tempests which brood over the waters, strewing the shore with wrecks at all seasons of the year. The news of the frequent loss of husbands or sons, the roar of the waves, and the atmospheric effects which in such situations present so many strange illusions to the eye, must have been calculated to work upon the terrors of those who remained at home; and melancholy fancies must have flitted across their memories as they watched at midnight, listening to the melancholy moaning of wind and wave.

No wonder phantoms and death warnings were familiar to the ancient Celtic fishermen, for those terrible disasters that were constantly occurring could not help but increase the gloom which acts so strongly upon those who are accustomed to contemplate the sea under all its aspects.

"In the long winter nights, when the fishermen's wives whose husbands are out at sea are scared from their uneasy sleep by the rising of the tempest, they listen breathlessly for certain sounds to which they attach a fatal meaning. If they hear a low, monotonous noise of waters falling drop by drop at the foot of their bed, and discover that it has been caused by unnatural means and that the floor is dry, it is the unerring token of shipwreck.

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