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THE Old Colony Town
AND THE AMBIT
OF BUZZARDS BAY

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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

From the Library of
FRANKLIN BOWDITCH DEXTER, YALE '6i
The gift of his daughter
MRS. HENRY LAURENS

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THE OLD COLONY TOWN
AND OTHER SKETCHES

WILLIAM ROOT BLISS
author of colonial times on
buzzard's bay

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BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
1893

Copyright, 1S93,
By WILLIAM ROOT BLISS. ---,Q

All rights reserved.

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The Riverside Press, Camhridg-e y Mass. , U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.

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CONTENTS.
The Old Colony Town
The Ambit of Buzzard's Bay
Life on Matinicus Rock
Old Roads near Buzzard's Bay
A Day on the Shore
Old Colony Witch Stories
A Thanksgiving
Society in the Menagerie .
The Mind of My Dog
Days on the North Atlantic .
The Flight of the Albatross
The Last Man on a Wreck
Seven Days in a Jinrikisha .
I
35
63 7993
lOI "S
125 147163 179191
203
THE OLD COLONY TOWN

THE OLD COLONY TOWN

Coming up from Buzzard's Bay through
the woods, I get my first view of the spires
of Plymouth from the top of a hill. The
town lies on a sloping plain between the sea
and a range of pine-covered hills, which, be
ginning behind it, extend about thirty miles
in a southeasterly direction and end on the
Atlantic Ocean.
It is easy to discover that the thing which
the town lacks is a steady harbor ; one that
will stay at home all day and not go away
at night. Whenever the tide runs out, the
harbor runs out also, leaving in its place
broad, oozy flats which offer good pickings
to plover, whose flying cry is a startling note
among the sounds of a summer night.
Through the ooze wind narrow channels of
shallow water to the sea. By the deepest of
these the distance is about eight miles from
the Gurnet Lights, at the entrance of the

4 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
harbor, to Plymouth Rock. If the Rock
could attract the sea as it attracts sight
seers, the Old Colony Town would have a
respectable harbor, and might call itself the
pleasantest for situation of any town on the
coast of Massachusetts.
Every day in summer a steamboat comes
from Boston, and pours ashore a multitude
of men, women, and children, who pass by ,
the hackmen in waiting, and rush to the
Rock. A steamboat made the same voyages
more than half a century ago ; but it brought
no pilgrims. Now they constitute a daily
show, which serves to entertain the loungers
who are sitting atop of Cole's Hill watching
the modern pilgrims as they hasten to their
shrine. They walk around the Rock ; they
put their hands on it ; they gaze at it ; they
spell aloud the inscription, "1620;" they
step across it ; they stand still on it and
make good resolutions ; and I have seen
respectable-looking men and women meet
on it, and kiss each other.
It is difficult to explain this fetichism,
which besets not only the multitudes coming
by sea, but those also who come in railroad
trains from distant parts of the country.

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 5
Plymouth Rock, elevated into the protection
of iron pickets and gates, sheltered from sun
and rain by a granite canopy, has become to
strangers and wayfarers a curiosity as ex
traordinary as a mermaid or a flying horse
would be.
Looking eastward from the Rock, you see
a long sand spit stretching out from the
south shore. It keeps the sea swells from
rolling over the harbor when the harbor is
in. It was once covered with trees ; and a
town-meeting of the year 1702, considering
"the grat damage likly to accrew the har
bour by cutting down the pine trees at the
beach," did order " that henceforth Noe pine
trees shall be felled on forfiture of 5 shil
lings pr tree & that Noe man shall set aney
fire on sd beach on forfiture of 5 shillings
per time." Now there is not a tree on it.
People go there for fish dinners and picnics,
and to set fires for clambakes. A little
steamboat named " Mary Chilton " carries
sight-seers to the beach ; an electric car
named " Mary Chilton " carries them through
the streets ; and Chiltonville is a little vil
lage near by. The Chilton name is an incan
tation in the Old Colony Town.

6 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
I asked a deck-hand, as we were steaming
to the beach for a dinner, "Who is Mary
Chilton } Does she own this steamboat .' "
He did not know ; he had been aboard only
two months. I went up to the pilot-house,
and, leaning into the window, I asked the
captain : " Who is Mary Chilton .? " He
gave me a quizzical look. " She was the
first woman," said he, "that landed on the
Rock." " Is that true .? " I replied. " Did
they land on the Rock } The mate of the
Mayflower was a seaman ; don't you think
he ran his boat right on the sand .? Then
the passengers jumped out, and he hauled
her up. Just as you would do it if you had
pulled a boat to Plymouth Beach. You
would n't lay her alongside a rock to rub her
paint oflf.?" The captain looked straight at
me, and said : " Where did you get your in
formation .' "
That is a question which should be put
to all writers who, through the media of
romance and tradition, have been weaving
fables into the history of the Old Colony
Town. Up to the year 1741, this famous Rock,
which is now the magnet of the town, rested

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 7
on the shore unnoticed. It was in the way
of commerce, and some persons having, as
the phrase of the time was, " Libertie to
Whorfe downe into the sea," were about to
cover it with a wharf. Then Thomas Faunce,
ninety-four years old, came up from the back
country and protested, and told the wharf-
builders that his father told him when he
was a boy that the Mayflower passengers
landed on the Rock. The memory of a man
ninety-four years old is not likely to be cor
rect in regard to words spoken when he was
a boy. Moreover, Faunce's father was not
a passenger in the Mayflower, and therefore
he did not tell this story to his son from
a personal knowledge of the landing. The
wharf was built ; and the Rock eventually
became the doorstep of a warehouse.
During Faunce's lifetime some of the pas
sengers by the Mayflower were his towns
men ; and some of these were in the shallop
which came to the shore from Clark's Island
on the I ith of December, 1620. There were
no women in that boat, and it is not known
when any women were landed from the ship.
The only record of the first landing is in
these words : " They sounded ye harbor &

8 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
founde it fitt for shipping, and marched into
ye land & found diverse cornfeilds & little
runing brooks, a place fitt for situation ; at
least it was ye best they could find." From
what point on the shore the men who were
prospecting for the colony " marched into ye
land " is not known. Romance and a vague
tradition have designated this Rock, the only
boulder on the shore ; but its remoteness
from the island seems to forbid the supposi
tion that the shallop went so far away from
its direct course to find a landing place.
And yet there is some reason for believing
the story of the Rock. Faunce was born in
the year 1647. He was therefore ten years
old when Governor Bradford died, twenty-six
years old when John Howland died, thirty-six
years old when Samuel Fuller died, thirty-
seven years old when Henry Samson and
Samuel Eaton died, forty years old when
John Alden and Elizabeth Tilley died. All
these persons were passengers in the May
flower, and some of them were in the shallop
when the first landing was made. When
Faunce related his story, the landing was
not so ancient an event as to have lost its
traditionary details ; and he may have told

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 9
what was already known to others, who, feel
ing that whether their ancestors landed on a
rock, or on the beach, was a matter of no
importance, did not trouble themselves to
come forth and confirm Faunce's story.
To get a good view of the Old Colony
Town and its surroundings, you must go to
the crown of Burial Hill. Here a charming
prospect of sea and shore is opened, on a
sunny day when the tide is full. It embraces
the whole scene of explorations made by the
Pilgrims from the time when the Mayflower
anchored in Cape Cod Harbor until she dis
charged her passengers on Plymouth strand.
Looking eastward, your eyes rest upon the
glittering expanse of Cape Cod Bay, and you
may think of the tearful eyes in "new pli-
moth " when, after a five months' anchorage
in the harbor, the Mayflower was seen from
this lookout to spread her sails and slip across
the bay for England, leaving behind her
those who were fast bound by a seven years'
contract with the Adventurers in London.
There is not a sail in sight, and you may
imagine yourself to be one of the homesick
colonists posted on the hill to watch for a
ship long expected from the English home.

lo THE OLD COLONY TOWN
After your eyes get accustomed to the dis
tant range, you notice on the eastern horizon
a patch of gray color. It is the barren,
sandy highland of Cape Cod, which, when
the Mayflower arrived, was " compassed about
to the very sea with oaks, pines, juniper, sas
safras, and other sweet wood." Below you
is the town sloping away to the wharves,
where three or four schooners are moored.
To the right the coast trends off in bluffs.
Opposite these, on the left, Duxbury Beach
comes down and ends in a promontory which
holds up the Gurnet Lights. The quaint
name of this point of land was in old times
" the gurnetts nose ; " and if you should
sketch the facial features of the shore in
continuation from it, Elisha's Point, with the
bluffs of Manomet Hill, would form the lip
and chin, and the channel above would be
the open mouth of Plymouth. The nose
was covered with trees when Englishmen
saw it in 1620. A description of lot bounda
ries, written seventy-five years later, men
tions the names of trees growing there : wal
nuts, poplars, cedars, and hornbeam, which
was a hard wood used for the keels of ships.
A town meeting in 1630 ordered that the

THE OLD COLONY TOWN ii
trees of " gurnetts nose bee Reserved for the
use of a minnester onely John Smith the
boates man att Plymouth hath libertie this
yeare to fech what he needeth." What John
Smith had done to entitle him to free fire
wood does not appear. But the " minnester "
was the famous Roger Williams, unto whom
the town gave " for this year " sixty pounds
to live on, besides the trees.
Leaving these things out of mind, look at
the tortuous channels of the harbor as the
tide is running out, and you may wonder
how it happened that a boat from the May
flower, carrying "lo of their principall men
and some sea men," got safely into the har
bor during a northeast gale, and found way
to an anchorage "under ye lee of a smalle
iland," when " it was very darke and rained
sore." The island was at that time thickly
wooded ; afterwards it became a valuable
part of the town's assets, rented for the mak
ing of salt, for a sheep pasture, or for a fish
ing station ; the tenants being forbidden to
carry off any wood " except to keep fier in
theire boates." When in the year 1688 the
officers of Sir Edmund Andros announced
that conveyances of land made by the In-

12 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
dians were worth no more than the scratch
of a bear's paw, and they required the select
men to appear before him " to make out
their title" to the island, the Old Colony
Town resisted Andros, and by the cost of so
doing was compelled " to make saile " of it.
The island is in plain view from Burial
Hill. As an old surveyor said, it is "bearing
from the meeting-house in Plymouth north
by northeast about three miles." It is enti
tled to fame because upon it New England
history began, Saturday night, December the
ninth, in the year 1620. The frightened
men aboard the shallop, says William Brad
ford, who was one of them, " knew not this
to be an iland till morning." However, he
says, they " got ashore & with much adoe got
fire, all things being so wett ; " then, " after
midnight ye wind shifted to the northwest &
it frose hard."
" And this being the last day of ye weeke,"
says the narrative, "they prepared ther to
keepe ye Sabath," on the island ; thus laying
the corner-stone in a foundation on which
New England was to be built. For " a great
hope & inward zeall they had of laying some
good foundation, though they should be but

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 13
even as stepping-stones unto others." Ora
tors who are apt to say, after dinner, that
these men " builded wiser than they knew,"
do not seem to be aware that they did not
build at all. They attempted to lay a foun
dation only, and upon this their posterity con
structed what now exists.
The oldest date cut in any stone on the
hill is 1 68 1. It marks the grave of Edward
Gray, who was in his time the richest mer
chant of the colony. His name was fre
quently written in the town records, in
which for once only was he called " Good
man Gray." The amount of his town tax
indicates that his trading transactions were
large, the tax being " for six score pound "
in profits, while no other trader was taxed in
the same year for more than ten pounds ;
and James Cole, the innkeeper, whose daily
business would naturally be more active than
that of a trader, was taxed for eighty pounds.
The warehouse of this foremost merchant
was situated "att Rockey Nooke by the
water-syde." The name only is there to-day:
In the year 1670 he was the owner of three
of the seven fishing-smacks then hailing from
Plymouth. Successful as he was, he could

14 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
not write his own name ; a deficiency which
he shared with many prominent men and wo
men in New England. Nathaniel Morton,
Secretary of the Colony Court, could write,
but his four married daughters could not, nor
could the wife of Governor Bradford. The
education of women was not regarded with
universal favor in the Old Colony Town.
Mr. Davis, in his " Ancient Landmarks of
Plymouth," says that in the year 1793 a pro
ject to establish a school for girls was op
posed because it might teach wives how to
correct their husbands' errors in spelling.
The schoolmaster was never abroad in Colo
nial New England. Records written by town
officers and accounts written in private fami
lies are miserably illiterate, and are the evi
dences of a very meagre instruction given to
children in common schools. Up to the be
ginning of this century these schools, judged
by their results, were a disgrace to civiliza-
tion.i 1 If by any chance the Braintree village school of even a
period so late as 1790 could for a single fortnight have
been brought back to the Quincy of 1890, parents -would
in horror and astonishment have kept their children at
home until a town meeting, called at the shortest possible
legal notice, could be held ; and this meeting -would proba-

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 15
John Howland, of whom the Colony re
cords say " He was the last man that was
left of those that came over in the ship called
the Mayflower," lived near Edward Gray at
Rockey Nooke, and is supposed to have been
buried in the hill. No one knows where he
was buried. The inscription on the stone set
up to his memory by a far-away descendant
is a curious example of the untrustworthy
nature of tradition. It says, on the authority
of tradition, that he married the daughter
of Governor Carver. The discovery of Brad
ford's manuscript history of " Plimouth
Plantation," which in the year 1855 was
found in the library of the Bishop of Lon
don, disclosed the fact that the tradition and
the inscription on the stone were not true.
" John Howland married the daughter of
John Tillie, Elizabeth, and have 10 children
now all living," wrote Bradford in the year
1650. It is not probable that any of the May
flower passengers were buried in this hill.
bly have culminated in a riot, in the course of which school-
house as well as school would have been summarily abated
as a disgrace and a nuisance. — Three Episodes of Massa
chusetts History, by Charles Francis Adams, p. 782.

1 6 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
In John Howland's time, and long before, it
was the custom to bury the dead in the lands
belonging to their homestead, where the
burial was done with no ceremony of any
kind ; earth to earth, without even a prayer.
The custom of burying in the homestead
land still exists in New England. Many of
the Mayflower company who died within the
colony were probably buried in their own
farms, and for this reason their graves are
now unknown. Where were the forty-four
buried who died in the winter of 162 1, when
there were no farms in Plymouth } The si
lence of the records on this subject is remark
able. As the "common house" in which the
colonists worshiped stood, until the year
1637, at the foot of Cole's Hill, this hill be
came the churchyard, according to a custom
of Old England. The Pilgrims were not,
like the Puritans, hostile to EngUsh customs.
Their life in Holland weaned them from the
English church, but it did not nurture in
them that hatred of England which was
shown by the Puritans of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, who, as Mr. Palfrey says, " had
grown to be of one mind respecting the duty

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 17
of rejecting the whole constitution of the
English establishment." Four skeletons
which were exhumed from this hill in the
year 1854, and are now lying in the chamber
of the granite canopy that stands over the
Rock, were certified by Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes to be the skeletons of Caucasians.
This discovery supports the theory that Cole's
Hill was the first burying place of the colo
nists. It has been said that graves on the
hill were leveled and sown with grain to con
ceal from Indians the losses of the colony.
The tender sentiment of this poetic and oft-
repeated statement is dispelled by the fact
that the neighboring Indians were friendly ;
and if they desired to know, it was easy to
ascertain what the losses had been by count
ing the heads of the survivors.
In the year 1637, ^ house for religious
worship was built at the foot of Burial Hill.
After that date this hill became the church
yard ; but the first recorded mention of it as
a place of graves is in the diary of Judge
Sewall, when he was holding court at Ply
mouth in March, 1698 : " I walk out in the
morn to see the mill, then turn up to the
graves, come down to the meeting-house and

1 8 THE OLD COLONY, TOWN
seeing the door partly open went in." The
fact that there are but five stones on the hill
dated before the year 1700 is conclusive that
many of the dead were buried in the lands
on which they had lived ; and the recent dis
covery of the graves of Myles Standish and
his daughter Lora, in Duxbury, confirms this
conclusion. Get into an electric car on its run through
Main Street to Kingston, and it will carry
you to Pilgrim Hall, a plain granite building
which was erected many years ago, " in grate
ful remembrance of our ancestors who exiled
themselves from their native country for the
sake of religion," as a plate in its corner
stone says.
Although this museum contains many arti
cles whose antiquity and associations make
them interesting to an intelligent visitor, it is
not irreverent to say that some of the things
enshrined therein remind me of the contents
of a curiosity shop, wherein are to be found
the odds and ends gathered from various
garrets. A museum established "in grate
ful remembrance of our ancestors" should
not be a receptacle of rubbish. Rubbish is
anything in the wrong place. Many things

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 19
which (like the human skulls and bones from
Florida exhibited in this Hall) may be of
great interest elsewhere are out of place in a
museum whose principal claim to exist is that
it represents the life and times of the first
colonists of Plymouth. Here are, for exam
ple, Malay daggers, Algerine pistols, Chinese
coins, South Sea shells, and a spoke from a
wheel of John Hancock's carriage. Here is
" a pair of spectacles which belonged to Cap
tain Benjamin Church," through which that
gallant soldier may have looked on King
Philip, whom he slew ; and here is an empty
pocket-book labeled " which always belonged
to the Church family," from which the visitor
may conclude that the family is now extinct.
Here are the dirk-knife, musket, and pistol
of one John Thompson. Here is the sword
of " Perigrine White's grandson," also a hay
fork from Bunker Hill, and the remnant of
a hoe which was dug from the cellar of the
Old Colony trading-house on Manomet River.
The human feeling which refuses to forget
the past is easily led astray in its estimate of
the value of relics.
A needle-worked sampler embroidered by
Miss Lora Standish is interesting evidence of

20 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
a delicate industry in her father's house. A
personal interest attaches to a sword which
belonged to Myles Standish, and to an iron
pot in which his succotash was probably
cooked ; to a dressing-case and cane which
belonged to William White, suggesting that
he may have been the Beau Brummel of the
colony ; to a gourd-shell which belonged to
George Soule ; to a silver canteen and sev
eral pewter platters which belonged to Ed
ward Winslow ; to a Bible owned by Isaac
Allerton, and another owned by John Alden.
These are interesting relics because their
owners were passengers in the Mayflower.
Two large arm-chairs on exhibition are
said to have been imported by William Brew
ster and John Carver. A writer in the
" North American Review " of September,
1817, speaks of " sitting in Governor Carver's
arm-chair in the barber's shop at Plymouth."
From this ignoble place the chair has been
elevated to a glass case in Pilgrim Hall. But
its life in the barber's shop causes me to
doubt its pedigree. Mayflower arm-chairs
are so numerous in New England that the
ship has been spoken of as having been
employed in the arm-chair trade. The Old

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 21
Colony Records contain inventories, begin
ning in the year 1633, of all property brought
to Plymouth by passengers from over the sea,
including house furniture, wearing apparel,
and tilling utensils. They reveal the fact that
much of the reputed cargo of the Mayflower
was imported many years after her arrival.
Previous to the year 1660 there was no arti
cle of china ware in the colony. Neverthe
less I have seen a teapot, sold by auc
tion, which was described as brought from
Holland by Elder Brewster ; and in Pil
grim Hall I saw a "china teapot," labeled,
" which belonged to one William Foord who
was the son of Widow Foord which came over
in the ship Fortune." This ship arrived at
Plymouth in the year 1621. The widow " was
delivered of a sonne the first night shee
landed," as Edward Winslow wrote ; and
Russell's " Memorial " states that the teapot
belonged to the widow. But it is certain that
neither Elder Brewster nor Widow Foord
had a china teapot.
In a list of stores necessary for a voyage
from England to the Plymouth Colony, beer
and spirits are mentioned, but no tea. " For
hot waters, Anni-seed water is the best,''

22 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
wrote Winslow to those intending to come.
Tea is first mentioned in the English lan
guage by Samuel Pepys, who wrote in his
diary, September 25, 1660: "I did send for
a cup of tee (a china drink) of which I never
had drunk before." Four years later, the
East India Company gave to the King as
"raretys 2 lb. 2 oz. of thea." Then its value
in England was from six to ten pounds ster
ling for a pound's weight. There could have
been no tea in Plymouth until long after
that date.
In those times stools were in general use,
and an arm-chair was a luxury. The num
ber of arm-chairs in the inventories up to
the year 1650 is smaller than the number
claimed to have been in the Mayflower's
freight. There is a chair which is said to
have been brought over by Edward Winslow
and to have been screwed to the floor of the
Mayflower's cabin, and another which is said
to have been brought over by William Brad
ford, and another by Richard Warren in the
same ship. None of these chairs are ele
gant specimens of cabinet work when com
pared with arm-chairs now in use. The im
porters were poor men : —

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 23
" Full humble were their meals,
Their dainties very few ;
'T was only ground-nuts, clams, or eels,
When these old chairs were new."

These lines recall a complaint made by
the colonists about their larder. It is re
corded that in the spring of 1623 they had a
famine. The record of it says : " All ther
victails were spente, and at night not many
times knowing wher to have a bitt of any
thing ye next day." The same record says
it was " bass and such like fish " that they
had to eat ; also " shelfish, which at low
water they digged out of ye sands." They
also had "ground nuts and foule," and they
"gott now & then a dear."
All the while before the town lay a fish-
full sea ; wild fowl flocked to the shores ;
shellfish of all kinds abounded in banks and
shoals daily uncovered by the tides ; par
tridges and turkeys were to be trapped in
the surrounding woods ; and alewives came
up from the South Sea, as they come now,
to leave their spawn in the numerous ponds
within the colony limits. And yet there
was a famine; and so severe was it that
Elder Brewster "lived for many months

24 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
together without bread and frequently on
fish alone."
The narrative of this peculiar famine
shows that the colonists did not know that
their best heritage was the sea. Indeed,
" fish alone " is the only thing now remain
ing to the Old Colony Town which belonged
to the time of the Mayflower people. Its
picturesque streets, electric lights, baseball
men, and tennis girls belong to the life of its
present day. But the delicious mackerel,
bass, lobsters, and bivalves to be found in
its neighboring sea, have come to us from
the past. When Horace Walpole saw in
imagination the ruins of the old East India
House, he said : " This is Leadenhall Street,
and this broken column was a part of the
palace of a company of merchants who were
sovereigns of Bengal." When I go out
with " the boates man att Plymouth," I say :
" This is Cape Cod Bay, and this bay with
its ' bass and such like fish ' is a heritage
left to me by a company of pilgrims who
were sovereigns of these shores."
Let us return to the museum. There is a
skeleton in it of one of the first and best
friends of the colonists. When the May-

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 25
flower arrived he was sachem of Cummaquid,
the country bordering on what is now Vine
yard Sound, then called the South Sea. He
was buried in his own lands, and a large cop
per kettle which he got from the wreck of a
ship was placed over his head, according to
his request. A recent owner of the land
dug up the sachem's bones, his copper ket
tle, axe, and stone pestle, and sent them to
Pilgrim Hall. There you may see his pol
ished ribs, skull, and teeth, cushioned in a
glass case, representing a barbaric taste of
the nineteenth century ; and you ask your
self. Why are not the four Caucasian skele
tons that were exhumed from Cole's Hill,
and are now hidden in the canopy over the
Rock, treated with similar distinction 1
The most remarkable relic of Pilgrim
times which the museum contains, is the
frame of a sea-going vessel whose wreck was
an important event in the early history of
the colony. It is what remains of the sloop
Sparrowhawk, of about seventy tons, which,
in the year 1626, sailed from England "with
many passengers in her and sundrie goods
bound for Virginia," and was cast away on
the sea-coast of the Old Colony. "They

26 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
had lost themselves at sea,", as the record
says, " either by ye insufficiencie of ye mais-
ter, or his ilnes, for he was sick & lame of
ye scurvie so that he could but lye in ye
cabin dore and give direction ; or else ye
fear and unrulines of ye passengers were
such as they made them stear a course be-
tweene ye southwest & ye norwest, that they
might fall with some land, what soever it
was they cared not. For they had been 6
weeks at sea, and had no water, nor beere,
nor any woode left." And so the ship ran
before a gale, stumbling over the shoals of
Cape Cod, and was driven across a sand bar
into a blind harbor, " and ran on a drie flat."
The shipwrecked people heard some of the
Indians speak English, and by them a letter
and two of their men were sent to Governor
Bradford, who visited the wreck, and brought
its passengers and goods to Plymouth. The
sands of the sea covered the wreck. In the
course of time the Nauset Meadows were
formed over it. Therein it lay buried until
the sea came up and uncovered it. Its oak
frame was dug out of the bed in which it had
lain nearly two hundred and forty years, and
now it is standing on its keel in Pilgrim
Hall.

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 27
The passengers by the Sparrowhawk were
taken into the Plymouth huts, and cared for
until it was found that they were a bad lot ;
then they were packed off to Virginia, there
being, as Governor Bradford wrote, " many
untoward people amongst them." The emi
grants by the Mayflower may be described
by the same words. That ship brought a
miscellaneous company of good, bad, and
indifferent people. The good were in the
minority ; but they possessed the strength
of their convictions, and were able, by their
skill in government, to hold in check the
turbulent elements with which they were
accidentally associated. Of these immi
grants Mr. Palfrey, in his " History of New
England," says : " Eleven are favorably
known. The rest are either known unfavor
ably, or else only by name." If you desire
to boast that you are descended from the
Pilgrim Fathers, be sure that your ancestor
was one of the eleven.
When we think of Plymouth of the past,
of which no relic remains except its town
records, a curious picture presents itself.
Let us imagine ourselves to be there in the

28 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
early part of the last century. What do we
see t A small number of plain English fami
lies, each of which includes many children,
scattered over a broad territory whose focus
is a little straggling village that looks to
wards the sun-rising. In the harbor three
or four fishing smacks are at anchor. A
sloop is having her bottom covered with tar
as she lies on beam-ends at the " perpetual
landing place," which was laid out "for ye
landing of wood and hay and for laying ves
sels on shore upon any occation needful."
Some men in small boats are to be seen
sounding over the flats, for there is much
talk in the village about a "Tryall for the
making of some beds of oysters." At Rick-
ard's wharf is the sloop Prosperity taking in
turpentine and horses. Her bill of lading
may be called a divine service ; for it de
clares that the cargo is " Shipped by the
Grace of God," that the captain is " Master
under God," that the sloop is "by God's
Grace bound for Barbados;" and it ends
with this prayer : " And so God send the
good Ship to her desired Port in Safety.
Amen." The town's territory stretches from the

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 29
harbor southward for nearly twenty miles,
and is covered by a forest. There are many
tilled fields, near ponds, in the forest clear
ings ; there are cart-paths and walk-ways
which cross streams at " the fording place "
and at "the stepping stones." The farmers
occupy unfinished and scantily furnished
houses ; they wear homespun clothes which
pass from father to son, and the fashion of
them is never changed. They " milk ye pine
trees " to make turpentine and tar, which are
bartered to be shipped to foreign parts,
yielding more profit to the yeomen than do
their tilling lands. They are generally illit
erate and parsimonious ; they drink deep of
alcoholic liquors ; they disapprove of schools
because a school costs money ; they approve
of preaching, and agree " to keepe Contrebu-
tion afoot in the Congregation " to maintain
it, because it is a means of salvation; they
believe that babes must be baptized in order
to escape from a hell of fire and brimstone,
and they are as religious on Sunday as the
Colony laws require them to be. It is no
Arcadian life that these people lead. Their
habits are simple, but coarse ; and so im
moral is the relation of sexes that illegiti-

30 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
mate children are numerous ; and confessions
of " the sin of fornication before marriage "
are made in public assemblies of the church.^
One day there comes a stirring and a
buzzing in the village. It is not considered
proper for Doctor Le Baron to practice any
longer the obstetric art ; and the selectmen
have summoned the women of the town to
assemble at the meeting-house and elect
from themselves four midwives. These wives
are persons of much importance, whose
services are in frequent demand. They rule
the birth-house for the time being, and on
the first Sunday after birth they carry the
babe to the meeting-house and present it to
the minister for baptism, however cold and
stormy the day may be. The " child shrank
1 I think it not unsafe to assert that during the eight
eenth century the inhabitants of New England did not
enjoy a high reputation for sexual morality. Lord Dart
mouth, for instance, who, as Secretary for the colonies, had
charge of American affairs, in one of his conversations
with Governor Hutchinson, referred to the commonness of
illegitimate offspring "among the young people of New
England," as a thing of accepted notoriety ; nor did Hutch
inson, than whom no one was better informed on all mat
ters relating to New England, controvert the proposition.
— Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline
in New England. By Charles Francis Adams, p. 24.

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 31
at the water but cried not," wrote Judge
Sewall, when his son Stephen, four days old,
received what proved to be the seal of death
by baptism on a February Sunday in a cold
meeting-house. Then Ephraim Morton barters his negro,
described as " being a perpetuall slave whose
name is Toney," for Joseph Bartlett's negro,
" a certain youth named Nedd," and three
pounds to boot. The townsfolk are not fond
of " colored people." Those who own seats
in the meeting-house, next to the seats as
signed to Indians and negroes, have given
three pounds to the selectmen to pay for
moving these objectionable worshipers to a
place where they can " sett in Elsewhere."
A town meeting interests every townsman
if the weather is fair. It has been adjourned
because of a stormy day ; also, as the town
clerk said, " because few people did apeare by
Reason Maney wer at see & others through
unavoidable ocasions were hendred." Once
it was adjourned because an obstinate quar
rel broke out on the question of establishing
a school by taxation. There were no free
schools. " Every scollar that Coms to wrigh
or syfer or to lern latten shall pay 3 pence pr

32 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
weke if to Read only then to pay 3 half pence
per weke," says the town record of July
31st, 1699. At these meetings a representa
tive to the Great and General Court at Bos
ton is elected ; sometimes, as the town clerk
of the year 1 720 testifies, " by a very Eunan-
omos voat." It is evident that there were no
spelling bees in the Old Colony Town ; and
Dryden's lines may be quoted as a descrip
tion of the general illiterate state of its
rulers : —
" When what small Knowledge was, in them did dwell,
And he a god, who could but read or spell."
The town meeting fixes the minister's
salary and votes to put "two Casements" in
the meeting-house behind the pulpit "to let
in aree into ye house ; " and this is done with
out thinking of the discomfort which the in-
blowing air will cause to the bald-headed
preacher. It orders Thomas Phillips to build
a gallery and " seat it with Town-born chil
dren " only, which means "no niggers." It
orders all " sheepe keept in A General fflock,"
and that "Noe swine of aney age or sort
What soe Ever shall Run on the Comons."
It votes that Elazer Dunham shall be paid
forty shillings out of the town treasury " to

THE OLD COLONY TOWN 33
get him a greate coat." It gives notice that
a homespun "Wastcoat" having nineteen
pewter buttons on it has been " taken up "
on the king's highway. It listens to a com
plaint from " Divers people yt they sufered
Wrong by the 111 grinding their corn by a
child That had not Descresion ; " and it ap
points a committee " To Inform Capt Church
That they Will not allow of that lad to be ye
Towns miller." They want their corn to be
ground by a man. These are small things to
engage the minds of British legislators. But
attention to small things is characteristic
of the people. In their narrow and circum
scribed life there are no large things to be
dealt with.
Every evening the " saxton " rings " ye
9 o'clock bell," in the turret of the meeting
house. Then taverns are closed, fires are
covered, candles are extinguished, and the
Old Colony Town creeps into its feather beds.
The stillness of night is disturbed by the
howls of a wolf in the neighboring forest,
which causes all the village dogs to bark. A
watchman's rattle is heard, and a flame of
fire may be seen leaping from a thatched
roof. Every house has a ladder fixed to it,

34 THE OLD COLONY TOWN
and two barrels of water near it ; but no one
knows exactly what to do, and the house is
burned down rapidly.
Does anybody get up early next day with
an expectation that the dreary monotony of
colonial life is to be broken by a sunrise 1
Those inhabitants who have cattle to be fed,
or fish to be caught on the early tide, are up
betimes the morn. But the plodding mer
chant, who is waiting for his only cargo of
sugar and rum from the West Indies, knows
that his sloop cannot enter the harbor during
the night, because there is no lighthouse on
the Gurnets ; and the shrewd trader who
"keeps store" knows that customers can
wait ; and the tired housewife says that her
pewter dishes need no scouring to-day ; that
the spinning wheels can be started later on.
Everybody has time to spare in the Old
Colony Town.

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY

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ifei^^^s

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THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY.

Standing on the highlands of Agawame
Neck, I can descry the ambit of the bay as
far away as the islands which are looming on
the southern horizon. As I look on the en
chanting prospect, I want to change one
word in these lines from " The Ranger," and
say: — " Nowhere, fairer, sweeter, rarer,
Does the golden-locked fruit-bearer
Through his painted woodlands stray,
Than where hillside oaks and beeches
Overlook the long, blue reaches,
Silver coves and pebbled beaches,
And green isles of Buzzard's Bay."
You may recall the words of Bartholomew
Gosnold, who described it, nearly three hun
dred years ago, as the " finest sound " he
ever saw. Ranging along on the starboard,
as our yacht comes in, are the Elizabeth

38 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
Islands, of which the nearest to us is Cutty-
hunk, containing five hundred acres. Off its
southerly point lies the Vineyard Sound
lightship, which sometimes breaks adrift
from its moorings when a hard gale from the
southeast is blowing. Then schooners run
ning through the Sound, and missing this
landmark, are wrecked on reefs called The
Sow and Pigs, which stretch out from the
south shore of the island. Its surface is a
succession of hills and valleys growing coarse
grass, without a tree, or a shrub, or any ves
tige of the " noble forests " which Gosnold
saw, containing, as he said, " the elegantine
the thorn and the honeysuckle the wild pea
the tansey and young sassafras strawberries
rapsberries grapevines all in profusion."
Here the stone-walled cellar of Gosnold's
storehouse was identified, in the year 1797,
as a relic of the first visit of Europeans to
the southern shores of New England. We
can run into its harbor, which is a good shel
ter in all kinds of weather except a north
easter. A short walk from the landing-place
brings us to a settlement of about thirty
houses, whose few inhabitants depend upon
seafaring, piloting, and fishing for a living.

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 39
We see a meeting-house and a school-house,
and the preacher is the school-master. We
see nets and sails spread on door-yard fences
to be dried. The only things that cause an
excitement in this little community are a
wreck, and the arrival of a mail-bag from
New Bedford, which is fifteen miles distant.
When the mail arrives, all islanders who are
ashore hurry to the back door of the post
master's house, and wait while he takes up
each letter and newspaper, submits them to
the scrutiny of his spectacles, and shouts the
written name as soon as he has spelled it
out. The owner of the name answers the
call, and takes his mail with approval from
the bystanders.
Two miles northwest of Cuttyhunk lies
Penikese Island, of one hundred acres. Its
shape is something like a pair of eye-glasses ;
two high hills representing the eyes, and a
narrow beach, which forms a harbor, repre
senting the nose-bow. In the flush times of
whaling, this island was occupied by pilots,
who kept a steady lookout from the hills for
those picturesque old ships, deep-laden with
sperm oil, which all the year round came
lumbering into the bay bound to New Bed-

40 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
ford. In the year 1873 the island was trans
ferred to Agassiz's School of Natural His
tory. Whittier says : —
" On the isle of Penikese,
Ringed about by sapphire seas,
Fanned by breezes salt and cool,
Stood the Master and his school."
The school spent only one summer on the
island, for the Master died in the end of the
year ; and the poet says : —
" In the lap of sheltering seas.
Rests the isle of Penikese ;
But the lord of the domain
Comes not to his own again."
East of Cuttyhunk, and near it, is Nasha-
wena Island, of fifteen hundred acres, used
as a sheep pasture, and noted for its beach
of rolling stones. East of Nashawena lies
Pasque Island, of a thousand acres, sometimes
called Pesquinese. Its name came from the
Indian Pascechanset, by which it was known
when, in the year 1725, Abraham Tucker of
Dartmouth, on the western shore of the bay,
willed his lands thereon to his son. The
island, bought from its Indian possessors in
the year 1667, was continuously used for the
rearing of sheep until it was sold to a fishing

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 41
club. While the British occupied Rhode
Island during the Revolution, food was for
aged frequently from Pasque and neighboring
islands. On a day in May, 1778, fifteen hun
dred sheep, stolen from them, were landed
at Newport for the British fleet.
East of Pasque lies Naushon, which is
seven miles long, and contains five thousand
five hundred acres ; the most beautiful island
estate on the Atlantic coast. It has two
harbors, a light-house, old forests of beech,
oak, hickory, pine, and cedar trees. White
men have possessed it since the year 1641.
The Mayhew family owned it forty-one years ;
the Winthrop family, forty-eight years ; the
Bowdoin family, one hundred and thirteen
years. In the " Gentleman's Magazine," of
the year 1747, may be seen the following an
nouncement : " Dy'd at Boston in New Eng
land Wm. Bowdine Esqr. worth one million
of their currency ; he left two sons and three
daughters ; to the former, 150,000 /. ; to the
other 100,000 /. ; and 20,000 /. to charitable
uses." This man owned Naushon. The
next owner was his son James Bowdoin, the
governor of Massachusetts in the years 1785
and 1786, who failed of a third election

42 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
because of the energy with which he extin
guished Shays' Rebellion. The next owner
was his grandson, James Bowdoin, who in
herited one half of the island, and acquired
the other half by marriage with a cousin.
Near its eastern harbor he built a stately
mansion, and spread a great feast in it for
his friends. He died in his chair at the feast,
while sounds of merriment were in his ears.
The house was then shut up, and it became
in public imagination a haunted house, at
tracting the visits of curious idlers until the
agents of new owners opened its doors, threw
up its windows, and let in light and air upon
the mouldy scenes.
An act of the legislature of the Province,
in the year 1765, tells of the existence of
moose on Naushon, which was then known
as " Tarpolin Cove Island otherwise called
Naushon or Catamock." The owners of the
island complained that " the raising and in
crease of moose and deer " were prevented
by hunters who landed to shoot the game,
or "destroyed it by their dogs." The fine
to be levied on poachers was six pounds " for
each and every moose or deer ; " one half
of it to go to his majesty King George the

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 43
Second, and one half to the informer. There
are deer, but no moose now in the region of
Buzzard's Bay.
The names of the Elizabeth Islands have
been preserved in the following old rhymes,
whose origin is unknown : —
" Naushon, Nonamesset,
Onkatonka, and Wepecket,
Nashawena, Pesquinese,
Cuttyhunk, and Penikese."
An interesting reminiscence of the former
connection between Old England and New
England is to be found in the names of
ancient towns adjacent to Buzzard's Bay.
These are Dartmouth, Rochester, Wareham,
Sandwich, and Falmouth ; names brought
from the south of England by men who con
tinued to be Englishmen in these their new
homes. On the larboard, as a yacht enters
the bay, stands the Dumpling Rock Light,
pointing the way to Apponaganset, the port
of Dartmouth. The town's land was bought
from the Wampanoags, in the year 1652, by
the gift of 30 yards of trucking cloth, 8.
moose skins, 15 hoes, 15 pairs of breeches,
8 blankets, 2 kettles, i clock, 8 pairs of
stockings, 8 pairs of shoes, i iron pot, 3 /.

44 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BA Y
in wampum, and lO shillings' worth of other
odds and ends. The variety of merchan
dise turned over to the Indians by this trans
action was as great as is now to be found in
an ordinary country store on the bay shores.
In the same manner do white men trade
with inferior races now.
During the summer time the old town
draws in many visitors ; and as the south
wind comes direct from the sea, it gives
to them an agreeable climate. The great
historic fact concerning the town is that its
inhabitants were the first in New England to
rebel against the Puritan union of church
and state. By refusing to pay taxes for the
support of a ministry whose ministrations
they would not accept, and by obtaining an
approval of their action from King George
the First, they established the right of every
New Englander to worship God according
to the dictates of his own conscience, — a
right which had previously existed in theory
only. The long struggle for religious liberty
which the townsmen of Dartmouth carried
on against the rulers of Plymouth Colony,
and afterwards against those of the Province
of Massachusetts Bay, shows how thick New

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BA Y 45
England had been crusted over by a tyran
nical system of theology. But
" The pilgrim needs a pass no more
From Roman or Genevan ;
Thought-free, no ghostly tollman keeps
Henceforth the road to Heaven."
The run of the yacht is short from Dart
mouth to New Bedford, which is pleasantly
situated on the Acushnet River, busy with
manufacturing industries, but still retaining
its old flavors of the sea. The smell of
whale-oil pervading the wharves, where casks
of it are stowed under heaps of sea-weed ;
the lofts where men are always cutting out
and sewing sails ; the sheds where they are
building whale-boats ; and the old dismantled
ships, whose exploits have been recorded
many times in whaling records, are reminis
cences of the enterprises which have pro
duced the great wealth of this city. Whale
men say that whales are now as numerous as
ever in the ocean, and that the business of
catching them is a matter of luck ; that good
luck or bad luck follows a ship for a long
time ; and while some ships are always slow
to sight a whale, and rarely get a full catch,
others will fasten to all the whales they want,
and are always making a good voyage.

46 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BA Y
On the eastern bank of the river lies Fair-
haven, where the Old Colony railroad begins
its circuit of the bay. During the Revolu
tion an important event occurred here, which
has been nearly forgotten. At that time the
village attracted many strangers, as the port
was a convenient place for fitting out priva
teers and for receiving their prizes. While
it was in this flourishing condition, four
thousand British troops were landed on
Clark's Neck, September s, 1778. They
marched up the west side of the river, across
the bridge, and down the east side, burning
many buildings on their way, encamped on
Sconticut Neck for a night, and then re
turned to their ships. On the next night a
detachment from these troops was sent to
burn Fairhaven. Their approach was dis
covered by Major Israel Fearing, of Ware-
ham, who was posted in the village, with
about one hundred and fifty men. He placed
them in ambush, and allowed the enemy to
reach the shore ; then he opened a fire,
which was so severe that they retreated im
mediately to the ships. His skill saved the
village from destruction.
Running out of the Acushnet River, the

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 47
yacht passes West Island, of eight hundred
acres, whose Indian name was Markataw. It
was sold to white men in the year 1666, with
the condition that if a whale should be
stranded on the island it is to be divided
equally between the seller and the buyer.
Standing up the bay, the yacht now makes
Ned's Point Light, at the entrance of the
harbor of Mattapoiset. Maddepayset River,
as the provincial laws called it, empties into
the harbor ; and the name, in the language
of the Indian King Philip, who sold the land
to Englishmen of Plymouth, is said to sig
nify a place of rest. It is the place of sum
mer rest for many urban families, whose red-
roofed houses are conspicuous features in its
landscapes. From the town the bay spreads
away to the eastward like an open sea, and
the blue highlands of Wood's Holl seem to
be lying on a far-distant horizon. Hundreds
of sea-going vessels were builded at Matta
poiset in former times ; but the ways from
which they were slipped into the bay, amid
enthusiastic cheers, were taken down long
ago, and the places where they stood are now
covered by the gardens and lawns of summer
cottages. A little picture in the village, as it

48 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
once was, may be seen in this verse from a
poem by Richard Henry Stoddard : —
" Old homestead, in that gray old town !
Thy vane is seaward blowing ;
The slip of garden stretches down
To where the tide is flowing ;
Below they lie, their sails all furled.
The ships that go about the world."
Further up the bay stands Bird Island
Light, pointing to Sippecan harbor, which
reaches far into the land. On its shore
lies the prospering village of Marion, which,
under the name of Sippecan, was settled
about the year 1680, by men from the south
of England, who builded ships and went to
sea. Their descendants revealed their sea
heredity in a vote that the village high school
" shall hail " as the Sippecan Academy. No
doubt the principal teacher was then hailed
as captain, the classes were hailed as star-
bowlines and larbowlines, and the boy pro
moted to the head of a class was ordered to
"Lay out to the weather earing!" The
main street of the village would naturally end,
as it does end, on a wharf ; for in early days
the sea tinged every thought of the villagers.
The door-steps of their low dwelling-houses

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 49
were adorned with sea-shells, fences were
topped off by old studding-sail booms, and the
houses were builded near to each other as if
the families to occupy them would have need
of neighborly company while their men were
absent on whaling voyages. Now the sum
mer visitor has come, and the seaman has
gone, and the quaint old village is in a state
of transition to a popular waterside resort.
But some of the natural charm of former
times remains. If you look out upon the bay,
of a clear morning, you will see a panorama
" Where heaven lends her loveliest scene ;
A softened air, a sky serene.
Along the shore where smiles the sea.''
Sailing out of Sippecan harbor, we pass the
Great Hill, so called from its great extent,
but celebrated for nothing in colonial history
except its warm pasturages. It is the most
prominent landmark on the western side of
the bay, as Tempest Knob is on the eastern
side. Between these stretch the highlands
of Agawame Neck, in the township of Ware-
ham, on which one may see elegant dwelling-
houses of recent dates, and remains of the
cellars of dwellings that were builded by
the Plymouth yeomen who first occupied

50 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
the land in the year 1682. Under the waters
in front of the Neck, and in the flats of its
Little Harbor, lie immense beds of scallops,
whose products are abundant enough to
supply all the markets of New England. On
the northern side of the Great Hill the We-
weantet River, joined by the Sippecan, comes
into the bay with a broad sweep. Above it
is seen Cromeset Neck ; above this the Woon-
kinco and Agawame rivers flow in ; and
where their waters blend with the tides of
the bay lie beds of Wareham oysters, whose
flavor is praised wherever bivalves are eaten.
As our yacht runs to the eastward, we pass
a fleet of fishing boats anchored on Dry
Ledge, and can see their occupants hauling
in tautog and scup hand over hand. Then a
school of bluefish is discovered to windward.
Immediately the yacht is put about, and runs
to the west with four lines trailing astern,
and bluefish coming in over the taffrail as
fast as they can be taken care of. Now and
then we lose one ; for while the fish is leap
ing ahead of the long line, he works the hook
out of his mouth ; or, in the struggle against
us, the strain on the line breaks his jaw. It
is a wild sport. The quick play and haul

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 51
of the lines as the game is hooked, the calls
to " Haul him in quick out of the wet ! " his
muscular leaps for freedom as we bring him
to deck, the rapid motions of the boat, the
flying spray, are a part of the exciting plea
sures of bluefishing.
Now we return to our course, double Tem
pest Knob, and sail northward through nar
row channels, passing wooded islands named
Mashna, Tobey, Onset, and Wicket, and at
last we drop anchor in a little pocket of deep
water. On the neighboring bluffs, which are
covered with oak trees, stand the cottages
and temples of an association of Spiritualists,
whose gala day is Sunday. Here I go ashore
and become a part of an audience in the
amphitheatre listening to various messages
which are announced as received from a
world of spirits. A disconsolate widower
hears his dead wife's spirit say, "Don't
worry so, my dear ! " A broken-hearted
mother who has lost her only boy receives a
written message saying, " Ma, I 've learned to
rite ! " A long-haired man passes his hand
over the head of a girl and says, " The angels
are hovering above you." But not all who
are present believe in these delusions. A man

52 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
in the audience with whom I talked said to
me : "I come here to see folks. I give up
goin' to sea ten year ago ; but down to Long
Plain where I five there ain't much that 's
folksy goin' on except funerals. Get tired
seeing same people and talkin' to 'em along
side a corpse. Came here to git posted about
what's going on. Go to Yarmouth camp-
meeting and the Vineyard and take 'em all
in ; but I don't believe any on 'em ! " He
was a sample of many who are drawn hither
from the countryside to see this summer
show. " Head-th-bay," as the natives call it, is
thirty miles from the entrance at Gooseberry
Neck. The homesteads of Englishmen who
settled here two hundred years ago have be
come the summer dwelling places of people
of leisure from distant cities, whose preten
tious villas now rear their heads where once
" The wild fox dug his hole unscared."
Here the waters, passing through a narrow
rift, widen out into a quiet expanse called
Buttermilk Bay, which is encircled by wooded
hills. Again there is a narrow run of water,
by the Indians called Cohasset, and near by
is the Buzzard's Bay station of the Cape Cod

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY S3
railroad, where brazen - throated brakemen
thrust their heads in at the car doors, and in
drawling yells command the passengers to
" Change cars for Falmouth, Wood's Holl,
Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket ! "
The eastern shore of Buzzard's Bay is a
part of Barnstable County, whose general
name is Cape Cod. It is probably the only
section of the Atlantic States in which a
native population remains unadulterated by
foreign blood. From the bay shore to Race
Point, the northern tip of the Cape, and
to Monomoy at its southern extremity, the
names and descendants of English colonists
of two hundred years ago are still to be
found. The livelihood which its inhabitants
have been drawing from the sea has been
supplemented of late years by the cultiva
tion of cranberries, pink water - lilies, trout
streams, and summer boarders. Year after
year the boarders come with the mackerel,
and in numbers that tax the capacity of the
one - track railway which winds its dusty
course from Buzzard's Bay to Provincetown ;
where the inhabitants do not own a foot of
the soil, for the whole township land belongs
to the State. All the Cape horses and vehi-

54 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
cles Stand in waiting for their coming, and
to carry them off to pine groves or sandy
beaches; and thus the summer boarder is
preserving the life of Cape Cod.
As we sail down this bay shore of the
Cape, we pass " Gray Gables," the summer
house of the President of the United States,
who has publicly said that those " who enjoy
the cool breezes of Buzzard's Bay are favored
above all others by a kind Providence."
Near it Monument River flows into the bay.
The first European who sailed up the stream
was probably the Secretary of the New Am
sterdam Colony, when he made his famous
visit to Plymouth in the year 1627. Down
along the shore is Monument Beach, a curv
ing strand stretching back to green knolls on
which stand clusters of summer cottages and
a large hotel. The hull of an old sloop lies
by the water's edge ; and on any summer
morning, rows of people in various costumes
are to be seen seated on its rails, gazing idly
at the bathers. It may be washing-day on
shore, when from every clothes-line streams
away, on the southwest wind, white under
wear in quantity sufficient to indicate that a
large summer population is in the neighbor-

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 55
hood. Below is Pocasset, whose old houses
once sheltered retired shipmasters, and are
now the resorts of summer people. Then
we come to Wenaumet, jutting into the bay,
supporting on its point the Wing's Neck
Light ; then to Cataumet and its little har
bor, Chappoquoit Point and its costly sum
mer villas, Wild Harbor, Racing Beach, and
the Falmouths, whose town history began in
the year 1686 ; then to Quamquisset, its cot
tages, summer hotel, and cove of deep water.
At last we reach Wood's Holl. This is the
place of departure for travelers to Nantucket,
where you are offered a chance at cast-and-
haul fishing in a thundering surf, with glori
ous views of the Atlantic Ocean. You are
also offered corals, and sea shells, and whales'
teeth. One may doubt the reputed antiquity
of Nantucket shingles, tied with ribbons and
forming covers to series of photographs,
which are offered with a certificate that they
are two hundred years old. But you cannot
doubt the truthfulness of the pretty sea
mosses enclosed in scallop shells, nor of the
little blue forget-me-nots, nor the freshness
of the fish that has been broiled for your
supper, nor the pureness of the air that is

S6 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
fanning your cheeks all day, whether you are
ashore or afloat.
Samuel Sewall, the witchcraft judge, made
this note of embarking here on his way to
Martha's Vineyard, in April, 1702 : " Call at
Mr. Robinson's, they give us good small Beer.
Go to ye Ferry-house ; his Boat is at Little
Wood's hole ; travel thither, there embark
and have a good passage over in little more
than an hour's time."
From time immemorial Wood's Hole has
been the name of the village and its two
harbors, and of the narrow water-way which
separates the island of Naushon from the
mainland. There is a record dated in the
year 1677 of a laying out of lands " at
Wood's Hole ; " and also an Indian deed of
the year 1679, of "all that tract commonly
called Wood's Hole Neck." The name is
therefore historic. On the shores of Buz
zard's Bay a " Hole " apparently means a
pocket of water, a cove, a sea -passage way
through islands, into which vessels may run
for a shelter. For such places it was a com
mon name with Englishmen of the Plymouth
Colony. In their records of the year 165 1,
I find mention made of the "waterside or

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY $7
Creeke commonly called and known by the
name of Hobs Hole ; " so named by the
Mayflower colonists in the year 1623. In
the year 1677 mention is made of " Billing-
tons holes neare unto or upon Jonses River."
In the same year the colony gave to Jonathan
Morey " three score acrees of upland att the
salt water pond by the way between Plymouth
and Sandwich." This pond took the name
of Morey's Hole, and it has been known by
that name to this day.
In the year 1875, the voters of the vil
lage, " with one exception," signed a peti
tion to the Post Office Department of the
United States to change the name to " Wood's
Holl." That " one exception " deserves a
monument. His act was an intelligent pro
test against the manufacture of false history
on Buzzard's Bay. The theory on which
the petition rested was that Northmen from
Scandinavia " passed along Cape Cod through
Vineyard Sound to Narragansett Bay, where
it is believed they settled ; " and that the hills
around Wood's Hole were called " holls " by
the Northmen.
A great deal of history has been attributed
to those hardy men, who "bravely fought

$8 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
like heroes bold and ruled the stormy sea ; "
but there exists no indisputable evidence
that they ever saw Buzzard's Bay. Some
writers say that they ventured as far south
as Boston Harbor ; and these persons have
testified to that faith by setting up a stone
tower on a bank of Charles River. Any
body can set up a tower, or a statue, or per
haps a new post-office to commemorate an
opinion. Boston contains a statue which rep
resents an opinion that Leif Ericson and his
crew discovered the North American conti
nent in the year looo or thereabouts. The
reputation of this Northman as the discov
erer of some western world rests entirely
upon the stories of the sagas of Iceland,
written some three hundred years after the
alleged event. Nothing in literature is more
untrustworthy than the statements of these
flowery compositions, in which, as has been
said, " the story-telling of the fireside has
overlaid the reports of the explorer." In
deed, many students of history believe that
the heroes of the sagas were fictitious char
acters, as much so as were those who sailed
to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece,
as told in old Greek poems ; and that the

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 59
narratives of the sagas have no more basis
on truth than have the narratives of the
Iliad. It is possible that roving seamen
from Scandinavia, freebooters or fishermen,
may have reached the northeastern shores of
America ; but, as Mr. Bancroft intimates in
his history, there is not to be found an au
thentic vestige of their presence on any part
of the continent now occupied by the Eng
lish race, notwithstanding the Charles River
tower, the Boston statue, and the transfor
mation of Wood's Hole into Wood's Holl.
There are no bold voyagers to enter Buz
zard's Bay now, save contraband fishing
steamers with the police boat in their wake.
The regular bay cruisers are steamboats run
ning between New Bedford, Martha's Vine
yard, and Nantucket ; or one loaded with
summer people bound to Onset, or to Gay
Head ; then there are to be seen a few coal
and lumber laden sloops and schooners, fish
ermen, and pleasure boats, a steam yacht
from Naushon, and the steamer carrying
supplies to the light-houses in the bay. In
summer the upper part of the bay frequently
presents a gay appearance, as the white boats
of a yacht club sail their regattas from Sip-

6o THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
pecan harbor, or Onset. Large ships are
rarely to be seen. A great excitement was
once caused along the upper shores, when
news was passed from house to house :
" There 's a big ship in the bay ! " Inhabi
tants of the surrounding hamlets gathered
on the beaches, and saw at anchor the ship
Sunrise, of New York, asking for a pilot.
It was learned that she had mistaken the
light on Cuttyhunk for that on Gay Head,
and had entered Buzzard's Bay instead of
Vineyard Sound.
When bluefish " strike in," there is an
excitement all along shore, and all sorts of
craft strike out in pursuit of them. Many
men who were born on the bay shores, and
went away to seek fortune, are in the habit
of returning annually to enjoy the summer
fishing which the bay affords ; to cast their
lines for scup, tautog, bass, Spanish mack
erel, squeteague, and bluefish. Of all these,
the bluefish gives the most sport. The
exhilarating method of taking them is by
trolling with a squid of block tin, made in
the image of a small fish, which is rubbed
bright, so that it will glisten in the water,
and has a tail affixed to it made of eel-skin.

THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY 6 1
Bluefish are more abundant during some
years than during others. They dislike cool
water ; but whenever the temperature of the
sea ranges from sixty to seventy-five degrees,
the bay is likely to be full of them. Their
coming and going have been mysterious.
From the year 1659 to the year 1763, they
were recorded as plentiful about Nantucket
and the south shore of Barnstable County
during the summers ; but in the year 1764
they disappeared suddenly, and it is stated
that they were not seen again in northern
waters, except in small schools, until the
year 18 10; when and thereafter they re
turned in large numbers annually to Buz
zard's Bay. There is a tradition that dur
ing their absence their return was annually
expected and watched for all along the
shore. At last a large school came into
the bay on a Sunday morning in June, and
the lads who discovered them hurried to the
meeting-house to proclaim the glad tidings.
The doors were wide open, the preacher
was expounding, when a shrill cry rang in ;
" Bluefish in the bay ! " In a twinkling the
meeting-house was emptied, and every boat
belonging to the village was soon spreading

62 THE AMBIT OF BUZZARD'S BAY
its sails for the open water. This action
was not without precedent. I have read in
the annals of Truro, on Cape Cod, that in
February, 1755, the people were assembled
in their meeting-house for the ordination of
the town's minister; when, on account of
certain news received at the door, it was
" Voted that as many of the inhabitants are
called away from the meeting by news of a
whale in the bay, this meeting be adjourned."
They wanted a whale before they wanted a
preacher. There are many people who have
the same want now.

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK

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LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK

Matinicus Rock stands in the Atlantic
Ocean thirty miles south of the entrance to
the Penobscot River. Three families are liv
ing on it to take care of the sea lights ; their
only companions are innumerable seabirds
" Wheeling round it with the din
Of wings, and winds, and solitary cries."
The summit of the rock is about fifty feet
above the level of the ocean, and its irregular
surface of thirty-five or forty acres resembles
a heap of boulders. Captain John Smith, in
his quaint " Description of New England,"
recited the islands and rocks which he dis
covered off the coast of Maine, and called
this the " Rock of Mattanack much furder in
the sea." If you want to visit it, the light
house inspector at Portland may offer to you
the voyage of a hundred miles in a steamer
that carries supplies to the rock; or you

66 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
may take passage at Rockland in a fishing
schooner bound south. After a run of twen
ty-five miles, the schooner will heave to off
the rock and the skipper will row you to it
in a dory. This will be steered to timber
ways which slope down into the sea in a
little cove ; when the dory is carried in on
top of a swell, it will be hooked to a tackle
and drawn up the sloping ways by a windlass
manned by the light-keepers. That is the
usual method of landing upon Matinicus,
and it can be successful only when the sea
is smooth. In summer and in winter there
are days when the landing can be made ;
and in both seasons there are weeks when
Atlantic winds are howling across the rock,
and a tempestuous sea forbids any approach
to it.
The first things that attract attention on
landing are the two stone towers supporting
the lights, ninety-five feet above the sea level,
which may be seen from a ship's deck fifteen
miles away. Between the towers is a row of
low dwelling-houses occupied by the light-
keepers' families. Near by are a house for
storing oil, and a brick cistern for holding
rain-water. At one side is a scaffolding from

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK 67
which hangs a heavy bell, and on the other
side stands a brick building containing ma
chinery for operating steam whistles ; all else
is the ragged, fissured rock against which the
ocean is always striking, and in its mildest
moods is asserting itself so loudly that you
can hardly hear human speech.
The rock is in the gateway of an ocean
thoroughfare which in pleasant weather is
traversed by all kinds of sea-going craft;
there are steamers passing to and fro be
tween Boston and ports in Maine and New
Brunswick, ice and lumber loaded schooners
bound out of the Penobscot River, smacks
following schools of mackerel, or bound to
distant fishing banks, yachts racing out of
Marblehead, large ships fresh from the build
ing yards at Bath, and occasionally a British
steamer from England steering for Portland
Harbor. Far different is the scene when a fog cov
ers the ocean and a drizzling east wind is
blowing. Then the steam whistle on the
rock shrieks its alarms at intervals of twenty-
five seconds as long as the fog lasts ; or, if
the whistle is disabled, a great bell on the
rock strikes a continuous warning, so that

68 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
if any ships are near they may know the
bearings of Matinicus. The cries of the
ocean and of the wind and of the bell or the
whistle, when combined in one confusion,
are probably tormenting to the ears of those
living on the rock as anything that can be
imagined to exist in the infernal regions.
" It seems hard," said a light-keeper during
the prevalence of a fog, " that the whistle
must go on without stop when one of us lies
sick abed, or a child is near dying and jumps
at every blast of it."
Here one may see the ocean in its wildest
moods. The light-keeper said to me : " I
have seen the sea running so high against
the rock that the spray flew completely over
the domes of the lighthouses." More than
once has the rock been swept across its
length and breadth by the Atlantic Ocean.
On a January morning the ocean rose before
a terrific gale. The light-keeper had gone
to land the day before, leaving the care of
the lights to his eldest daughter. The living
things on the rock, besides the family, were
their hens. As the gale increased, the girl
saw that unless the flock was brought in it
would be lost in the sea. Seizing a basket

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK 69
she ran out on the rock, after the rollers
had passed and the sea had fallen off a little,
and rescued from the coop all but one. It
was the work of a minute, and she was then
back with the door fastened ; but at that in
stant her little sister, standing at a window,
exclaimed : " Oh, look ! the worst wave is
coming ! " That wave destroyed one of the
dwelling-houses and overwhelmed the rock.
One day Captain Burgess, the light-keeper,
left the rock to obtain provisions, as the
weather had for a long time been so stormy
that no communication from the shore had
reached him. A storm delayed his return,
and famine began to threaten the people left
on the rock. To obtain help, his son started
away in a skiff which was rigged with a sail.
He was soon lost to sight in the trough of
the sea, then he was seen on the top of the
waves a short distance off, and that was the
last the family saw of him for twenty-one
days. In the mean time the mother and her
daughters put themselves on a daily allow
ance of one cup of corn meal and one egg,
while the eldest daughter Abby tended the
lights until relief came from land.
Of a light-keeper's children, two were born

70 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
and one died on Matinicus ; where there is
no " God's acre " to receive the dead. The
child's coffin was laid on a level spot of the
rock, a cairn of bricks was built over it, the
bricks were covered with earth, the earth
was sown with flower seeds ; and that was
the child's grave. When Abby's mother died
on the rock, the ocean was so rough that no
boat could make a landing until the next day.
In speaking of this event she said : " I pre
pared the body for its last resting-place, and
the keeper made the coffin. We hoisted a
signal of distress, which was seen at Matini
cus Island, five miles to the northward, and
two fishermen rowed over. They had to
wait until three waves had run in and run
out ; then there was a smooth spell, and they
backed their boat in and jumped on to the
rock, and stayed with us that night. The
next day the sea was smooth enough for
friends to come in a schooner. They took
the dead body away, and buried it in the
graveyard at Rockland. My husband and I
did not go to the grave, because we had to
stay on the rock to tend the lights. There
were two other deaths since I have lived on
the rock ; a young man was drowned in try-

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK 71
ing to land ; another was drowned after he
had left the rock, the undertow capsizing his
boat. It is just as dangerous at Mount De
sert Rock, which is thirty-three miles to the
eastward of Matinicus. That rock is low and
flat, but outlying ledges break the force of
the sea. A little boy was chasing the waves
there ; he ran after them as they receded,
and when they came in he ran back. His
mother was standing in the lighthouse door
calling him, when a big wave rolled up and
carried him away from her sight forever."
The Lighthouse Board at Washington does
much to make light - keepers comfortable
in the discharge of their duties, while at the
same time it maintains a rigid discipline over
them. An inspector, who is an officer of
the navy, visits each station in his district at
regular times, and sees that all needed com
forts and supplies are provided, and that the
rules of the service are observed. The dis
cipline is of necessity almost merciless. In
the year 1 801, Thomas Jefferson wrote : "I
think the keepers of the lighthouses should
be dismissed for small degrees of remissness,
because of the calamities which even these
produce." This opinion animates the execu-

72 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
tive acts of the board. A keeper found in
toxicated is instantly ejected from his station
and from the lighthouse service, and one who
allows his lamps to go out before sunrise is
dismissed without regard to his previous good
conduct. To take faithful care of his light
and of the property belonging to it is the
keeper's paramount duty. He is expected to
stand by his light as long as his lighthouse
stands, even if the winter gale is as power
ful as that in which the Minot's Ledge Light
and its keepers perished.
Light-keepers are compelled to wear a uni
form dress ; they are furnished with a good
dwelling-house, and when stationed far dis
tant from a market, as on Matinicus Rock,
they are provided with rations. Their pay
ranges up to one thousand dollars a year,
according to the perils of their location ; and
they are sure of receiving it so long as they
are faithful to their duties. Their houses
contain a library in a portable case, hold
ing about fifty volumes on various subjects.
Every three months the library is exchanged
by the inspector for another. One may sup
pose that people living on such isolated sta
tions as Matinicus, or Mount Desert Rock,

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK 73
which is twenty -two miles from land, or
Nantucket South Shoal lightship, which is
twenty-three miles from land, would become
crazed by the solitude of their lives were it
not for these libraries. But the truth is that
men whose lives are spent on the ocean are
not readers of literature. In the lighthouse
service they stand watch and watch, as crews
do at sea ; and the thoughts and habits
of many of the light-keepers, all of whom
have been seamen, are so closely allied to
their occupations that narratives of wrecks
and disasters to ships, by which they can
compare their own experience with that of
others, are more interesting to them than
history, or biography, or fiction. The only
book in the Nantucket South Shoal light
ship which is well thumbed and frequently
referred to is said to be one containing a
record of vessels that have met with disaster
on the Nantucket coast. Each vessel is a
personality to the Hghtship men.
Captain Grant went with his family to live
on Matinicus Rock, as light-keeper, in the
year 1861. The previous keeper left with
the new-comers his daughter, Abby Burgess,
whom I have mentioned, to teach them how

74 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
to manage the lights. She had been on the
rock since the year 1853. The captain's
son, Isaac, was an interested pupil, and in
the course of time he married the young
teacher, who soon after received an appoint
ment as an assistant keeper of the lights.
The rock was her home, and there her chil
dren were reared. But she had a longing
desire for a home on an inland farm, and she
waited the time when for her "there shall
be no more sea."
That time began to come in the year 1875,
when she and her husband were transferred
to White-Head Light, while the captain, her
husband's father, remained in charge of Ma
tinicus. White-Head is an island near the
western entrance to Penobscot Bay, and is
so near the mainland that the light-keeper
can row across the channel to Spruce-Head
for a daily mail, if he chooses to do so. Near
the lighthouse were small patches of land
and a garden. Not far away were the ever
green woods, and browsing cattle, and fields
of grass. There was a piano in her new
home ; but in front of it was the wearisome
sea, upon which she must look every day, for
which she must light the lamps every night ;

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK 75
and by her door stood the dreadful steam
whistle, screeching its dismal blasts when
fogs covered the coast. Here they lived fif
teen years, keeping in charge the White-
Head Light. But all the time some hopes
of another home remote from the ocean were
kept alive in her heart. One day she wrote
a letter to a friend living near the Green
Mountains of Vermont, in which she re
viewed her work of keeping ocean lights
burning, to which thirty-seven years of her
life had been devoted, and said : —
" Sometimes I think the time is not far
distant when I shall climb these lighthouse
stairs no more ; then there will be another
watcher who will take my place ; but there
never will be anybody who can take a greater
interest in the light than I have taken. It
has almost seemed to me that the light was
a part of myself.
"When we had care of the old lard-oil
lamps on Matinicus Rock, they were niore
difficult to tend than these lamps are, and
sometimes they would not burn so well when
first lighted, especially in cold weather, when
the oil got cool. Then some nights I could
not sleep a wink all night, though I knew

76 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
the keeper himself was watching. And
many times I have watched the lights my
part of the night, and then could not sleep
the rest of the night, thinking, nervously,
what might happen should the light fail. I
felt just the same interest in it before I re
ceived any pay. I lived on the rock nearly
seventeen years before I was appointed an
assistant, or had any pay for my work.
" In all these years I always put the lamps
in order in the morning, and I lit them at
sunset. Those old lamps, as they were when
my father lived on Matinicus Rock, are so
thoroughly impressed on my memory, that
even now I often dream of them. There
were fourteen lamps and fourteen reflectors.
When I dream of them, it always seems as
though I had been away a long while, and I
am trying to get back in time to light the
lamps. Then I am halfway between Matini
cus and White-Head, and am hurrying to
ward the rock to light the lamps there in
time to be at White-Head to light the lamps
there before sunset. Sometimes I walk on
the water ; sometimes I am in a boat ; and
sometimes I seem going in the air. I must
always see the lights burning in both places

LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK ^^
before I wake. I always go through the
same scenes in cleaning the lamps and light
ing them, and I feel a great deal more wor
ried in my dreams than I do when I am
awake. I wonder if the care of the light
house will follow my soul after it has left
this wornout body. If I ever have a grave
stone, I would like it to be in the form of a
lighthouse." At last this noble woman secured an in
land home, to which she and her husband
retired in the month when the apple-trees of
New England are in blossom. Six months
later Captain Grant, who had kept the lights
on Matinicus Rock burning for twenty-nine
years, resigned his charge, and retired to the
home of his son on land, leaving another son
to succeed him as captain of the rock. He
was then eighty-five years old. " I expect,"
wrote one of his sons to me at the time of
the retirement, " he will feel the change
severely, for at the age of eighty-five years
one must suffer from such a radical change
in their surroundings, from the wild, stormy
coast of the Atlantic to the peaceful quiet of
an inland village."
The three light-keepers of Matinicus went

78 LIFE ON MATINICUS ROCK
to spend their remaining days in a quiet vil
lage of Plymouth County, Massachusetts,
where there is no sea nor any lighthouse
lamp. But there they missed their old fel
lowship with the ocean. The expectation
which the son had expressed to me concern
ing his father became prophetic of the whole
family ; and before twelve months had passed,
they removed to a town which looks upon
" the unplumbed, salt, estranging sea."

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY.

These roads have a history. Long before
Englishmen had arrived at Plymouth, they
were the foot trails of Indians traversing the
great forest which stretched from the ocean
to the site of the Providence Plantations ;
the colonists used them as cattle-paths, by
which their herds were driven to winter
grazing in the meadows bordering Buzzard's
Bay ; then they were bridle-paths, for the
usual mode of traveling was on horseback ;
then they became cart-roads,
"winding, as old roads will.
Here to a ferry, and there to a mUl."
At last they were adopted as the highways
of a town.
The vines and flowers hedging these roads
have probably been reproducing themselves
in the same places from time immemorial.

82 OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
Mats of wild cranberries have always covered
the banks near the ruts, and little blossoms
of various colors have always lifted their
heads in the dusty wayside grass. Every
summer I have seen those thickets of wild
syringas in flower; those elderberries have
hung their purple clusters for the wine-
makers annually, and the tall witheberry
bushes have not failed to turn their fruits
from green to red, and from red to blue,
whether the traveler has admired them or
not. Some of these old roads wander through
long reaches of pine woods, where jungles of
ferns are growing, and deep layers of brown
needles are spread, and heaps of lops and
tops are lying as they were left by wood
cutters. The stillness of these woods makes
you pause ; the song of a bird is seldom
heard in them ; and the only sound that you
catch is a soft, incessant murmur of the top
most branches, which you may fancy to be
the hushing whisper of Silence. The roads
pass clumps of white birches leaning over
old stone walls, and curiously over-run with
grape-vines. They pass old guide-posts
which have stood up and contradicted each

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BA Y 83
Other about the distances to Plymouth and
Sandwich and Mattapoiset, until they have
become gray. They pass ancient milestones,
partly concealed in the bushes, on one of
which are carved the symbols "4 M." But
no one knows to what haven it would now
direct the traveler. They pass along the
edges of ponds into which alewives come
from the sea every spring, to cast their
spawn. They pass low farm-houses which
face to the south, no matter which way the
road runs.
Some of these houses are very ancient ; a
large square chimney rises from each, and
the chimney is the centre of the family
life. One of the housekeepers told me that
she had put seventeen pies to bake of a
morning in the great chimney oven. On
summer days house doors, barn doors, and
wood-shed doors are wide open ; there are
herds of handsome cows in clover fields
near by, and broods of hens are dusting
themselves in the road ; no other life is to
be seen. The silence and sunshine of sum
mer cover houses and fields. How delight
ful this silence is ! As I drive along, it is
broken by the tones of an organ in a farm-

84 OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
house, and I hear two voices singing the
world-traveled ballad of Annie Rooney : —
" She 's my sweetheart, I 'm her beau.
She 's my Annie, I 'm her Joe I "
An old road leads me to diked meadows
by the bay, where salt hay is now harvested
by farmers whose ancestors were cutting the
meadows when George the Second was king.
Another passes Hamlen's Corners, where, in
the year 1739, lived the deacon whom the
Wareham Church called up to inquire " how
he had disposed of ye contributions." There
is a piece of an old road called Briggs Lane,
and there stand the old houses once occupied
by the family which, in olden times, gave
to the thoroughfare its name ; but Betsey
Briggs, the last of her line, was dust long
ago. There is another piece of an old road
which is known as Happy Alley, so called, I
may suppose, because it is skirted on each
side by ancient graveyards, where briars and
blackberry vines grow easily. On another
road I catch, through the trees, the glimmer
of a large pond, on which one may troll for
black bass. Except the road which passes
through the woods near it, and the tracks by
which horses have been turned down to the

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY 85
water, there is no indication that man has
ever been on its shore. A hundred and fifty
years ago there were tilled fields where the
forest stands, and the windows of the farm
house looked upon the water. Now there is
no vestige of house or family ; but the pond
perpetuates the farmer's name.
Some of the old houses on these roads
look like real homes ; the long, low roof
spreads out to a broad base, as does an old
motherly hen spread herself to cover her
brood with her wings. Bare-footed and bare
headed children, dressed in red frocks or
blue trousers, who, with a finger in the
mouth, look shyly at me as I come near, and
run in through the open door as if to seek a
place of safety, are the broods that find
homes under these peaceful roofs. Some
times the windows of these old houses give
a quaint impression to me as I pass them.
Their small panes, like little eyes in the sun
light, seem to wink at me ; the irregular
lines of their sills, curving down to the cor
ners like a lower lip, seem to pout at me ; a
low dormer, half way down the slope of the
roof, seems to lift its sleepy lid to see who I
am ; and through a little square hole under

86 OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
the peak of the gable, which is covered by
one small pane of glass, an eye seems to be
watching me until I am out of sight.
Occasionally on my rides I meet a doctor
rushing along in a sulky, his box of drugs
at his feet ; then I meet a poor farmer who
is eking out his income by peddling dried
herrings ; then I encounter families from old
homesteads going soberly to a clambake on
the bay shore, in springless wagons floored
with straw. One day I met on the road a
man from Boston peddling parlor organs ; he
had two in his wagon, and he stopped me
and asked if I wanted "to buy an organ."
Often have I pulled off into a thicket at the
roadside to let pass a large wagon crowded
with women and children who were going to
the cranberry bogs, where they will crawl on
hands and knees to reap the fruit, and will
receive ten cents for each six-quart measure
of it turned over to the owner. Everybody
in this region who Owns anything appears to
own a cranberry bog ; the store-keeper owns
one ; the blacksmith owns one ; the oyster-
man owns one ; even the peddler owns one.
Many of these old roads are bounded by
rude stone walls, which were piled up more

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY 87
than two centuries ago, when the settlers
made their fields by cutting down forests and
digging out boulders with which they con
structed these boundaries. Although the
forest has overrun the fields, these walls re
main, " Pathetic monuments of vanished men."
I drove across the Woonkinco River, and
ascending a hill I came to a fork near which
stood a house in a field of dwarf oaks. The
front door was open. Pulling up my horse,
I hailed : —
" Does this road lead to Plymouth .' "
A stout woman came to the door, and
looked at me. She wore a green calico gown,
and a broad-brim straw hat such as men
wear in hay-fields.
" Yes ! Both on 'em," she said ; " but
Cap'en Savery, he goes Agawame way, —
right ahead ! "
I know Captain Savery. He commands a
lobster cart. Every Tuesday, for more than
twenty years, he has been driving it to Ware
ham with a load of boiled lobsters from Sol
Valler's at Ship Pond. That is a little fish
ing hamlet on the seacoast of Plymouth,
where a narrow strip of beach separates the

88 OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
sea from a small pond, in which were found
the remains of a ship driven by a storm at
some unknown time across the beach. The
woman cautioned me that I was sure to go
astray unless I followed the course which
the veteran lobster-man is accustomed to
steer through the Plymouth woods.
It was a sunny day in August. There had
been no rain for nearly a month. Between
the tracks of the road clumps of purple
wood-asters were struggling for life, and as
my horse shambled along, a continuous cloud
of dust arose behind the wheels, and was
scattered over ferns and huckleberry bushes
by the wayside. A green marsh in the cen
tre of an old field, and a small pond covered
with lily pads were pleasing contrasts to
the brown and weedy grasses surrounding
them. I came to a long row of small, uninhabited
houses. Fifty years ago they were bright
red houses filled by industrious families, who
had their church and their school near by.
Time has sagged the doors, toppled the chim
neys, and made gray and shabby these rem
nants of homes. Passing these I turned into
the street of Agawame village. The river

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY 89
runs furiously through the broken gates of a
dam, on its course to Buzzard's Bay, and
near it are spread the ruins of a large iron
mill, which in its day gave prosperity to the
village and a living to the people who inhab
ited those little red houses. Now the neigh
borhood is silent. Its homesteads have been
abandoned ; the blacksmith's shop, the mill's
store, the boarding-house, the tavern, once a
part of the general activity, are fast falling
into decay. So, too, is the old-fashioned
manor-house, which is separated from the
road by a little park of elm-trees, surrounded
by a broken-down picket fence. I turned
up to it to look at the portrait of a large
black bass which the iron-master took from
a pond in Plymouth woods thirty years ago,
and sketched on the wall of its portico.
Half way on the road from the head of
Buzzard's Bay to Plymouth, in a wooded
vale, lies a beautiful lake called Half-way
Pond. A guide-post stands on a corner of
the village street, and, pointing into the
woods, says : " Half-way Pond 8 miles." I
followed its guidance, and drove away into
the woods. The road was heavy with sand,
and hedged by thick bushes. Soon I noticed

go OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
that the sand had disappeared and pine
needles covered the way. In a short time
the pine needles were passed, and the road
became merely two wheel-tracks with young
pines and oaks standing between them. As
I advanced, these became larger, bending
stiffly as the wagon's body swept over them.
Suddenly I came upon a boy with a fish-
pole and a string of speckled trout. I asked
him : —
"Where does this road go ">. "
He guessed " it don't go nowhere," with
an air of scorn at my question.
A little beyond this encounter, I came
upon a man surveying to lay out a cranberry
bog. I said to him : " I 've lost the road."
" I guess you have," he replied ; " but you
can follow round and get into it after a
while." There was now no sign of travel except a
foot-path through the bushes. At a knoll
the path was divided. I turned my horse to
the right, because I saw an open space in
that direction and the glimmer of a line of
sand, which I concluded to be the road.
The path led me down to the broad sand-
covered dyke of a cranberry farm. It was

OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY 91
impossible to go further. I dismounted, and
lifted the wagon around ; then, carefully re
tracing the way I had come, I reached at
last the guide-post at the corner of the vil
lage street. Then I drove to " the store " to
inquire about the road to Half-way Pond.
" Can you tell me about it } " I asked of a
cheerful, broad-bosomed woman who stood
behind the counter.
" Dear me ! " she answered in a distressed
tone, " it 's dreadful crooked. Just as soon
tell ye as not, but don't believe I can."
" I can," said a small boy who was listen
ing, " if you '11 give me a pencil."
He took up a box cover, and drew a line
up and down it, then a line parallel, then a
line crossing both, then lines curving away
from all the lines.
" That 's the way the road goes," said he,
following one of the lines with the pencil.
" When you git here, that fork '11 lead you
to Federal Furnace. Keep on by this cor
ner, and look out there for a cedar swamp.
Here you '11 see some cranberry bogs ; and
when you git here, don't turn into that road,
'cause it goes to Zekel's Pond. You '11 see a
white rag tied to a pine-tree. You go by it.

92 OLD ROADS NEAR BUZZARD'S BAY
and you '11 come to an oak with a shingle
nailed on it ; then keep straight ahead, mis
ter, all the time, and I guess you '11 git
there." " I guess I '11 give it up," said I. " I '11
drive in some other direction."

A DAY ON THE SHORE

A DAY ON THE SHORE

It was the Fourth of July ; there were no
great guns nor brazen bells to usher in the
day, but only the songs of birds in the elms
and apple-trees, and the lusty shouts of a
fancy rooster that lords it over our barnyard
domain. Now and then a rustic near Country
Bridge fired off a musket. In the soft morn
ing air its sound resembled the explosion of
a paper bag. The farm was silent and de
serted, although ripe grass stood waiting for
the scythe, and yesterday's hay was still out
spread. You could not have hired a laborer
to rake it up at ten dollars a day, for all the
men had gone down the bay to celebrate the
Fourth. As our farm-house was filled with guests
from the city we decided to celebrate the
day by a clambake on the shore. So, on
the evening before, I drove over to a little

96 A DAY ON THE SHORE
hamlet of old houses lying on the road to the
beach, to hire a clam-digger. The houses
are occupied by unambitious people who fish
or farm as the fancy takes them, and do not
trouble themselves with thoughts about the
morrow. All kinds of labor " kind o' goes
agin " their convictions. The houses stand
on the edge of an oak thicket where roads
from the back country meet and fork away
toward the bay, and at the fork stands a small
dilapidated house having one story and one
door. On its gable end, facing you as you
approach, is always sitting a large crow ;
Uke Poe's raven, which was forever sitting
" on the pallid bust of Pallas " just above his
chamber door. Children long ago named
this house the Crow Hotel, and in younger
days they felt a dread of it as they rode past
on their way to the beach ; for through its
always open door could be seen signs of that
wretchedness which is likely to make mischief
in a neighborhood. Strung along the road
just beyond are other houses of the settle
ment. No fences separate them from the
land which they occupy ; as it was easier for
the families to gather their firewood from the
fences, while these lasted, than to go a few
steps farther into the forest to get it.

A DAY ON THE SHORE 97
I pulled up my horse in front of a house
before which several barefooted boys were
grouped, each one trying in turn to jump
farthest from a standpoint into the road;
marking the spot where the jump lands him
with a scratch made by his big toe in the
sand. They stopped their sport and stared
at me when I told them that I wanted to
hire a man to dig clams.
" Dun know where you '11 git him," was
their opinion.
But I succeeded in finding one ; and it was
interesting to discover that his name and
pedigree came from a passenger in the May
flower. He agreed to dig three bushels of
clams at low tide in the morning, to make
the bake, and be at our service for the day ;
the entire consideration being three dollars.
Immediately after breakfast on the morn
ing of the Fourth, preparations for the
picnic are begun. Baskets are filled with
desirable things from the pantry and oven,
demijohns are filled with fresh water, bathing-
suits and towels are sorted and made into
packages. These things are stowed away in
two large wagons, to each of which a span of
horses is harnessed.

98 A DAY ON THE SHORE
At noon we lock the house, crowd into the
wagons, and drive away. We ride through
the woods and snuff the fragrant odors which
a warm sun is distilling from pine trees.
Along the roadsides sweetbriar roses are
blooming. Children are allowed to jump out
of the wagons to break off clusters of ripen
ing blueberries, and to pick wild cranberry
blossoms or laurel flowers with which to
adorn their straw hats. Now the root of a
big tree bulging in the road gives us a heavy
jounce as the wheels pass over it ; then a
deep rut catches the wheels and we are all
thrown against each other. These things
are made sport of as we drive on and find
them repeated. After a half hour's journey
we pass the house on whose gable the crow
is perched ; then we pass mounds covered
with moss, through which peep out bleached
clam-shells, which are supposed to be rem
nants of clambakes enjoyed by Indians cen
turies ago ; then a short drive brings us to
the bay shore, where we find our Mayflower
man awaiting us under the pine trees, having
all the materials at hand for the bake.
The horses are now unharnessed and tied
to trees, the wagons are rolled into shady

A DAY ON THE SHORE 99
places and unloaded, the guests lounge along
the beach to some cool retreat where they
may read a novel or quietly watch the yachts
and fishing-boats that are going up and down
the bay. The children take off shoes and
stockings and are soon paddling on the edge
of the water; or digging little canals and
cisterns into which the tide creeps ; or pick
ing up snails, tiny crabs, and scallop shells ;
or building sand castles, to be washed away
by the ripples which the south wind sends
to shore.
In the mean time our man is making the
bake. A large, pan-shaped hole has been
scooped out and carefully lined with stones.
On these he builds a fire, heaps it high with
dry wood, keeping it in full glow until the
stones have become red hot. Then he clears
away the fire, removes the embers, sweeps
off the ashes, and upon the clean, hot stones
he spreads a cover of mossy rockweeds, just
gathered from the bay. Over this he spreads
the three bushels of clams ; these he covers
with long sea-grass, sloped up in a heap
which confines all the heat and steam arising
from the stones. The clams are cooked in
twenty minutes ; the oven is opened on the

lOO A DAY ON THE SHORE
leeward side, and all hands are summoned to
help themselves. We burn our fingers with
the hot shells, as each layer of clams is un
covered, and we are careful not to spill the
hot juice as we press the shells open and with
our fingers take out the delicious morsels.
From a tent where bathing-suits have been
put on, there is now a run to the water ; and
while some jump in, others recline on the
beach to watch the bathers ; children are
wetting their ankles with a scream ; girls are
splashing in the shallows and incessantly
shrieking ; bolder boys are diving off into the
depths ; and the city belles ! . . .
The sight of belles in bathing-dresses easily
destroys one's respect for the maxim that
beauty unadorned is adorned the most. But
she who now sits on the sand and laughs at
the uncomely appearance of her comrades
in the bath, may be seen, some other day,
emerging from it as they are now : —
" Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks.
Like seaweed round a clam."

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES

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OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES

Many a New England village has had its
witch, its haunted house, its graveyard ghost,
and its goblin stories. Its children have
been afraid to go to bed in the dark, and are
afraid now, lest "the Boogars" catch them.
These mysterious creatures are supposed to
haunt the darkness of bed-chambers and to
live by day in some obscure cubby-hole in
the garret. The moral lessons for which
their pretended existence is used are thus
expressed by the Hoosier poet : —
" You better mind yer parents, and yer teachers fond and
dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's
tear.
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the gobble-uns '11 git you
Ef you Don't Watch Out I "

I04 OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES
There are two women, descended from one
of the English settlers of the Plymouth
colony, who tell witch stories and believe
in the existence of witches, or of old women
who can exercise a supernatural power over
others. Their mother and grandmother, for
they are sisters, held to the same supersti
tion. In their day a belief in the working of
evil influences was almost universal with the
lower classes of people in the county, and
witchwood was gathered under peculiar cir
cumstances to be kept as a shield against
the witcheries of mumbling and wrinkled
hags. Farmers were then particular to cut
their cordwood "on the decrease of the
moon ; " a death in the family was told to the
bees, and sometimes the hives were trimmed
with crape, as if it were possible for the
wandering spirit of the dead to come back to
the homestead to get a supply of honey, if
stinted of it in the last resting-place. Akin
to this superstition was a custom prevalent
in some English colonies of burying a suicide
in the cross-roads and driving a stake through
the body, to prevent the spirit from coming
back to vex the community.
" After you pass Carver Green on the old

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES 105
road from the bay to Plymouth," said one of
these women, " you will see a green hollow
in a field. It is Witches' Hollow, and is
green in winter and summer, and on moonlit
nights witches have been seen dancing in it
to the music of a fiddle played by an old
black man. I never saw them, but I know
people who saw witches dancing there. In
a small house near the hollow, a little old
woman lived who was a witch ; she went by
the name of Old Betty, and she danced on
the green with the devil as a partner. There
was an old man who lived in that neighbor
hood by himself ; he was kind to Betty, giv
ing her food and firewood. After a while he
got tired of her and told her she must keep
away. One day he caught her there and put
her in a bag, and locked the bag in a closet,
and put the key in his pocket, and went away
to his work. While he was gone, she got out
of the bag and unlocked the door. Then
she got his pig, dog, cat, and rooster, put
them into the bag, put the bag in the closet
and hid herself. When the man came home
the animals in the bag were making a dread
ful noise. 'Ah, ha! Old Betty, there you
are ! ' said the man. He took the bag and

lo6 OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES
dashed it on his doorstone, and the old wo
man laughed and cried out, ' You hain't killed
Old Betty yet ! ' "
Another story told by the old women was
of two witches who lived in Plymouth woods,
near the head of Buzzard's Bay, who never
went out in the daytime ; but in the evening
twilight they walked out "casting spells."
They cast a spell on a boy, compelling him
to follow them home. Putting him to bed in
a lower room, they went up a ladder into the
loft. At midnight the boy .saw them come
down the ladder, go to the oven, and take out
a quahog shell. Each witch rubbed it be
hind her ears and said " Whisk ! " when each
flew up the chimney. The boy got up and
rubbed the shell behind his ears ; immedi
ately he went up the chimney and found him
self standing outdoors beside the witches,
who were sitting astride black horses in the
yard. On seeing the boy one of them dis
mounted, went into the house and returned
with a " witch bridle " and a bundle of straw.
She flung the bridle over the straw, and out
of it came a pony. The boy was put on the
pony's back, and away the three cantered
across a large meadow, until they came to a

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES 107
brook. The witches cleared the brook at a
leap ; but the boy, when he cleared it, said
to his pony, " A pretty good jump for a lousy
calf ! " Those words broke the spell ; the
pony vanished, the boy stood alone with the
bridle and the straw. He now ran after the
witches, and soon he came to an old deserted
house in which he heard the sound of fiddles.
He peeped in a window and saw a black man
fiddling, and the two witches and other old
women dancing around him. Frightened, he
ran down the road until he came to a farm
house. He knocked on the door, was ad
mitted, and the next day the farmer carried
hihi to his parents.
The old women who told the witch stories
said that their grandmother had been person
ally acquainted with two witches, in the last
century. One of these was named Deb
orah Borden, called at that day "Deb Bur
den," who was supposed to have caused a
great deal of mischief in Wareham, Roches
ter, and, Middleboro. It was thought to be
necessary for farmers to keep in her good
graces lest she should cause a murrain to
come upon cattle, lest the rye refuse to head,
and the corn to ear. She was a weaver of

io8 OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES
cloth and rag carpets. Woe to the unlucky
housewife who worried Deb or hurried her
at her looms ! I will let one of the sisters
relate her story of this sorceress. It is not
probable that the relator had ever heard of
Robert Burns' story of Tam O'Shanter and
his gray mare Meg ; but a running brook
filled the same place in that story and in
this : —
" Once my grandmother had a web of
cloth in Deb's looms, so she sent my mother
and a girl named Phebe after it. The two
girls were just as intimate as finger and
thumb. They went to Deb's house and told
her what my grandmother said, and it made
her mad, 'cause she did n't like to be hurried.
Near her back door was a tree full of red
apples, and Phebe said, ' Won't you please
give me an apple .'' ' and Deb said, ' Drat
you ! No, I won't ! ' My mother was n't
afraid, so she took an apple for Phebe and
one for herself, and she said to Deb : —
" ' I ain't afraid of ye, ye old witch ! '
"'Ye ain't.?' Deb screamed; 'then I'll
make ye afraid afore ye git home ! '
" They had a piece of woods to go through ;
in the middle of it there was a pair of bars.

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES 109
and on the other side of the bars there was
a brook. Suddenly they heard a roaring and
they saw a black bull coming. ' Oh ! ' said
Phebe,' Captain Besse's bull has got out and
he will get us ; ' so they ran for the bars.
They got through them and across the brook,
when the bull leaped the bars and stopped on
the edge of the brook and roared ; then my
mother knew it was old Deb Burden who was
in the bull to frighten the girls, because the
brook stopped the critter. Witches can't
cross running water, you know.
" The girls reached home dreadfully fright
ened, and told what had happened. ' Never
mind,' said my grandfather ; ' I '11 fix Debbie ! '
When she brought home the cloth, he came
into the house and slipped behind her as she
sat by the fire, and put a darning-needle
through her dress and fastened her to the
chair. Well, she sot ; and every once in a
while she said, ' I must go ; ' but she could n't
stir ; she would be still for a while and then
say, ' Why, I must go and tend my fire ; ' but
she could n't stir no more 'n a milestone ;
and he kept her in the chair all day, and then
he pulled out the needle and let her go.
' Scare my gal agin, ye old witch ! ' he said.

110 OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES
You know witches can't do anything when
steel is nigh, and that was the reason the
darning-needle held her.
" Once Deb came to Thankful Haskell's
in Rochester, and sot by the fire, and her
daughter, fourteen year old, was sweeping
the room, and she put the broom under Deb's
chair. You can't insult a witch more than
that, 'cause a broomstick is what they ride
on when they go off on mischief. Deb was
mad as a March hare, and she cussed the
child. Next day the child was taken sick,
and all the doctors gin her up, and they sent
for old Dr. Bemis of Middleboro ; he put on
his spectacles and looked at her, and said he,
' This child is bewitched ; go, somebody, and
see what Deb is up to.' Mr. Haskell got on
his horse and rode to Deb's house ; there
was nobody in but a big black cat ; this was
the devil, and witches always leave him to
take care of the house when they go out. Mr.
Haskell looked around for Deb, and he saw
her down to the bottom of the garden by
a pool of water, and she was making images
out of clay and sticking in* pins. As quick as
he saw her he knew what ailed the child ; so
he laid his whip around her shoulders good.

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES m
and said, ' Stop that, Deb, or you shall be
burnt alive ! ' She whimpered, and the
black cat came out and growled and spread
his tail, but Mr. Haskell laid on the whip,
and at last she screamed, ' Your young one
shall git well ! ' and that child began to
mend right off. .The black cat disappeared
all of a suddint and Mr. Haskell thought the
earth opened and took him in."
" Moll Ellis was called the witch of Plym
outh," said the other sister, taking up the
story-telling. "She got a grudge agin Mr.
Stevens, a man my grandfather worked for,
and three years runnin' she cast a spell on
the cattle and horses, and upsot his hay in a
brook. My grandfather drove and Stevens
was on the load, and when they came to the
brook the oxen snorted, and the horses reared
and sweat, and they all backed and the hay
was upsot into the brook. One day Stevens
said, ' I '11 not stand this ; I '11 go and see
what Moll Ellis is about.' So he went up to
her house, and there she lay on her back
a-chewin' and a-mutterin' dretful spell words,
and as quick as Stevens saw her he knew
what ailed his cattle ; and he walked right
up to the bed, and he told Moll, ' If you ever

112 OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES
upset another load of hay I '11 have you hung
for a witch.' She was dretful scart, and
promised she never would harm him again.
When she was talking, a little black devil,
that looked just like a bumblebee, flew into
the window and popped down her throat ;
't was the one she had sent out to scare the
cattle and horses. When Moll died, they
could n't get the coffin out the door because
it had a steel latch ; they had to put it out
the window."
Whether Moll was in the habit of using
the window to pass in and out of her dwell
ing-house in her lifetime, these women could
not tell ; but they firmly believed in Moll,
and in witches, devils, and familiar spirits.
That belief, under various names, still flour
ishes with certain classes of people in eastern
Massachusetts. At Onset I have heard them
speak of " manifestations " received from the
spirits of the first settlers on the shores of
Buzzard's Bay, and I have read in a Bristol
County newspaper that a mysterious hearse
had been seen driven by a headless man
along a road in the woods.
In regard to such stories I must say, as
Mr. Addison said after relating the story of

OLD COLONY WITCH STORIES 113
Glaphyra : " If any man thinks these facts
incredible, let him enjoy his opinion to him
self ; but let him not endeavor to disturb
the belief of others who by instances of this
nature are excited to the study of virtue."

A THANKSGIVING

A THANKSGIVING

In December, 162 1, Edward Winslow, of
the Mayflower company, wrote a letter from
Plymouth to a "louing and old friend" in
London, saying : —
" We set the last Spring some twentie Acres
of Indian Come, and sowed some six acres of
Barley & Pease and according to the manner
of the Indians, we manured our ground with
Herrings or rather Shadds, which we have in
great abundance and take with great ease at our
doores. Our Corne did proue well & God be
praysed, and our Early indifferent good, but our
Pease not worth the gathering, they came up
very well, and blossomed, but the Sunne parched
them in the blossome ; our harvest being gotten
in, our Governour sent foure men on fowling, so
that we might after a more speciall manner re-
ioyce together after we gathered the fruit of our
labours ; they foure in one day killed as many

1X8 A THANKSGIVING
fowle as with a little helpe beside served the
Company almost a weeke."
This rejoicing together "after a more spe
ciall manner " was the first Thanksgiving
Day in New England. But in 1621 it was
not called by the name it now bears, nor did
its circumstances resemble those which now
surround it. Then, frightful mysteries were
lurking on the wooded horizon of the camp
at Plymouth. Now, there looms upon the
horizon of our Thanksgiving Day nothing
more frightful than an enormous turkey.
There were no cheerful firesides nor jovial
guests in the Plymouth huts ; and although
the exiles ate the partridges and wild turkeys
which the " foure men on fowling " had shot
in the Plymouth woods for their Thanksgiv
ing dinners, the eaters were not free from
anxiety and discomfort ; and imagination
may picture the dyspepsias which haunted
them after that "almost a weeke " of feast
ing. It is something to rejoice over that no
matter who is the President, nor what politi
cal party holds the key to the treasury, nor
what taxes oppress the people, the whirligig
of time is sure to bring in a Thanksgiving

A THANKSGIVING 119
for everybody, on the last Thursday in No
vember. Men may say that they are too
busy, and women may say that they have
nothing to wear ; circumstances may change
and friends may change with them ; but
here comes this most hospitable day of the
year, unchanged in its spirit by any changes
of time. Shops are shut, factories are silent,
the iron door of discounts and deposits is
closed, the Ship of State is hove to and all
hands are piped to dinner. Only the ball
clubs, with their devotees, are left out of
doors on Thanksgiving Day.
To see a picture of the genuine Thanks
giving Day, you may send your memory
back to the old homestead from which, per
haps, you wandered long ago ; or you may
go with me in imagination to a New England
village. A long sermon has been preached in the
village meeting-house, in which the preacher
has exhorted the people to render thanks to
the Supreme Ruler, the giver of every good
and perfect gift ; to love the country and its
institutions ; to respect all those who are set
in lawful authority over them ; and, finally,
to prepare for that eternal kingdom which

I20 A THANKSGIVING
is to come. The sermon is ended ; the
meeting-house is closed, and the village street
is soon deserted.
On these stone-walled farms fragrant barns
are preserving the wealth of a harvest closely
gathered. In her ample stall stands the old
gray mare, whinnying for an extra quart of
corn, and whisking her tail in thanksgiving
that fly-time is ended. The brindled cows
poke their mild faces over the barnyard gates,
chewing unconsciously the cud of thanksgiv
ing. Chanticleer, thankful for this extra-
meal-giving day, and regardless of the fate of
his progeny who are smoking in the chicken
pie, mounts the highest peak of the wood
pile, and with lusty crow announces himself
the undaunted cock of all creation.
From those great, square, brick chimneys
curls up peacefully the smoke of thanksgiv
ing kitchens. All out-door work has been
laid aside, and the juvenile Yankee nation
has gathered indoors, where it is kicking up
its heels like a young colt, shouting, "Be
gone, dull care ! " and bidding grandmother
" Hurry up those pumpkin pies ! "
The restless Jonathan is at home to-day ;
he dismisses his dignity with a yawn of relief

A THANKSGIVING 121
as he finds himself free from his stocks in
New York, his grain in Chicago, and his
plantations in Louisiana. He romps with
the children to-day in the hay-loft, and builds
blocks of houses for them on the sitting-
room floor. The London clock in its tall
mahogany case, standing in a corner as it
stood in the old colonial times, whirrs off the
noisy hours ; and grandfather sits at the
fireside, tapping his snuff-box, and waving
gleefully his red bandanna handkerchief.
He enters into all the frolics of the grand
children, and his feelings say : —
" Play on, play on ; I am with you there.
In the midst of your merry ring ;
I can feel the thrill of the daring jump.
And the rush of the breathless swing.
I hide with you in the fragrant hay,
And I whoop the smothered call,
And my feet slip up on the seedy floor,
And I care not for the fall."
That parchment framed upon the wall of the
sitting-room is a commission from "George
the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great
Britain, France, and Ireland, King," appoint
ing this grandfather's grandfather " to be
one of Our Justice to keep Our Peace in
the County of Plymouth within Our Province

122 A THANKSGIVING
of Massachusetts Bay, in New England."
It is dated "this 26th day of June, 1755."
From that day to this the odor of Thanks
giving Day has annually filled the old house
from cellar to garret, as it is filled now.
There is a savory sense of turkeys browning
on the spits of tin ovens ; of chickens crusted
with hot pastry ; of beans baking in dark
pots of earthen ; of mince pies steaming
with spices and cider ; the very atmosphere
smacks of the goodness of Thanksgiving
Day. After we have given thanks for all the
mercies and blessings which the day has
unfolded to our memories, we should not for
get to give thanks for the day itself, — the
most delightful episode in the circle of the
seasons. Blow the wind from what quarter it will,
this is the day of all the year when we should
heave the deep-sea lead of memory into the
past, take new bearings and departures, and
begin the reckonings of a new voyage. It is
the day when we should be on good terms
with all flesh, especially with ourselves —
and the cook. It is the day when we should
scare up all the celestial turkeys roosting in

A THANKSGIVING 123
our hearts, and send one to everybody in the
neighborhood who is poorer than we are.
To-day we should grate off the rinds of our
selfish dispositions ; we should baste our
worldly wisdom with large spoonfuls of the
drippings of humility ; we should lard the
tenderloin of our affections with the fat of
benevolence ; we should stuff the breast of
our vanities -with a dressing of knowledge
seasoned with godliness ; we should rejoice
that, although we have been broiled on the
gridiron of adversity ninety and nine times,
we are spared to see Thanksgiving Day with
a clear conscience, a thankful heart, and a
rousing appetite. And we are determined
that nothing shall vex the tranquillity of our
Thanksgiving but an endless grace or an
invincible " drumstick."
All hail to Thanksgiving Day, which has
been an annual visitor at our firesides for
many generations ! I say, as Patrick Henry
said of the Revolution, " Let it come ! I re
peat it, sir. Let it come ! Although every
gale that sweeps from the North may bring
to our ears the clash of resounding" —
knives and forks, let it come for its associa
tions of home and kindred, for the memories

124 A THANKSGIVING
it preserves and the hopes it creates. And
as often as it comes, let our thanks be sin
cere, our charities unbounded, our armchairs
capacious, our turkeys well cooked. Then,
after the cloth is removed, we may each
stand up and declare, with grateful satisfac
tion, " The Duke hath dined ! "

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE

The inhabitants of the menagerie have a
doctor who is at home at all hours of the
day. He has his prescriptions, his surgical
instruments, and his professional anxieties.
He looks into the eye of the lion, watches
the appetite of the leopard, notes the ner
vousness of the panther, the despondency of
the bear, the shivering fits of the monkey,
the gluttonous habit of the ostrich, the pal
ing lips of the seal. And although he can
not count the pulses of his wild patients by
the tick of his watch, nor examine their
tongues with that openness which a medical
man always desires, he can nevertheless form
a pretty good estimate of the daily health of
each individual in this primeval community.
The doctor keeps a professional diary,
which he allowed me to read. It contains a
record of the sicknesses in the menagerie, of

128 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
the symptoms of patients, the treatment, and
the result. For example : " January 20,
Panther Joe taken sick, very feverish, con
tinual vomiting, gave him sugar and water."
The next record of Joe's illness was written
on the 1st of February: "Panther Joe still
down, has taken no food, gave him tartar
emetic ; threw off considerable yellow fluid
from stomach." The panther's illness con
tinues without abatement, and on the 6th
of February the doctor wrote : " Panther Joe
has eaten nothing yet, tried him with a bird,
also with milk ; will take nothing but water."
Poor Joe ! He is indeed very sick when he
turns his nose away from a bird. But there
now comes a change ; the fever leaves him,
and a few days later it is recorded in the
diary that Joe has eaten a little raw meat.
A leopard gives birth to four cubs. Two
days later she is found to be nervous and
restless. She takes the cubs in her mouth,
one after another, and carries them as she
silently stalks around and around within her
cage. She lays the cubs down, picks them
up, then deposits them in a corner. Evi
dently she does not like the publicity of her
position, and is longing

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 129
" For a lodge in some vast wilderness,
Some boundless contiguity of shade,''
whither she may retreat to enjoy her young
ones, far away from the eyes of men. The
doctor orders her cage to be covered with
canvas so that no one can see her. One day
she clinches her teeth through two of the
cubs, and kills them ; the remaining two are
then removed from the cage to be fed from
a nursing bottle. After a while they are
given to a dog, who suckles them with her
pups ; and by this care, and the occasional
use of the nursing bottle, these two young
leopards get on in the world. The doctor's
record says that on the ninth day from birth
one of the cubs opens an eye ; on the tenth
day each cub has both eyes open ; on the
twentieth day their canine and incisor teeth
are cut ; on the fortieth day they begin to
lap with their tongues. Now, as the dog
will have nothing more to do with them,
they are taken away and put on exhibition.
One morning the doctor is called to a wolf
which has been seized with fits. He treats
it with a salt-water bath, bleeding, and salt ;
the next day there is no improvement ; on
the third day the wolf is seized by spasms,

13° SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
and dies. The inhabitants of the menagerie
die of every disease that is known to man.
It is recorded in the doctor's book that a
young camel died of an enlargement of the
heart ; that a rattlesnake died of a cancer in
its mouth, which is a common disease of the
serpent tribe. To a neighbor of mine in the
city there were consigned, for sale, twenty
boa constrictors, shipped from the banks of
the Amazon River. When they were landed,
three were found to have cancers in the
mouth. An anaconda in the menagerie
choked itself in an attempt to swallow a
blanket ; an ostrich poisoned itself by swal
lowing copper pennies ; a beautiful toucan,
from tropical America, swallowed a woman's
hairpin, and died from ulceration. The
brightest and most intelligent of these pris
oners, a Labrador seal, died in consequence
of cruel tricks played upon it ; in its stomach
were found " stones, nails, screws, shells, but
tons," which human barbarians had thrown
to it. I find the record of a young alligator
whose eyes were eaten out by turtles in the
night ; of a peccary dying from tubercles in
its lungs ; of a porcupine bursting a blood
vessel near the heart. Some of the inhabi-

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 13 1
tants of the menagerie have died from glut
tony ; some from home-sickness ; some from
duels fought with companions ; some from a
long-continued debility, as a bear that ex
pired quietly in the night, from what men
call " heart failure," or want of breath. An
ocelot, restless and weary of confinement,
having retired, as it were, from business, and
knowing not what to do, began to gnaw its
tail ; the doctor ordered tar to be put on the
end of it ; but the creature continued to
gnaw, and in a few days had eaten the tail
entirely off; then it died.
The menagerie doctor does not put much
faith in the use of drugs, and he finds it dif
ficult to administer them if his patient dis
likes them. It was only because a polar bear
was fond of cod-liver oil that the doctor was
allowed to administer it for a sore throat.
All wild animals possess a power of healing
their ordinary wounds by dressing with their
tongues ; but when attacked by a disease,
they can do nothing for themselves, and
there is not much that the doctor can do for
them. If they are sick unto death, they
usually seek for a place of darkness and soli
tude in which to wait the event.

132 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
The smaller animals are always trying to
escape from confinement. Raccoons and
foxes are frequently successful in attempts
to run away ; their natural cunning helps
them. One night four foxes scampered off.
An Egyptian goose flew away, and a swan,
attempting to follow the goose, struck its
head against a telegraph wire, and fell dead ;
an opossum got out of its cage in the night,
and made its supper on a hawk and a turtle
dove ; an eagle broke a wire of its cage, and
flew away to the mountains of freedom.
Here are twelve elephants standing in a
row, each chained by a hind leg to a post.
The largest of these sagacious creatures is
thirty years old, eleven feet high, and weighs
twelve thousand pounds. They can drink
water, bucket after bucket full, eat hay by
the bale, and are fond of sweets, apples, and
peanuts, which they are thankful to accept
in small quantities from visitors ; they stand
quietly with open mouths to play catcher to
a child who pitches to them a little ball of
corn-candy. An example of the sagacity of
these creatures was noted in the Manchester
Zoo. Near the stalls of the elephants were
boxes containing biscuits, which could be

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 133
released by a penny put into a slot. Some
visitors occasionally gave to the elephants a
half penny, and as experience had taught
them that this coin is of no value for obtain
ing biscuits, it was generally thrown back to
the giver. One day a visitor gave the baby
elephant a number of half pennies in succes
sion, each of which was thrown back as soon
as received. Two half pennies were then
given to the animal at the same time. His
demeanor was immediately changed. He
held the two coins in his trunk, rubbing them
togethe.r, rocking from side to side, and seem
ing to be pondering deeply. At last he
dropped them into the box together, and
their combined weight gave him the desired
biscuit. His joy was almost ludicrous. His
big ears were expanded, and he gamboled
about in a manner which exhibited the most
extravagant delight.
Notwithstanding its sagacity, an elephant
may be easily frightened by a mouse. A
keeper at the Bridgeport menagerie took a
string having a slip-noose in its end, slipped
it around the body of a mouse, and placed
the mouse in front of an elephant. As soon
as the elephant saw it he reared up in a

134 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
fright, and tugged to get away from his
chain. While the mouse was running around
the circuit allowed by the string, the ele
phant watched it with expressions of terror ;
then trembled, turned around, and screamed.
The same experiment was tried, with similar
results, on other elephants ; but when the
mouse was placed before one who was an
old resident of the menagerie, he put down
his trunk near it, and blew it away in such a
furious blast that the string was broken, and
the mouse disappeared from sight.
Here are lions " going about," but not
" roaring," although it is evident that their
only thought is for something to devour.
They are fed once a day on raw meat ; but
on Sunday they get nothing to eat. As the
daily feeding hour draws near, they stop
their perambulation of the cage, stand alert,
and look over the heads of the visitors to a
door through which will come the man who
always brings their dinners. " Why don't
that man come .? " they are evidently saying
to themselves. As soon as they have eaten
they will lie down and go to sleep. The
tigers are not as sedate as the lions. While
stalking with noiseless tread up and down

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 135
the cage, their heads are turned frequently
towards the open door with thoughts of din
ner-time ; sometimes they pause and raise
themselves on hind legs to get a more ex
tended view through the door ; their steps
become quicker and quicker as their impa
tience increases ; now they are standing still,
purring against the bars, curling their tails,
because they see the dinner-man coming.
In their native jungle, tigers become man-
eaters as soon as they have lost their fear of
man. Then they are cunning enough to
avoid all traps set for them ; and they are
strong enough and bold enough to break into
houses and carry off the inmates. In India
the terror which a man-eating tiger causes
has depopulated a village and put another in
a state of siege, the inhabitants being afraid
to go out to draw water from a stream which
was but a short distance away.
Lions and tigers are somewhat particular
in washing themselves. They wet, with the
tongue, the pad of a forefoot, and pass it to
and fro, as if it were a sponge, over the face
and behind the ears. The rest of the body
they comb with their rough tongues. Their
reception rooms — the cages in which visi-

136 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
tors see them — are swept, and carpeted
with sawdust in the morning before their
majesties leave the sleeping apartments.
When the connecting doors are drawn open,
the beasts come out at their leisure to begin
the day. They usually sleep late in the
morning, and sometimes they come out with
bounds and growls as if they had not passed
a pleasant night. Here comes a tiger of
Bengal, who probably has received a curtain
lecture from her mate. She bounds out as
soon as the door is open, stands erect and
nervous, as if she wanted something to do,
switches her tail, looks into each corner of
the cage, and calls for her fellow to come
forth, as if she desired him to "knock a
chip " off her shoulder. When he appears
she seems to be satisfied with his caress, lies
down, rolls over on her back, folds her paws
on her breast, and falls asleep, with the
appearance of being the most harmless crea
ture in the world. A tiger sleeps sometimes
in the attitude of a cat, with forefeet drawn
under the body, and sometimes in the atti
tudes of a dog, resting the head on the fore-
paws ; or stretched at full length on a side,
the paws outspread. In another cage are

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 137
two young leopards asleep, the head of one
resting lovingly on a shoulder of the other ;
and you think you would enjoy going into
the cage to caress the little beauties.
Every member of society in the menage
rie, whether young or old, is vicious at heart.
The savage nature may be restrained while
in confinement, but it is not eradicated.
The lion and the lamb can never lie down
together in menagerie cages. Even beauti
ful creatures, having mild eyes and gentle
countenances, are not to be trusted. Deer
are savage ; so is the antelope from India ;
so is the little springbok, of elegant form,
from South Africa. " You can't tell what
they '11 do," said a keeper, " if you go near
them." Therefore the keepers are always
wary when entering cages ; and they never
enter unless it is necessary to do so. A
kangaroo seized its keeper on entering the
cage, and pinioned him erect in its short fore
arms. With the claws of its powerful hind
legs it would have ripped open the man's
body by one blow, had he not known how to
crowd the beast back into a corner, and ham
per its hind legs by a certain pressure, until
opportunity came to escape from the embrace.

138 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
" Those black panthers," said a keeper, " I
raised from kittens. I used to go into their
cage until they got grown ; then I quit. I
saw they did n't want me in there any more.
One of our men said he was n't afraid to go
in, and he went ; and the panthers went for
him. He died in about five minutes after
we got him out of the cage."
In the menagerie, social contact causes no
irritation between individuals. This fact
seems to mark a difference between the tem
peraments of wild animals and of men. The
interest which they feel in each other's soci
ety was shown by the following incident in
the Central Park Zoo : A hyena had given
birth to twins, and after they had got well
started in life it became necessary to clean
out the cage. To do this the mother and
young ones must be removed to an adjoining
cage, and the father who is occupying it
must be transferred to another place. When
the transfer box was wheeled in, it attracted
attention from the entire society. The hip
popotamuses retreated to their tank and
snorted ; while the baby hippopotamus
plunged under the water, and stayed there.
The lions, tigers, and leopards showed their

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 139
interest, at first, by silent watchings ; after
wards they became furiously excited. The
mother hyena pushed her babies into a cor
ner of the cage, and expressed her feelings
in cries and barks. At last the father hyena
went quietly into the box ; but when this
was rolled away, the noise that followed it
might be likened (in Milton's words) to "all
hell broke loose." Every quadruped that
saw what had* been done roared in anger ;
and it seemed as if
" The universal host up sent
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night."
Here is a cage occupied by monkeys,
where eating, sleeping, playing, and inquisi
tive works go on continually. It offers the
most amusing spectacle in the menagerie.
A mother monkey is washing her children.
If one of them resists, she picks it up by the
tail and cuffs it ; if one is sick, she holds it
gently in her arms, and fondles it as a wo
man would fondle her child. The doctor's
record shows that monkeys take cold easily,
suffer from ulcerated sore throats, bronchitis,
tuberculosis, and die of consumption, as do
men and women.

14° SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
Mr. Crowley was a monkey (an African
ape), whose resemblance to man gave him
that name, and made him famous as long as
he lived in the Central Park Zoo. He ate
his daily meals while sitting in a chair at a
table, using a knife and fork exactly as they
are used by civilized people. He took soup
with a spoon, wiped his lips with a napkin,
and drank from a cup or tumbler held in his
hand. He suddenly died of pneumonia.
Sally, a famous ape of the London Zoo, who
died from a disease of the lungs, behaved
like a human being during her last illness.
She came to the front of her cage to take
medicine when told to do so ; and when she
became so feeble that it was necessary for
her to stay in the kennel, she reached out
her hand to welcome the doctor whenever
he approached.
Man is likely to have a more intimate
acquaintance with this apparent kinsman.
There has been obtained, by means of a
phonograph, evidence of the existence of
speech in monkeys ; and an attempt is to be
made to ascertain the meanings and modifi
cations of some of their labial sounds. Early
one morning, as I was riding on the summit

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 141
of the Bombay Ghauts near Mattaran, I saw
ahead of me, in a field bordering the bridle
path, a large monkey seated on the ground
and watching the gambols of half a dozen
young ones. These were wrestling, jump
ing, and playing tag like boys and girls. As
soon as the old monkey discovered me ap
proaching, she uttered a word which called
cdl the children to her side.^ Motioning
them to go behind her, as if for safety, she
faced me while I passed by under inspection
of the curious eyes of the family. Curiosity
is as strong in monkeys as in men. They
show as much curiosity about their visitors
in the menagerie as the visitors show about
them. Curiosity has caused a monkey to
drag a chair across a room, and stand on it
that he might reach a latch which he wanted
to open, and to use sticks to pry open the
1 " They talk with one another on a limited number of
subjects, but in very few words, which they frequently re
peat if necessary. Their language is purely one of sounds,
and while these sounds are accompanied by signs, as a
rule, I think they are quite able to get along better with
the sounds alone than with signs alone. The rules by
which we may interpret the sounds of simian speech are
the same as those by which we should interpret human
speech." — The Speech of Monkeys, by R. L. Gamer.

142 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
lid of a chest which he was curious to exam
ine. In the London Zoo a violin was played
before a cage containing an orang-outang,
who was ranked as the most intelligent
member of the Zoo society. He seated him
self facing the player, and while chewing a
straw, he gravely listened to the music, curi
ous to understand its meaning. " He looks
just like our manager when a new piece is
on ! " said the violinist, as he ended the sere
nade. The monkey's likeness to man is very ap
parent when dressed in man's clothes. The
captain of a brig lying at anchor in the
Congo River saw on shore an ape wearing
trousers, and leading a horse. He bought
the creature, and brought it to New York,
where it was seized by custom-house officers
for non-payment of protective duties, and
was sold at auction in July, 1892. At the
sale it was noticed that the ape chewed to
bacco and drank lager beer, holding the tum
bler in hand while drinking ; he was then
wearing a jacket, trousers, and a straw hat.
Looking on this scene, one may ask : Did
man descend from this imitation of himself .'
He did, according to the Darwinian the-

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 143
ory, which teaches that the human race and
a race of anthropoid apes had the same ori
gin ; "however much the conclusion may
revolt our pride," says Mr. Darwin. ^ The
process of descent was by "natural selec
tion," as it is called, or "the survival of the
fittest," which means the fittest to survive in
the struggle for existence. We are there
fore to beheve that man, in the remote period
of his origin, resembled, to some extent, the
late Mr. Crowley of the Central Park Zoo,
and the lager -beer -drinking ape who was
seized by his brothers of the custom house.
1 Darwin's theory of the origin of man cannot be stated
better than in the following words from his Descent of
Man (Pt. I. ch. 6) : " An ancient form which possessed
many characters common to the catarrhine and platyrrhine
monkeys, and others in an intermediate condition, and
some few perhaps distinct from those now present in either
group, would undoubtedly have been ranked, if seen by a
naturalist, as an ape or a monkey. And as man, under a
genealogical point of view, belongs to the catarrhine or
Old World stock, we must conclude, however much the
conclusion may revolt our pride, that our early progenitors
would have been properly thus designated. But we must
not fall into the error of supposing that the early progenitor
of the whole simian stock, including man, was identical
with, or even closely resembled, any existing ape or mon
key." The evolutionists have never given any satisfactory
explanation of the manner in which man acquired speech.

144 SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE
The primary ancestors of the Congo ape and
of its owner were affiliated ; in the process
of evolution the original types melted away,
and others appeared in their places ; and as
these traveled " down the ringing grooves of
change," a race of bipeds was developed fit
ted to survive and improve under the new
conditions which animal life on the earth had
to encounter.
This was the parting of the ways. Mr.
Crowley's type was left stationary ; and
man's type, in a state of savagery, came to
the front as a survivor of the fittest. At this
point of survival there could have been but a
small difference between man and monkey.
The former was nothing more than a " pri
meval semi-human savage," ^ the wild "brute
ancestor of man," ^ whose " appearance was
not so very different from that of his brother
ape." 3
Neither of these creatures had yet acquired
any articulate speech ; and we may suppose
that each chattered like an original monkey,
and "grunted and howled,"* as does the
1 Fiske, Darwinism, p. 46.
2 Fiske, The Destiny of Man, p. 28.
' Ibid. p. 29. ' Fiske, Darwinism, p. 44.

SOCIETY IN THE MENAGERIE 145
monkey tribe now. They lived as brutes in
herds ; their dwelling-places were caves and
trees and similar shelters provided by Na
ture ; they quarreled with each other in the
spirit of selfishness, as wild animals quarrel,
and as wild animals they lived and died.
All the time Nature was working out her
process of evolution, leaving the ape behind,
and carrying forward the " semi-human sav
age " through his upward grades of savagery,
and his upward grades of barbarism, into the
dawning lights of civilization. Thus man
became " the heir of all the ages."

THE MIND OF MY DOG

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THE MIND OF MY DOG
" There is no doubt that all of our thinking, except the
most simple and rudimentary, is carried on with the aid of
words.'' " It is a mistake to suppose that we cannot think, cannot
compare, or reason, or feel, or approve, or disapprove,
without language.''
I WONDER what my dog would say about
these contradictory opinions of two eminent
men ; for it is certain that he understands
language and has a thinking machinery,
which he carries on both with the aid of
words and without their aid. He has been
my comrade for ten years ; a large white set
ter, with red cheeks penciled off from the
white with exact regularity, red ears, a red
spot on his back. The marks of his mind
are as distinct as those of his body. The
extent of his intelligence and the gentle
beauty of his countenance are as notable as is
150 THE MIND OF MY DOG
his loyalty to me. I am prompted to say,
when he is stretched at my feet watching me,
as if to learn my thoughts : —
" I look into your great brown eyes,
Where love and loyal homage shine,
And wonder where the difference lies
Between your soul and mine ! "
In the morning. Spot (that is the name of
my dog) comes to my bedroom door and gets
admission. I leave him there, and going to
the bathroom, I say : " Do you want your
face washed .¦' " He appears in a few mo
ments at the bathroom door and lifts up his
face to be washed. When I say " that 's
enough," he goes away. As I leave my
house to go to the city, he accompanies me
to the door, then goes to a window and
watches me, and if he loses sight of me at
one window, he hurries to another. He
knows at what time I ought to return in the
afternoon ; he never mistakes the train ;
when it is due, he runs up and down stairs to
find some one who will open the front door
and let him out to meet me. If it is rain
ing he will meet me at the station with an
umbrella in his mouth. When he sees my
trunk brought downstairs he shows that he

THE MIND OF MY DOG 151
knows I am going away for a long absence ;
and he knows I am going out for a walk only,
when he sees me take up my hat and cane on
a Sunday afternoon. When the servant says,
" Dinner is served," he goes with the family
to the dining-room. If I am not there he
goes through the house in search of me, and
when he finds me he tells me by his actions
what he heard the servant say. In the even
ing he places himself near me, and some
times he gets up and stands gazing at me
with intense earnestness, his head erect and
his tail "waving. I know that now he has
something on his mind. I put down my
book and say, " What do you want .' " I ask,
for example, " Do you want some water .' "
If he still gazes at me, I know that I have
not guessed his want. If I say to him, " Do
you want to go outdoors .' then get my hat ! "
he runs into the hall, finds the hat and
brings it to me with an evident feeling of
pride that I have understood him. If I am
told, " Spot has been a naughty boy to-day ;
he went off on a tramp," and I look at him
and say in a severe tone, "Where have you
been > " he immediately hurries to me, puts
his forefeet on my lap, licks my chin, and

152 THE MIND OF MY DOG
lays his head against me. I interpret these
motions as his language saying in reply to
my question, " Don't speak of it, but forgive
me." He repeats this language until I say,
" I forgive you ; " then he retires satisfied.
When he comes into the house, he goes first
to the room in which I am accustomed to be.
If I am not there, he goes upstairs to my
study. Not finding me there, he goes into
my bedroom and looks through it ; then up
to the attic and searches all the rooms ; then
downstairs and visits each of the rooms
again, in turn. If some one says to him,
during his search, " Can't you find him .? "
he turns to that person with a wistful look,
which says, " Do tell me where he is ! " He
pursues the same course to find me that a
man would pursue, by planning and execut
ing a search through all parts of the house.
All these acts are the work of a mind.
His mind works also in dreams. Lying
asleep he is sometimes agitated by an im
aginary encounter with a foe, or by sensa
tions of being in peril ;
" Like a dog he hunts in dreams."
The mind in one dog is not like the mind

THE MIND OF MY DOG 153
in another. There are bright dogs and there
are stupid dogs ; there are good dogs and
there are rascal dogs ; there are dogs who
feel keenly a word of reproach, and there
are dogs who resent it. Men may be di
vided into the same classes.
The truth is, that peculiarities of charac
ter and mental condition are as strongly
marked in individual dogs as they are in in
dividual men and women. This results partly
from their lineage and partly from the
circumstances in which they have been edu
cated. As a dog reaches mental maturity
when he has lived seven or eight years, or
half of his natural lifetime, his period of edu
cation is brief ; hence it is said, " You can
not teach an old dog new tricks." And if he
is always hustled out of the house and com
pelled to seek his society in the street or in
the stable, he will become inferior in mental
and moral development to one who is allowed
to enjoy the sympathetic company and hu
manizing influences of a household.
I have come to believe that a person who
shows love for a dog, thereby shows the
possession of some of the best elements of
human nature. Such a love is returned in

154 THE MIND OF MY DOG
large abundance by the dog, to whom it be
comes a tie binding him to his master, in
whose society he thenceforth finds the com
plete satisfaction of life. This love grows
easily out of home companionship, from which
gradually comes an intimate knowledge of
the canine heart and an appreciation of its
strength and loyalty. When reading the
Journal of Sir Walter Scott, I came upon
a record which revealed a noble phase of his
character. It was written on the day of the
beginning of the disasters which finally over
whelmed him. " My extremity is come," he
wrote. "I suppose it will involve my all.
This news will make sad hearts at Darnick,
and in the cottages of Abbotsford. I am half
resolved never to see the place again. My
dogs will wait for me in vain. The thoughts
of parting from these dumb creatures have
moved me more than any of the painful re
flections I have put down. Poor things ! I
must get them kind masters ; there may be
those who, yet loving me, may love my dog
because it has been mine. ... I find my
dogs' feet on my knees. I hear them whin
ing and seeking me everywhere ; this is
nonsense, but it is what they would do could
they know how things are."

THE MIND OF MY DOG 155
The dog approaches man very closely in
his feelings. There are but few human
emotions that he does not show ; and yet
there are persons who cannot understand
one's love for a favorite dog ; such a dog, for
example, as " Geist," whose name has been
made immortal by Matthew Arnold's lyrical
elegy at his grave. Geist lived only four
years. Let me paraphrase the reflections
of the master on the lost life of his " dear
little friend : " —
Four years ! Is it true, my dear little friend,
that thy loving heart and patient soul were in
tended to reach so soon the end of their exist
ence, as if to teach to me the brevity of human
life? In thy liquid, melancholy eyes I saw the soul-
fed springs of human emotions. I saw a sensi
bility to tears for sorrow, a sympathy for suffer
ing; such as ^neas felt when he exclaimed,
"Tears are due to human misery, and human
sufferings touch the heart ! " ^ I also saw in thee
1 " That liquid, melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic soul-fed springs
Seem'd surging the Virgilian cry ;
The sense of tears in mortal things."
The " Virgilian cry," to which Matthew Arnold alludes,
is the exclamation of .(Eneas, when, with his friend

156 THE MIND OF MY DOG
a gayety of spirit and an heroic temper. And is
it possible that four years was their whole short
day? As the past can never be repeated, so thou
canst never be restored to me. Not all the ma
chinery of coming centuries, not all the resources
of nature, with her vast powers of creation, can
bring thee back. There may come another Geist,
somewhat resembling thee ; but thy little self can
never see life again !
Such is the stern law to which man must sub
mit. But finding it hard to bear, he imagines
for himself an immortality, a second life j I know
not what it is to be, nor where.
It was not so with Geist, who, without any
Achates, he was looking at the decorations of the Temple
of Juno at Carthage. Among these he saw a painting
which represented the long series of battles preceding the
Fall of Troy. The scene bringing to mind all the miseries
and sorrows of that event, he shed tears, and exclaimed : —
** Sunt lacrimas rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt ! "
[Tears are due to human misery, and human sufferings touch the heart !]
Connington's translation of this line is : —
" E'en here the tear of pity springs,
And hearts are touched by human things.''
The thought in Arnold's mind was, evidently, this :
The sympathetic heart of Geist, as revealed in his eyes,
expressed the same sympathy in human sorrows which
^neas felt when he saw the picture in the temple. This
reference to the "VirgUian cry" was a tribute to the
human emotions of the dog.

THE MIND OF MY DOG 157
thought of a second life, when the hour struck,
laid himself humbly down to die ; giving a last
glance of love to his despondent master.
I will not let his memory perish. I will em
balm it in this verse, which shall rehearse to fu
ture generations his wonderful arts, his ways, his
looks. Still I see him everywhere. I stroke his
brown paws ; I call him to his vacant chair ; I
hail him at the window; I hear his scuffle on
the stairs ; I see him lift his ears to ask which way
I am going. Everything brings to mind some
recollection of my little friend now gone forever.
I was all the world to him ; and being fondly
zealous for his fame, I am not content merely to
embalm his memory in verse ; I will strive by
other means to carry his fame to future years ; I
will bury him close by, where the grass is smooth
and warm, marking with a stone his last abode ;
and when I, too, shall have passed away, those
who see his grave will stop and say : " The peo
ple who lived here long ago intended, by this
stone, to make known to future times their little
friend Geist."
Thus I, through the power of my verse, will
revdve to immortality that four-years' life which
has been destroyed by nature. Geist shall be
come immortal; he shall live forever in the
realm of art !

158 • THE MIND OF MY DOG
The man who does not love his dog knows
nothing of the truth expressed by Cole
ridge : — " He prayeth well who loveth well.
Both man and bird and beast."
I have always felt an interest in " a dog
that the king loved " and lost. Samuel
Pepys wrote in his diary. May 25, 1660:
" I went, and Mr. Mansell and one of the
King's footmen and a dog that the King
loved, in a boat by ourselves, and so got on
shore when the King did." This occurred
at the landing of Charles the Second at
Dover, when he was called from Holland to
the throne of England. The "dog that the
king loved " was not forgotten in the confu
sion of that memorable day. But soon after
the landing the dog was lost ; and the follow
ing advertisement appeared in a London
newspaper of June 28, 1660, which, it may
be supposed, refers to the " dog that the king
loved:" —
" We must call upon you again for a black
Dog, between a Grayhound and a Spaniel, no
white about him, only a streak on his Brest, and
his Tayl a little bobbed. It is his Majesties
own Dog, and doubtless was stoln, for the Dog

THE MIND OF MY DOG 159
was not born nor bred in England, and would
never forsake his Master. Whosoever findes him
may acquaint any at Whitehal, for the Dog was
better known at Court than those who stole him.
WiU they neiier leave robbing his Majesty 1 Must
he not keep a dog ? "
This dog was " known at Court " because
he lived with his master. The dog-owner,
who imitates the king's example in this re
spect, will learn to love his dog.
How many men are as magnanimous as
my dog ? How many have his sense of
pride, of shame, of compassion, of wrong, and
of right ? He is a better example than is
usually seen in man, of the truth that obedi
ence is the natural sequel of love. He pos
sesses what is called reason, because he has
abstract ideas which he shows by inten
tionally adapting means to ends. This act
carries with it a knowledge of the relation
between the means that he employs and the
ends that he has in view. You may see this
in the action of a shepherd's dog when he is
told to head off a flock of sheep in a narrow
lane, and he is behind the flock. He will
jump over the fence and run up on the out
side of it until he gets opposite the head of

l6o THE MIND OF MY DOG
the flock, when he will jump into the lane
and turn the sheep back. A boy sent on the
same errand will do it in the same way. A
dog who is fond of going out with his mas
ter's carriage will hide himself when he hears
an order for the carriage, lest he should be
tied up and prevented from going with it. It
is well known that chained dogs having a
passion for killing sheep will slip off their
collars to go on a raid, and on their return
will slip into their collars and give themselves
an innocent appearance. A dog who has
been given meat at regular times, is ordered,
as the meat is put before him, not to eat it ;
he obeys this order, and waits. Such acts
are the result of a process of reasoning. You
cannot call them instinct in a dog, unless
you call them instinct in a man ; for in each
the mental process is similar.
When a dog has passed beyond his period
of infancy his acts are attended by conscious
ness, which is the opposite of instinct. In
animals lower than the dog on the scale of
creation, instinct is hereditary ; experience
does not affect it. John Fiske describes it
by saying : " The physical life of the lowest
animals consists of a few simple acts directed

THE MIND OF MY DOG i6i
toward the securing of food and the avoid
ance of danger, and these acts we are in the
habit of classing as instinctive." ^ Such ani
mals have nothing to learn ; their career is
generally a repetition of the careers of their
ancestors. I have a dog who, when he wants
the door opened to admit him, strikes it with
his paw. His mother asked for admission in
the same way. Another stands before the
door and whines for admission. So did his
mother. While the dog has the power of do
ing some acts which its ancestors did, it also
has latent capacities which are brought out
by experience. Up to a certain point ex
perience develops the canine mind as it
develops the human mind. The difference
between the growths of the two minds lies
in the natural limitations of the one, and in
the unlimited expansions of which the other
is capable.
As I study my dog's consciousness it is
hard to believe that there is no eternal life
for him, while I am asked by philanthropists
to believe that there is one for such inferior
animals as the pigmy in Equatorial Africa,
and the intoxicated vagabond whom my dog
1 The Destiny cf Man, p. 39.

l62 THE MIND OF MY DOG
will not permit to approach my door. Some
quadrupeds as well as men were saved in the
ark. Will any dogs be saved in the day
when " Final ruin fiercely drives her plough
share o'er creation ? "
" Can the love that filled those eyes,
With most eloquent replies.
When the glossy head close pressing,
Grateful met your hand's caressing.
Can the mute intelligence,
Baffling oft our human sense
With strange wisdom, buried be
Under the wild cherry-tree ? "
Sad as it may appear, there can be but one
answer to such inquiries. Neither man nor
dog is born for immortality by reason of be
ing born with a mind. The Scriptures teach
that immortality is a state for which man
alone is a candidate ; to him it is offered on
one condition, which is embraced in the'
words of Him who spake as never man
spake : " He that heareth me and beheveth
on Him that sent me hath eternal life."
This life has not been offered to dogs. The
mental attributes of my dog, which have
attracted attention, must be considered as
indicating merely his fitness for the purposes
of his existence as my companion. When
his life ends his mind must perish with it.

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC.

Life on a ship is out of all harmony with
life ashore. The dawn of the first morning
at sea is the beginning of a new sort of exist
ence. You find yourself in a strange house,
filled by strange people, strange noises, and
strange odors. There are no familiar asso
ciations ; the range of your movements be
comes narrow and limited ; the range of your
eyes is bounded by a monotonous horizon ;
you see in the great strength and bulk of the
ship indications of perils that may be encoun
tered ; even the flowers, with which unwise
friends persisted in adorning your cabin, sug
gest unpleasant thoughts as they " suffer a
sea change " and are thrown overboard.
Saturday. — The pilot was discharged
early in the afternoon. The steamship was
reeling off the line of her voyage with rapid
speed, when " the long black land " sunk out

i66 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
of sight in the west, and the sun went down.
At the same time a sinking of the heart was
felt by homesick passengers.
Sunday. — Morning is ushered in with
various noises made by scrubbing-brushes,
holy-stones, squilgees, and cataracts of water
traversing the decks. The boatswain's whis
tle summons the watch to make sail. Eight
een rugged men take the foretopsail hal
yards in their hands and strike into a song ;
the leader of the watch repeating the solo in
a stentorian voice, while all hands are lively
on the chorus. Here it is : —

i

Solo.

Chorus.

A strong sou -west-er's blow - ing, boys ! To me
i~^ Solo.

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way hay storm a-long,John. Hark ! don't ye
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^on^^ get a - long^ storm a long; John.
And as the song runs its rounds, the heavy

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 167
foretopsail yard slides slowly up to the mast
head. " Now haul in the lee braces," says
the whistle ; and the men, tailing on the
ropes, tramp the deck to another endless song
and chorus : —
Solo.

^ipjU^^^jp

We'Uhaul the bow- line so ear-ly in the morn-ing.
Chorus.

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We 'II haul the dow - line, ihe bow - line haul !
" Belay all," shouted by the boatswain, puts
an end to the work, and to the sleep of the
passengers. As the day wears on, a few sea
sick people, swathed in shawls, are brought
up from their rooms, and are carefully packed
into reclining chairs standing along the deck.
These people have already become faint
hearted and disgusted with their venture on
the sea. Some of them say that they would
give a large price if they could now be put
on board a steamer to return directly home ;
and they say that if they get safely back
from this voyage (of which result they appear
to have doubts), they will never go to sea
again ; never, so long as they live !

1 68 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
There are passengers who sympathize
with the sufferers, and are ready to tell them
what is "good for seasickness." They pre
scribe for the poor creatures an anodyne
plaster, or sulphuric ether ; some say that
lemon juice is good, and some say cham
pagne. Pills and plasters are recommended,
also Christian science and cracked ice. But
nobody praises the virtues of the shore.
And yet, the only preventive of seasickness,
for those who will be seasick, is the immova
ble shore.
Other passengers, who have stout stom
achs, are now trying to get on their " sea
legs ; " they are trying to walk fore and aft
the rolling ship, making one leg shorter than
the other at will, as they walk. Those who
cannot acquire this skill, or who refuse to be
supple-kneed to the ocean, go skiting into the
lee scuppers, where they lose their dignity
and their temper ; and these also wish they
had stayed ashore.
So the first day of the voyage brings a
severe trial to inexperienced voyagers. Their
nerves are shattered, their bones ache, their
sensations are disagreeable, their courage is
exhausted, they become weary and faint.

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 169
while the ship offers them no consolation but
a broth with onions in it. And yet delicate
women, for the hopes which London and
Paris hold forth, do not hesitate to submit
themselves to this sea of uncleanly sufferings.
But he who is fond of voyaging, and who
is never disturbed by the sea, will not wish
for a more enjoyable day than this. The
ship is doing her best work ; steadied by her
topsails and staysails, she is running and
rolling to the east with an alacrity that suits
an old sea-traveler's ideas. With what grace
of motion she lifts her head and then dips it
to the waters ! How prettily she swings
from larboard to starboard, while steadily
pushing her way over long ranges of waves,
swelling in vast heaps, which appear as if
they were about to slide down and overwhelm
her. Monday. — A fog. The sails have been
furled, and every preparation made to insure
immediate action of the helm, should any ob
ject loom up suddenly in our way. A misty
rain is driving down the wind, and the hori
zon ahead is bounded by the bowsprit. Two
lookouts clothed in oil-skins are on the fore
castle, two are in the foretop, and two are

170 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
on the bridge with the captain and officer of
the watch. Their eyes and ears are alert to
detect the mysteries concealed by the fog.
Their watchings indicate perils to the ship ;
but she steams ahead as if she knew her
course to be clear of every obstruction.
There is no comfort for passengers to be
found on deck ; the wet wind is harsh ; every
thing fore and aft drips water. There is no
comfort to be found in the cabin, where the
atmosphere is bad, and a silence ominous of
danger prevails. Many passengers remain
in their berths. They hear the swash of the
ocean against the ship's sides ; they see the
tips of the waves dash up and darken, for a
moment, the little port-lights ; they listen to
the sough of the wind, and to the warning
cry of the steam-whistle ; they are speech
less because of anxiety ; they are thinking of
the quiet homes they have left behind. That
young bride, who is cushioned up in a corner
of the gilded but gloomy saloon, probably
wishes that she had never been married ;
for, in all her dreams of the future, there
could not have been pictured such a discon
solate, such a dismal day as is this day at sea.
A few of the passengers answer the soft-

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 171
footed steward's call to lunch. As some of
them reel up to the tables, their weary-look
ing faces suggest to one another the unneces
sary question, " How do you feel to-day ? "
and perhaps they find some comfort in the
fact that misery is a mutual friend. Mean
while the captain's favorite cat walks along
the sill under the saloon port-lights ; she
pauses to receive attentions from the few
passengers who are at the table, looks at her
self in the mirrors, and tries to catch the flies
that have come with us from land. A girl
says, " How it seems like home to see a cat
here ! " At the same moment a scream an
nounces that a woman has seen rats in her
stateroom ; and an old seafarer says it is a
good omen if you find rats aboard during a
fog. All day the fog has covered the ocean, and
our steamer has been going through it at full
speed. Suddenly a sailing ship looms up
right ahead, and crossing our course. The
bow of our steamer strikes her starboard
quarter, cutting right through her hull, and
immediately each vessel disappears from the
other in the fog. The steamer is stopped
and all hands are piped to the boats, while

172 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
carpenters sound the wells and report that
there is no water in them. The covers of
the boats are cut away in haste, fall tackles
are manned, davits are swung out, and each
boat's crew takes its place in quiet order.
As soon as the boats float they are rowed
away to find the ship. When they have re
turned with the wrecked crew, our steamer
plunges ahead again into the fog as if nothing
had happened.
Tuesday. — The wind and the sea have
risen together, and early in the morning it
becomes necessary to close every port-light
and to shut the gangway doors. It is a cold
wind ; the look of the sky is harsh. There
are to be seen those peculiar forms of clouds
which, as an old saw says, " make high ships
carry low sails." At noon the wind is blow
ing fresh from the northwest. There is a fly
ing scud on the sea, and there is more of a
breeze than nervous passengers desire. The
topsails and fore -course are drawing full.
The ship feels their impulse,
" And swiftest of a thousand keels
She leaps to the careering seas ! "
Suddenly the wind hauls abeam, and the top
of a wave jumps aboard amidships. It

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 173
knocks open the gangway doors, bounces
into the cabin, swashes into the staterooms,
and terrifies all the women and children.
Now the lee sheet of the maintopsail parts,
and the wind, lifting the great sail, thrashes
it into ribbons. The watch hurry aloft, send
down the topsail rags, and bend on a new
sail, which is immediately hoisted. Then the
men are sent up to furl everything, for the
wind has suddenly hauled to the east of
north, and only fore-and-aft sails can draw.
All this is what seamen call fine weather.
Wednesday. — I went on deck at the
break of day ; the winds were still ; the
ocean appeared to be in truth a " gray and
melancholy waste." Far off was a ship com
ing out of the east ; her sails and spars were
clearly outlined on the dawn. As we ap
proached her she sheered up towards us and
asked for our latitude and longitude. Then
she resumed her course, and in a short time
she was hull down in the west. As day ad
vances, the ocean sparkles with life and
brightness ; a pleasant breeze runs over it ;
here and there white-caps are visible on the
dancing waters^ Those passengers who have
been seasick are beginning to enjoy the voy-

174 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
age, and the most timid of them is admiring
the scenery to-day. To the dullest eye the
ship appears to be a thing of beauty. Indeed
she is profane ; for she says, " The sea is
mine ! " — as with a gently rolling gait she
passes triumphantly over it, and goes un
checked on her course to England. In the
afternoon we passed a large vessel, bottom
up ; and not long after, we passed an aban
doned water-logged vessel with the stumps of
three masts standing.
All day, under control of a boatswain, the
watch on deck are scrubbing and polishing
and painting, until no house is as clean as
the ship. They scrape spars, patch canvas,
rub brasses, put up chafing-gear, uncover
and re-cover the boats. With all this ap
pearance of business, there is in reality no
important work for the watch to do. Very
different is it with seamen aboard a sailing-
ship. There, steady and hard work makes
the voyage. To command a ship under sail
is a pleasure which calls into use every men
tal faculty. But the steamship is merely a
machine, whose moving power is independent
of the supervising command. The engine
pushes the hull through the sea, acting with

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 175
the precision of a chronometer. Sails are set
on occasion. The captain is the gentleman
of the voyage. He has a five-o'clock tea in
his cabin. His steamship is navigated prin
cipally from the owner's office, whence in
structions are issued to him as to the course
he is to steer, the action he is to talce in cer
tain emergencies, and the day on which he is
to arrive at his destination. The officer of
the deck looks at the compass now and then,
to assure himself that the quartermaster is
steering according to orders ; he lifts his
glasses to scan the horizon ; and, except
when in a fog or a storm, there is little else
for him to do but to work out the latitude
and longitude.
Thursday. — The ocean is in angry mood
this morning. We are pursued by a gale
from the northwest. As day advances, both
wind and sea are traveling faster than the
steamer. At noon a tremendous wave bursts
under the stern ; its fragments fall like an
avalanche on the after deck, causing the
steamer to tremble fore and aft. As she
lifts herself up from this attack, it is seen
that bulwarks are broken, a boat has been
swept away, great iron ventilators have been

176 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
wrenched off, and cataracts of water have
been poured into the saloon, setting afioat
everything therein that was movable. The
passengers dare not venture out of their
berths. Women are dazed with terror ; as
the gale increases in violence, some of them
believe that they will never see the land
again. Friday. — This morning the barometer has
fallen to 28° 36' ; the wind is blowing from
every quarter of the compass in succession,
and it is veering about continually. We are
very near the centre of a cyclonic hurricane.
All passengers are excluded from the decks ;
they are battened down below as if they
were cargo. The captain consults with his
first officer and with his engineer ; then he
determines to abandon his eastward course
and head the steamer off for the south, in
order to get out of the whirl of the cyclone.
The struggle between the ship and the ocean
now presents a magnificent spectacle. Her
deck is at times buried beneath green seas
which tumble aboard in immense masses,
and roar in angry cascades from one side to
the other. She shivers through and through,
as her continuous efforts are made against

DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC 177
the tempest. Anxiety is felt by the watch
ful officers on the bridge and in the engine-
room ; something more than anxiety is felt
in the cabin, where, during the turmoil, a
child is born. By night-fall the steamer has
got clear of the tempest, and is standing up
to her course, in a cold, tumultuous sea.
Saturday. — This is a sunny day ; but
there is a wild and a very confused ocean.
Land of Goshen ! how the good ship rolls !
There is a savageness in her actions which
gives me a new idea of her character. Down
teeters the port rail into the seething foam,
and when it rises down goes the starboard
rail, dipping up green seas on either side
alternately, while her quarters are shivering
like a chilled hound. Sheets of spray fly up
her sides and fall with the noise of pebbles
on the deck. Passengers creep with sudden
advances and sudden backslidings into the
cabin, and brace themselves into secure seats.
They are consoling themselves with the
thought that the land is near, and that we
shall soon be in more quiet waters.
Sunday. — The highlands of Kerry are in
sight. There is the fam.ous Dunquin, whose
people boast that it is the next parish to the

178 DAYS ON THE NORTH ATLANTIC
United States. Halfway down its immense
precipice of Sibyl Head, which descends
fathoms deep into the Atlantic Ocean, may
be seen a rocky projection, resembling a co
lossal Irishman with arm outstretched to the
west, which is " Saint Patrick sending his
blessing to Amerikay." Now we are shaping
our course for Cape Clear. At noon we sight
Browhead and the tall light-tower on Fast-
net Rock. A heavy swell comes up from the
southwest, and the steamer is taking on many
disagreeable motions ; but seasickness has
disappeared. During the afternoon we run
into smooth water under the lee of the Irish
coast. Now everybody looks with wistful
eyes at the green bluffs, and seems to have
forgotten all the discomforts and perils of
the voyage. When the steamer stops, about
seventeen miles east of the Old Head of
Kinsale, there are not many of her passen
gers who dare to say that they will never
make another voyage across the North At
lantic Ocean.

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS

The wandering albatross lives in the air,
and sleeps and bathes in the austral seas
which stretch away below the thirtieth par
allel of south latitude. It has been called
the fateful bird of nautical romance. The
Ancient Mariner, who with his cross-bow
shot the albatross that followed his ship,
confessed he " had done a hellish thing,"
which was to bring misfortune to him and
his crew : —
" For all averred I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah I wretch ! said they, the bird to slay.
That made the breeze to blow."
It is the greatest of ocean birds, measuring
about four feet from its beak to the end of
its short tail, and having a spread of wings
extending ten or eleven feet. Its beak is
crooked and massive, and its webbed feet are

i82 THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS
armed with stout nails. Its body resembles
somewhat that of a goose ; for which reason
English sailors call it the Cape goose. Gen
erally the color of the albatross is brown on
its back, with a white breast and underfeath-
ers ; the brown changes to white, as age in
creases, and then no whiteness can excel the
purity of its plumage. Whiter than a lily,
whiter than snow, it has a pearly brilliancy
which may be supposed to have come from
the pure air and water in which it dwells.
On account of its whiteness, French sailors
call it le mouton du Cap, the Cape sheep.
Only during the brief time of breeding do
albatrosses go to land ; at other times the
Southern Ocean and the heavens above it
are their home.
The movements of the albatross afford an
interesting study to a voyager ; and the
question as to the mechanical principles by
which these majestic birds move through the
air serves to beguile the tedium of many a
weary day at sea. In a calm their move
ments are clumsy ; they appear to stumble,
and to be unable to fly like other birds. But
when a breeze comes, they set their enor
mous wings in a position to take it, and they

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS 183
are then impelled through the air as quietly
as a ship is impelled by a trade wind. They
rarely ply their wings except when rising
from the waves. Once up, away they go,
— the wings, like studding - sails, outspread,
with the wind, or against it ; veering in this
direction and in that by a turning of their
beaks ; hovering and circling around the
ship, and gliding over the ocean with a great
variety of motions, as a skater glides over
the ice ; or, at other times, driving a direct
course into the eye of a gale. They may
breakfast at the Cape of Good Hope, and
dine at Cape Horn. Only now and then, in
a journey of hours on hours, and miles on
miles, do they vibrate their wings ; and to
an observer on the deck of a ship, all their
motions appear to be the poetry of sailing.
But whether the albatross sails like a ship,
or flies like a bird, is a question disputed by
naturalists. It is admitted that the albatross
appears to keep the tenor of its way through
the air, " with giant vans outstretched and
motionless." Mr. Darwin was unable to
detect even a tremor of the quills. In his
journal of a voyage around the world in the
Beagle, when near Cape Horn, he says :

184 THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS
" The storm raged with its full fury ; our
horizon was narrowly limited by the sheets
of spray borne by the wind. The sea looked
ominous, like a dreary waving plain with
patches of drifting snow ; whilst the ship
labored heavily, the albatross glided with its
expanded wings right up the wind." De La-
fresnaye, in the " Dictionnaire Universel
d'Histoire Naturelle," says : " At times one
sees the albatrosses flying in the storm,
against the most violent wind, without any
effort, and without any appearance of their
flight being slackened. In all these circum
stances, it would seem as if they only hover,
and one does not perceive the least flapping
of their wings." ^ And Mr. Moseley, of the
Challenger exploring ship, says, in his " Notes
of a Naturalist," that the flight of the alba
tross " may be compared to that of a skillful
skater on the outside edge. It ekes out to
the utmost the momentum derived from a
few powerful strokes, and uses it up slowly,
1 " On les voit tant6t voler, dans les tempStes, contre le
vent le plus violent, sans effort et sans que leur vol en
paraisse ralenti. Dans toutes ces circonstances, ils sem-
blent ne faire que planer, et I'on ne s'aper9oit pas qu'ils
impriment le moindre battement 4 leurs ailes."

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS 185
making all possible use at the same time of
the force of the wind."
The flight of the albatross has always ex
cited wonder and admiration. The theory
that it sails like a ship rather than flies like
a bird is supported by the constant altera
tion of the angle of its wings with the surface
of the sea, as it glides along ; this change is
made to catch the advantage of every current
of air, and when the bird feels the breeze it
instinctively assumes that angle which will
give to it the most propulsion. By these
means it keeps company with a ship, while,
at the same time, it ranges far and wide over
the ocean. On the contrary theory, the
Duke of Argyll says that the albatross is
merely an example of extreme perfection and
special adaptation ; that it is the potential
energy of the bird's weight which enables it
to fly, when once it has been lifted ; and the
fact of its flying into the eye of the wind
does not prove that it sails like a ship, be
cause a ship cannot sail directly into the
wind ; therefore the sailing of the bird must
be absolutely different from that of a ship ;
and to assign to it a special power of sailing
"is a pure delusion."

l86 THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS
Let US allow the naturalists to settle that
question. As darkness comes over the sea, our ship
leaves behind the albatrosses that have ac
companied her during the day. They are
now feeding upon broken food which the cook
has thrown overboard. After this supper,
they will compose themselves to sleep on the
billows. The ship sails a hundred miles or
more, and at the next sunrising the same
albatrosses are discovered around her; known
to be the same by some peculiarities of their
plumage. How swift and brief and tireless
must have been their pursuit of the ship,
after they awoke from sleep !
Mr. Dana, in his " Two Years before the
Mast," says : " At eight o'clock we altered
our course to the northward, bound for Juan
Fernandez. This day we saw the last of the
albatrosses, which had been our companions
a great part of the time off the Cape. I had
been interested in the bird from descriptions,
and Coleridge's poem, and was not at all dis
appointed. We caught one or two with a
baited hook which we floated astern upon a
shingle. Their long, flapping wings, long legs

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS 187
and large staring eyes give them a peculiar
appearance. They look well on the wing ;
but one of the finest sights that I have ever
seen was an albatross asleep upon the water,
during a calm, off Cape Horn, when a heavy
sea was running. There being no breeze,
the surface of the water was unbroken, but a
long, heavy swell was rolling, and we saw
the fellow, all white, directly ahead of us,
asleep upon the waves with his head under
his wing, now rising on the top of one of the
big billows and then falling slowly until he
was lost in the hollow between. He was
undisturbed for some time, until the noise
of our bows, gradually approaching, roused
him, when, lifting his head, he stared upon
us for a moment and then spread his wide
wings and took his flight."
It has been said that the albatross is an
inoffensive creature, that it never attacks a
man. In the " Rime of the Ancient Mari
ner " it is called a harmless bird : —
" ' Is it he ? ' quoth one ; ' Is this the man ? ' —
By him who died on cross.
With his cruel bow, he laid full low
The harmless albatross ! "
This description of the nature of the bird is

l88 THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS
incorrect, as the following incident shows.
The ship Oracle, sixty days out from New
York, bound to the Pacific Ocean, was in the
latitude of the Falkland Islands ; when, early
in the morning, all hands were called to
shorten sail. Two boys were sent to the
mainroyal yard with orders to furl the royal,
then lay below to the topgallant yard, and
stow away the sail. Having furled the royal
they came down, took their places on the lee
and weather yard-arms, and began their work.
The sea was heavy, the ship was going fast
with the wind to the south, and the yard had
been braced up to help the boys in handling
the sail ; when, by the carelessness of the
man at the wheel, the ship luffed and shiv
ered, the sail flew up, and a boy was knocked
from the lee yard-arm into the ocean. The
other boy cried the alarm, "A man over
board ! " and from his lofty perch he saw his
chum swimming in the wake of the ship,
which was running, like the ship of the An
cient Mariner, " With sloping masts and dipping prow."
As quick as possible, she was put about
and headed for the swimmer, who was

THE FLIGHT OF THE ALBATROSS 189
courageously holding his own, while his ship
mates stood at the bow and amidships, with
lines and buoys ready to cast. Suddenly, an
albatross, which had been hovering about the
ship, sailed down and struck the boy's head
with its talons. He sank from sight and was
seen no more.

THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK

THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK

Our ship was steaming in pursuit of her
great circle course across the Pacific Ocean.
The weather was wild and chilly ; the sea
was barren and uninteresting fo the eye ;
and we sailed day after day without meeting
any ship, or finding any variety in the voy
age, save a fog bank, or a spell of sunshine,
or a piece of drift-wood, or a fleet of tiny
white nautiluses. At evening twilight the
ocean seemed to me unusually desolate.
The melancholy noise of its waters, the in
distinctness of objects about the ship, and
some unknown and oppressive influence,
which checked conversation, compelled me
to turn in and seek relief from the lonesome-
ness in sleep.
The next morning I heard the cry, " Sail
ho ! " called from the forecastle. On the
horizon, in the sunlight, there was an object

194 THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK
which looked like a wreck. When our ship
drew near, it proved to be the remains of a
brig. Her foremast was standing, her fore
topsail and jib were partly set, the foresail
was hanging in the clewlines, the mainmast
had been cut away, and the bulwarks were
gone. Slimy green grass was growing on
her sides. Her deck, all awash, was bent
up in an arch by the swelling of wet lumber
in the hold. Over the forecastle was spread
a loose sail, which flapped up and down, and
was wetted by the sea. On the foretop was
a shelter made by a strip of canvas passing
around it and lashed to the rigging. Evi
dently these places had been occupied by
shipwrecked people ; but there was no living
thing to be seen, nor did there appear to be
a spot on the wreck where any life could
exist. Immediately we sent off a boat to examine
the wreck. On reaching it, two of the boat's
crew ran aloft into the foretop. There was
nothing in it. The officer in charge of the
boat, who was standing up as it lay alongside
the wreck, shouted to his men in the top to
search in the canvas for a paper, a log-book,
or something that would tell the story of* the

THE LAST' MAN ON A WRECK 195
wreck. He had hardly finished these orders
when the emaciated figure of a half-clad,
wretched-looking man rose up from under
the sail on the forecastle right in front of
him. The man's eyes were glassy and life
less ; he held one hand over his heart as if
to suppress excitement, and, lifting up the
other, he muttered a voiceless prayer, and
fell back into the heap of wet canvas. The
two seamen hurried down from aloft, and,
lifting up the man, said : —
" Where are the rest of you .-' "
"All gone ! All gone ! " he replied.
He could only mutter the words in faint
tones. Then he said, " Water ! water ! " and
became insensible.
They tore away the sail from the fore
castle, which was the only part of the vessel
that was above the sea-level, and searched
for his shipmates. Nobody there ! it was
true ; they were " all gone ! "
There was too much swell on the sea to
allow the men to lift the insensible survivor
gently into the boat ; so they took him up,
and, standing on the half-submerged bow of
the wreck, they waited an opportunity, as it
rose and fell, to drop him into the arms of

196 THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK
two men who stood in the boat to catch him.
And so they received this living skeleton,
and brought him aboard the steamer.
He was put to bed, and nourished with
brandy and water. His legs were numb ; he
had lost the senses of taste and smell ; his
sense of sight was feeble ; he weighed not
more than one hundred pounds.
Two days later he showed signs of recov
ery. He could speak. The next day he be
gan to tell his story of the wreck, the sub
stance of which I embody in this narrative.
He was master of the brig, which four
months gone had sailed from San Francisco
for Callao, having a company of ten seamen
and two passengers. Two weeks after leav
ing port, the brig encountered a hurricane
and became waterlogged. Then she drifted
for one hundred and ten days at the mercy
of the winds, and no help reached her in all
that time. During the hurricane all the
provisions were flooded ; the sea got into the
fresh-water casks, and, with the exception of
a box of starch, some salted tongues, and
salmon washed up from below, the men on
the wreck had nothing to eat, nor had they
anything to drink. Four of them died from

THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK 197
exposure. The eight who remained retreated
to the foretop, around which they arranged
the canvas shelter. The foretop was a semi
circular platform at the head of the fore
mast, about twenty-five feet above the deck,
and about the size of half the circular top of
a small table. They went down daily to
catch fish for sustenance ; their hooks were
made of wire taken from the edge of a tin
pan ; their lines were strands of rigging ;
their bait was rags. With these equipments
they caught skipjacks and albacores, and
enough of them to lay away some to be
dried. They chewed the raw fish, for they
had no fire to cook them. By and by their
throats became so parched and sore that
they could not swallow what they chewed.
Every night they climbed up into the fore-
top to sleep. As they could not lie down in
this small area, they slept leaning against
the mast and against each other as best they
could. When it rained, they caught water
in a pan to drink. As there was but little of
it for so many, they took the sheep-skins
that had been used on the rigging for chaf
ing-gear, and, allotting a piece to each man,
they spread the pieces on the edge of the

198 THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK
foretop to absorb dews that fell in the night.
In the morning each man sucked dry his
piece of wool to alleviate his thirst, and so
they existed for sixty-five days. Then, hav
ing gone down from the foretop as usual to
catch fish on the sixty-sixth day, they found
themselves to be too weak to climb the rig
ging any more. That night they spread a
sail on the forecastle, and lay down under it
in the wet, hoping for the day to come speed
ily when they should be rescued.
There were two Italians in the crew, who
now demanded that lots should be drawn for
the death of one of the eight to furnish food
for the others. The captain would not con
sent to this. He said that each man must
take his chance for life, and all be saved or
all be lost together. The others agreed with
him indifferently. But the Italians were so
intent on their plan that the captain, with
the two passengers, agreed to watch them,
and if they attempted murder to kill them
at once. The captain had a loaded pistol
in his pocket. Now hunger, thirst, and
weakness increased every day. Still the
captain encouraged his miserable fellows
with the hope of a rescue. He said he had

THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK 199
dreamed about it. This hope was so much
in his day-thoughts that he often fancied he
heard the welcome cry, " Brig ahoy ! " and,
hearing it, as he supposed, he got up and
peered out of the sail that covered them.
But he never saw anything save the expanse
of ocean and the expanse of sky. His com
rades also scanned the horizon daily in search
of a ship coming to their rescue. At differ
ent times they thought they saw three ships
sailing on courses far away from them.
They had existed in this condition about
ninety-five days, when, one morning, a bark
under full sail came near the wreck, and was
hove to abreast of it. There she was, in
plain sight and motionless ; her topsails were
aback, her forestaysails a-weather, her helm
a-lee. The poor men got up eagerly, and
waved what they had that would attract
attention. The Italians waded through the
water on deck, got upon the stump of the
mainmast, and waved their hats. All hands
tried to shout together; their voices were
feeble and husky ; they could not make much
of an outcry.
The stranger bark was so near that the
shipwrecked men could have thrown a stone

200 THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK
aboard of her had they had their usual
strength. They saw that her hull was painted
black, with a gilt band running around it.
They saw the letters of her name on the
stern and trail-boards, but their eyes were
too dizzy to read them. They saw that she
had a new spanker set ; they noticed it was
new because it had not been stained by the
weather. They saw three men go aft, and
speak with a man standing on the quarter
deck, who wore a cap, and appeared to be
the master ; then they saw this man look at
the wreck, and turn and talk with a woman
who sat near him in a willow armchair, and
who was wearing a black and red plaid shawl.
The shipwrecked men saw all these things,
as they thought, and waited to be taken off.
But, to their great astonishment, the bark
filled her topsails and sailed away.
Was this a phantasm .¦• Its effect on the
shipwrecked men was that of a reality.
On the afternoon of that day the two Ital
ians became delirious and jumped overboard,
and despair began to extinguish what life
there was in the other sufferers. The next
day three of them died, and the captain rolled
their bodies into the ocean. Then the young-

THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK 201
est of the passengers died. He was not
much more than a boy ; but he had been
resolute, and had tried hard to live. He said
he had left a good mother at home, that he
loved her, and wanted to see her once more.
The events on the wreck were written
with a pencil, as they occurred, on the mar
gins of a nautical almanac, by the c'aptain or
by the elder passenger. These two, being
now the only survivors of the twelve who
had sailed in the brig, laid themselves down
under the sail on the forecastle to wait for
death or for salvation. On the one hundred
and seventh day, according to the notes on
the margin of the almanac, it blew a gale.
Green seas broke over the forecastle, drench
ing the two men under the canvas. It is a
wonder that they w6re not washed off. At
night it rained. The passenger crept out of
the sail, caught a cupful of water, and drank
the whole of it. In the morning he was
missing. The captain then resolved that if
help did not come with the next day, he
would drink a mixture of bluestone and ink,
which he had prepared, and so end his tor
menting misery by poison. On that day our
ship found and saved this last survivor of
the wreck.

202 THE LAST MAN ON A WRECK
When he was landed, and as soon as his
story became known, inquiries were made in
every direction to learn the name of that
bark which came alongside the wreck and
then sailed away and abandoned it. No ves
sel answering to the description given was
known to be afloat on the North Pacific
Ocean at that time. It was therefore con
cluded that she was a creature of the diseased
imaginations of the shipwrecked men.
The remarkable fact that the same vision
appeared at the same time to all these men
may be easily explained. One of them fan
cied that he, at last, saw the rescuing ship
which all had been looking for ; he told the
news to his companions ; he pointed to the
coming vessel, and described her as she ap
proached the wreck. Their minds had sunk
to that semi-conscious state in which fancy
and reality are quickly confused, and there
fore they believed his words and imagined
that they also saw what he described. Their
strong desire for salvation had brought be
fore their weary eyes the apparition of that
for which they were earnestly longing.

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA

The commander of the Japanese steamer
in which I took passage was an American,
who, the day before, had married a sea-going
widow of Shanghai. This was to be the
honeymoon voyage, for which the day opened
with a cold rain and a northeast gale. I was
carried from my hotel, in the widow's city,
to the steamer by a jinrikisha, — a minia
ture gig, or it may be called a great baby-
carriage, having steel springs, two large,
slender wheels, and a movable paper hood ;
the whole being so evenly poised when the
passenger is seated that the man who runs
between the shafts has no weight to support.
At the wharf a crowd of people were waiting
to give the newly married twain a noisy
send-off, and as the ship swung out into the
Woosung River she was saluted by the run
ning explosions of fire-crackers, whirligigs.

2o6 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
and fuses hanging from bamboo poles. In
the smoke and din of this honeymoon re
joicing I said good-bye to China.
On the morning of the third day at sea
Japan was in sight ; the gale had blown out ;
the sun was shining, and our ship was thread
ing her way through quiet waters, between
green islands, and under cliffs covered with
verdure. After calling at Nagasaki she
steamed up the coast, and at daylight of
next morning anchored in the Straits of Shi
monisaki. A cargo of rice in straw pack
ages was brought to the ship in scows, and,
having taken it aboard, she passed through
the Inland Sea, and anchored on the next
morning before the city of Hiogo. Thence
she pursued her voyage to Yokohama with
out me ; for I was to make the journey to
that city in jinrikishas over the highway
called the Tokaido.
The Tokaido is a broad macadamized road,
extending along the southern shore of the
island of Niphon from Shimonisaki to the
city of Tokio. It was probably built centu
ries ago, is shaded by large and ancient
cedar trees, skirts the seashore, traverses
mountains, crosses rivers on stone bridges.

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 207
and passes through many populous towns
and small villages, which afford such accom
modations to travelers as Japanese customs
demand. As no foreigner was allowed to
make this overland journey except by per
mission of the government, I obtained, from
the Japanese foreign office, passports to
travel under these conditions : to obey all
the police regulations of the country, not to
engage in trade, not to commit matrimony
nor any disturbance, nor to be longer on the
way than forty days, and to return my pass
ports on reaching Yokohama.
Some of the preparations for this journey
of 350 miles, which would occupy seven
days, were made at Hiogo, although the
start was to be taken at Kiyoto, a large city
fifty miles east of it, and connected with -it
by a railroad which ended there. As my
party, which numbered three travelers, was
not likely to find in the hostelries on the
road such food as would be palatable accord
ing to our Anglo-Saxon education, I bought
canned soups and meats, crackers, pickles,
cheese, butter, sugar, pepper, salt, tumblers,
plates, spoons, knives, forks, two round
loaves of wheat bread, each about two feet

2o8 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
in diameter and a foot thick, and a few
pounds of China tea.
I engaged a guide and interpreter to go
with us. He was one of those modernized
young men, sprouts of "New Japan," who
have discarded the graceful native costumes
for unsuitable European clothes. He had a
faint moustache, a red cravat, patent-leather
shoes, a switch cane, and a cigar-case. As
the man and his belongings were an offense
to my idea of the eternal fitness of things, I
soon found a reason for dismissing him. In
his place I took a natural Jap, at the price of
one yen a day, and his return expenses to be
paid back to Kiyoto. He wore Japanese
clothes, and knew his proper place in the
traveling train. He said he was a cook.
Experience with him on the journey showed
that he knew how to boil water and to make
a pot of tea. He said he could speak Eng
lish ; which was " Yes, master," and " No,
master," and a few other words, uttered with
an articulation not easily understood by me.
After these preparations for the journey
had been made, we took the railway train to
Kiyoto, where, on showing our passports to
the gateman at the station, we were allowed

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 209
to pass into the city. Here we were at once
saluted by the cries of jinrikisha-men, each
man expressing by gesticulations and a few
English words an eagerness to carry us with
our baggage and stores wherever we desired
to go. Though noisy and alert for a trade,
they were respectful to us and to each other.
They loaded our stores and baggage into jin
rikishas, while we got into others, and were
then whirled rapidly away. A half -hour's
ride through streets as clean as a garden
walk, in which there is never a horse or a
beast of burden to be seen, brought us to the
Maruyama Hotel, a house on a hillside, over
looking the city, and kept by a Jap in the
English style of hotel-keeping, as he compre
hended it.
Our jinrikishas left us at the foot of the
hill. We clambered up a paved walk, and
entered the court-yard. A bright Japanese
boy came at once to the open door, and said,
" Good morning, gentlemans ! You wants a
room.? — eh.?" This was Matty, master of
ceremonies, guide, interpreter, philosopher,
and friend to the stranger who comes within
the gates of the Maruyama. He was the
handy go-between, connecting the guests of

210 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
the house and the host, who was as ignorant
of our language as we were of his, the igno
rance of each being a profit to Matty. On a
table in the public room I found a small book
containing names and notes written by trav
elers who had tarried at the hotel. I noticed
under one of the names this warning : " Look
out for the Japanese boy that speaks Eng
lish ! " This was a warning of which Matty
was ignorant because he could not read it.
So we looked out for him while he looked
out for us.
As the house was empty of guest's, we had
a free choice of its accommodations. The
sleeping-rooms, which were plainly furnished
with American bedsteads and beds, opened
by paper-covered sliding doors upon a bal
cony high above ground, and commanded a
view of the valley in which Kiyoto is situ
ated. From the balcony we could look down
over the black-tiled roofs of houses and tem
ples, over gardens and parks, and the crowded
streets of this most interesting and pictu
resque city of Japan.
We now engaged jinrikishas and coolies
for the overland journey. We required four
vehicles for ourselves and the guide, with

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 2li
two for the baggage and provisions. Two
men are to draw each jinrikisha, one by the
shafts and the other running ahead, in tan
dem style, harnessed to the carriage by a
cord which is knotted to the shafts, and
passes over his shoulder like a collar. The
price to be paid for each man, including his
jinrikisha, is seven sen a ri. A ri is about
two and a half miles. The men wanted ten
sen ; but I have learned not to pay for any
thing the price asked ; for the fundamental
principle of trade in Asiatic countries is ex
pressed in the old maxim : Let the buyer
look out for himself. Besides, seven sen a ri
was the price paid for jinrikishas running on
the mail-service. A sen is a hundredth part
of a Japanese yen, or paper dollar. The cost
of a paper dollar purchased with drafts on
London was about seventy cents. At this
rate each of our jinrikisha men-horses re
ceived the value of less than a dollar in gold
per day. He furnished the carriage, har
nessed, stabled, grained, and groomed him
self, and was entirely satisfied with the
compensation. When these men start upon a journey
with jinrikishas, their dress usually consists

212 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
of a white cloth passed between the legs and
wound tight around the waist ; a blue cotton
shirt, and under it a cotton chest-protector
hanging from the neck, and held in its place
by a strap buttoning on the back ; sometimes
a blue and white handkerchief is bound in a
twist around the head. Sometimes they
wear blue cotton trousers, and sometimes
none at all. The feet are bare, or shod with
sandals made of rice straw. As the men
become warm by running, this clothing
is drawn off, piece by piece, until there is
nothing left upon the body but the waist
cloth. Those who run with the jinrikishas
are of all ages. The forms of some of them
are tall, erect, pliant, and well proportioned.
The forms of others are ugly, the muscles of
their arms and legs being developed in great
protuberances, and their bodies marked with
the scars of eruptive sores which, it is said,
this running and hauling labor causes. They
have no intemperate habits. They stop fre
quently on the way at " tea-houses " to eat
rice and tea, always kept ready in lacquered
pails for service. At night they wrap them
selves in a blanket, which is carried under
the jinrikisha seat, with an oiled cloak, and

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 213
go to sleep upon the floor. While at their
work, they show the cheerful disposition
which is natural to the race. There is no
envious rivalry among those who are travel
ing in the same train ; but as they run they
chat with each other and bandy compliments.
They yield the lead of the train to that one
of their companions who first takes it, and
never press him to go faster in order to com
pel him to keep the place. Indeed they
appear to be versed in all " the small sweet
courtesies of life."
At eight o'clock in the morning of a bright
April day we began to load our luggage, our
stores, and ourselves into six jinrikishas,
bound for Yokohama. Some of these vehi
cles were more roomy than others; and it
was a question which each traveler had to
decide for himself, whether it will be more
comfortable to ride fifty miles to-day in this
jinrikisha or in that one. Then all the lug
gage was sorted, packages were condensed,
and the whole was stowed, unstowed, and
stowed again, in order that the load might
balance, so that no weight should fall upon
the man in the shafts. At last the confu
sion incident to the beginning of such a jour-

214 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
ney was ended. Each one of us was seated
in his jinrikisha, the runners stood in the
shafts, the leaders in the leading cords, and
I gave the signal to start.
" Sayonara ! " ^ — Farewell — we shouted
to those we were leaving ; and, turning our
backs on Matty, who ran after us with a
package of salt belonging to our stores, as if
he would sprinkle the tail of our caravan in
the expectation of catching us again, we
trotted down the hill in a single line, and
passing at a good pace through the streets
of Kiyoto, we were soon rolling over the
great public highway, the old thoroughfare
of ancient Japan, — the Tokaido. It is
thronged with Japanese travelers going in
opposite directions ; men and women, some
of them with babies strapped upon their
backs ; little babies looking at the busy
world over their mothers' shoulders. Some
travelers are riding in jinrikishas, but the
multitude are on foot ; some are carrying a
bamboo staff, a parcel tied up in a blue cot
ton cloth, and the ever-present umbrella,
with which they shade their heads from the
sun. No one wears a hat, and as for bon
nets or milliner's head-dresses, no place

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 215
could be found for such a thing upon the
head of any woman born in Japan.
Not a horse, nor a cow, nor any beast of
burden was to be seen on the Tokaido. We
met post-runners and messengers with dis
patches striding along the road, carrying
their packet of letters or papers tied to the
end of a long bamboo stick which rested on
their shoulders. We met bare-legged men
trundling barrows ; others carrying baskets
filled with fresh clover, flowering plants, or
anges, sweet potatoes, radishes, fish, billets
of wood, straw-bound packages of rice, char
coal, and various wares intended for the city
market. Others, grunting a guttural chant
which sounded like the words, " Heave-o-
lugga ! Heave-o-lugga! " to which they
walked in a slow step, were toiling along
with boxes and casks of merchandise, sus
pended in rope slings from large bamboo
sticks supported on their shoufders. An
hour's run of seven miles brought us to the
town of Otsu, at the foot of Lake Bewa,
where we rested. All the way we met a con
tinuous stream of travelers thronging the
Tokaido. And so, during each day of the
journey, we were in company with detach-

2i6 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
ments of the itinerant multitude going east
and going west, a bright panorama of active
life which appeared to have no end. At
night we pulled up at a yadoya, or public
inn, where our guide was allowed to cook
our meals on the public braziers over a fire
of charcoal, and we were permitted to make
ourselves at home, as if we were the lords of
the manor. Here we slept in our own blan
kets in rooms floored with straw mats, and
walled by sliding paper sashes, and lighted
by a shaded oil lamp. Sometimes the sashes
were gently moved aside, and a young Jap
anese face peeped in ; for we were objects of
curiosity to the inmates of the house as much
as they were to us.
Every town has its jinrikishas and jin
rikisha men, for hire. Our first jinrikisha
team ran a distance of one hundred miles, in
the first two days of the journey, between
the hours of eight in the morning and six
in the evening, stopping frequently on the
road. At the end of the second day the
men appeared to be as fresh as when they
started from Kiyoto. Some of thern would
go no farther, being desirous to return home ;
others wanted to go through to Yokohama.

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 217
On account of disagreements I found it
advantageous to change men and carriages
every day, hiring those belonging to the dis
trict in which we were traveling. On the
fifth day of our journey, the men drew us
sixty-four miles, without showing any fa
tigue, and on one stage of this day's journey
they traveled eight miles in an hour. It
was a bright, cool day ; I noticed that wheat
in the fields was headed, clover was tall, and
azaleas were in bloom. I noticed also many
square lots of fallow earth, covered with shal
low water and studded with rice stubble.
There were many plantations of tea on the
roadsides, in which men and women were at
work. Arrived at Yeshiri, after sunset, we
found the public inns full of noisy travelers ;
so we rode to the headquarters of the police,
and showing our passports, we requested to
be furnished with lodgings for the night.
An officer was detailed, who conducted us to
the house of a private family, which gave for
our use their second floor, the attic, consist
ing of one large room. Here our beds were
made^on the floor; our supper, cooked by
the assistance of the family down-stairs, was
spread on small lacquered tables ; and the

2l8 SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA
dark-eyed daughters of the house came up
stairs and sat on the floor beside us, smiling
to see the foreigners eat bread and butter.
The villages through which the Tokaido
runs keep the highway clean and free from
obstructions. I consider this hard, smooth,
dustless highway to be an indication of a
high state of civilization in Japan. On each
side of it, telegraph wires are supported by
neat tripod poles, on which are painted the
numbers in both Japanese and Arabic fig
ures. Day after day, as we traveled, I no
ticed that the out-door occupations of the
people were drying fish, drying teas, sowing
rice, bleaching laces, spinning and weaving
cloths ; and I saw them in every village dye
ing blue cottons, which are universally worn,
and stretching the cloth on frames to be
dried by their house-doors.
At one point of our journey we abandoned
the jinrikishas, and took a large sail-boat to
cross the wide ferry at Arai. The wind was
light, the tide was against us, and we arrived
at the further side after dark. No jinriki
shas were waiting for us. I stood op the
beach, shouting for them long and loud. At
last the cry reached the sleepy ear of the

SEVEN DAYS IN A JINRIKISHA 219
little village; and jinrikisha men rallied to
meet us. That night we rode until nine
o'clock, with paper lanterns hanging on our
shafts, according to law. The next after
noon we again abandoned the jinrikishas to
cross a mountain on foot, the road being too
steep for vehicles. Reaching Mishima, we
exchanged jinrikishas for kagas. These are
open baskets, suspended from poles rest
ing on the shoulders of men ; and in these
our train was carried up the precipitous
mountains of Hakone. It was long after
dark when we arrived at the inn by Hakone
Lake ; our arrival being in the shape of a
triumphant procession, in which flaming
bamboo torches were carried by men walking
on each side of the kagas to light the way.
The next afternoon, after descending the
other side of the mountains, we resumed
jinrikishas, and, as we approached Yoko
hama from Odawara, where we slept on the
seventh day of our journey, we met horses
on the road, and English-built vehicles, and
persons in European dress, and many indi
cations, of our approach to those foreign
influences which are destroying picturesque
Japan.

COLONIAL TIMES ON BUZZARD'S BAY.
By WILLIAM ROOT BLISS.
Crown 8vo, gilt top, illustrated. Price, $r.^0.
The Second Edition, enlarged by new and
interesting matter. This book is readable from

beginning to end. Its vivid pictures of home
spun life and manners in the Plymouth Colony
are drawn by a skillful hand. The shores of Buz
zard's Bay are repeopled with colonial farmers
and fishermen, parsons and justices of His Ma
jesty's peace, church gossips and penitent sin
ners ; their manuscripts are quoted, their account-
books are examined ; the reader can see how they
lived and acted, and can survey them as they
surveyed themselves. Published by
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY,
4 Park St., Boston ; i i E. 17TH St., New York ;
28 Lakeside Building, Chicago.

Extracts from Letters Received,
. . . Last summer I was fortunate enough to strike your
" Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay." It has ever since been
my intention to write to you to express my keen appreciation
of the book, which has in it more of the salt sea flavor of
Cape Cod soil, combined with a more sympathetic appreci
ation of the humors and individuality of Colonial New Eng
land life, than any other of the innumerable and inconceiv
ably prosaic attempts that I have met with.
Quincy, Mass. Charles Francis Adams.
... I have read your " Colonial Times on Buzzard's
Bay " with care, and I thank you most sincerely for the ser
vice you have done to that corner of the Old Colony. I am
impressed again with the charm of the story as you have
painted it, and with the faithfulness of your expression of
the characteristics of the region as I knew it. I am very
glad of every enlargement which I find in this new edition ;
I know no book of the kind which is so well done.
Franklin B. Dexter.
Yale College, New Haven, Conn.
. . . You have made a success in your " Colonial Times
on Buzzard's Bay." Your eye for the facts and your touch
in description are so rare that the picture, as you leave it,
is quite perfect,— an unspoiled photograph of the real
scenes and people. Such books are not often made, and
their value to the scholar and interest to readers will grow
as time passes.
Washington, D. C. Edward C. Towne.
... I have just read your " Colonial Times on Buzzard's
Bay," and want to thank you for the pleasure it has given
me. I read it with avidity ; it held me fast until I had
finished it. It is the manner in which the small affairs
of our New England towns are presented that makes them
engaging or dry as dust. You have hit the manner and
method. Newcastle, New Hampshire. John Albee.
... I have seldom read a book with more interest than
your " Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay ; " although I am
grieved to find that one of my own name should have fur
nished one of the few instances of profanity that marred the
Wareham records, and that another had his ears rubbed,
with other indignities, at the hands of one Bourn. I make
my regular pilgrimages to the shores of Buzzard's Bay, and
shall always be grateful for your book at such times.
1st Lieutenant sth U.S. Cavalry, Eben Swift.
Fort Reno, Indian Territory.

... I picked up on the library table of the club, this
evening, your delightful book, " Colonial Times on Buz
zard's Bay ; " and I wish to tell you how much I have en
joyed reading it. It seems as if, as a boy, in Woodstock,
Connecticut, I have talked to the very people you describe
in your book. Clarence W. Bowen.
The Hamilton Club, Brooklyn, New York.
. . . I have read your "Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay "
with very great interest. There is a quaint old-world flavor
about it which to me is most pleasant and agreeable, and
I am very glad to have it in my library.
The Manse, Bedford, England. John Brown.

Extracts from Notices in the Press.
Prom the New York Evening Post.
It is a vividly told description of life in southern M assa-
chusetts. Its tale of the simple doings of a New England
hamlet in the last century will seem commonplace enough
to those unchanging old Yankee farmers, and they will
receive it with the tolerant but superior smile which they
accord to the vagaries of the city seeker for spinning-wheels
and old brass candlesticks. But for the summer sojourner
there is a delightful charm about Mr. Bliss's animated nar
rative of the olden time which amply accounts for the poou-
larity which is being accorded to it.
Prom the Boston Daily Transcript.
It is a series of most charming pictures of old-time life, a
New England idyl and poem in prose. It has not a dull
page, is full of vivacity, and the style is chaste and schol
arly. The south shore of Buzzard's Bay, in general, is well
known to summer tourists. They will find no more charm
ing book than this of their favorite haunts.
Prom the Boston Traveller.
No more charming volume has been recently published
than " Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay." Mr. Bliss has
used the old records, to which he had access, with a rare
skilL He has clothed these skeleton statements with flesh
and made them instinct with life and spirit. No more de
lightful picture of old-time New England life has yet been
drawn, and the chapters are gems in the way of description
and vivid suggestion.

From the Boston Daily Advertiser.
Mr. Bliss is a zealous antiquary who has a considerable
literary gift, and consequently his picture is both accurate
and charming. The life it reveals, however, is not charm
ing. Its best characteristics were shrewdness and thrift.
It is impossible not to smile over the evidence to these
qualities contained in the charge to a hired man for time
lost on account of "fever and ago, four fites one week and
three the next." Prom- the Boston Herald.
No person can feel that he really knows early New Eng
land life who has not read this work. Its preparation has
engrossed the leisure hours of the author for many years,
and he gives almost sacred character to a portion of the
New England coast, which has now become attractive to
summer residents from all parts of the country.
Prom the New York lournal of Commerce.
Mr. Bliss here proves that the story of a town in the
hands of a competent delineator like himself is well worth
telling. The languid novel-reader will find more in the
pages of this volume to entertain him than in many a much
praised work of professed fiction: " The Town's Meeting
House," " The Town's Minister," " The Town's School
master," "Town Life in the Revolution," "The Town's
Bass-viol," and " Final Transformations," arefarpleasanter
in the perusal than some chapters of romance which has a
large sale. From ihe New York Mail and Express.
Mr. Bliss's work differs from the majority of books based
upon colonial manuscripts in that it has, besides its anti
quarian interest, a distinct literary character, and that lifelike
quality which results from the author's complete absorption
of the characteristics of the times concerning which he
writes. His book reflects the talk, the manners, and the
spirit of those days, and gives what is probably as faithful
a picture of life in any one of the New England colonies as
in that of Plymouth. It forms one of the most entertain
ing contributions to our colonial history.
Prom the Brooklyn {N. Y.) Times.
Colonial times are not so very many years behind us, yet
this reproduction by Mr. Bliss of the social life of our ances
tors reads like the tale of another people in the far-distant
past. Frequent quotations from the old records make the
picture almost photographic in its details.

From the Chicago Tribune.
Besides being a capital presentation of the way our sturdy
ancestors of colonial days lived, acted, thought, behaved, and
misbehaved, the book is replete with valuable historical
information of special interest to certain well-known fami
lies like the Thachers and Fearings, and to the general
reading public. The work is bright, well-written, and
wholesome, and will be particularly enjoyed by all who have
chanced to pass a summer at or near Buzzard's Bay.
Prom the Newark (N. I.) Daily Advertiser.
Mr. Bliss has reconstructed a vivid and undeniably truth
ful picture of colonial life. He has followed the quaint
language and unique orthography of the colonists. But his
own narrative is judiciously mingled with these citations.
The result is a most agreeable book, whose principal charm
is picturesqueness of detail and a historical accuracy so
obvious and vivid that a skillful novelist might here find
ample materials for the background and mise en seine of a
novel, whose characters should be of the colonists of Buz
zard's Bay. Prom, the Utica (N. V.) Morning Herald.
The reader is taken into the heart of the families, the
bar-room of the tavern, the assemblies at the town meetings,
the husking bees and paring bees, and is made to see. the
people in their daily walk and conversation. When the
book is closed, after the enjoyment of perusal, the reader
feels intimately acquainted with the whole circle who lived
in " Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay." As a chapter of
history, as a^ portraiture of scenery and character, it is a
literary gem. Prom the Titusville {Pa.) Morning Herald.
The writer, Mr. William Root Bliss, throws the glow of
romance around crabbed records by the charms of a poetic
style, by the genial sympathy of a true antiquarian.
Prom the Independent, New York.
The volume is one of very great merit, and its reading is
none the less enjoyable for the humor that lends a quiet
glow to the author's style, or breaks in occasionally upon
his sober passages. The love which guides his pen is un
affected and strong enough to warm his pages, but it has the
earthly quality of Keats's verse, and depends for its charm
on the simple fascination of a natural presentation. Mr.
Bliss is no censor, and certainly no satirist. His pages are
bright, sympathetic, and rich in humorous examples, for
proof of which we must commend our readers to them.

Prom the Christian at Work, New York.
A complete and most interesting picture of the old colo
nial times in that section of the Plymouth Colony lying on
the shores of Buzzard's Bay. So vividly, and with such
graphic force, have these times been reproduced in these
pages, that we seem to be living them over ourselves. To
say that it is an interesting book is to say but little, — it is
a charming one.
From the Christian Union, New York.
Mr. Bliss sketches with a firm hand a picture of old-
fashioned life, character, and society as they were formerly
to be found on the shores of Buzzard's Bay. He has con
ceived and illustrated it with real literary insight and felicity.
He has used his materials with such skill and infused so
much humor and human interest into his work as to give
his narrative much of the charm of a story, so that it be
comes in a sense the romance of the life of an old town.
From the Congregationalist, Boston.
We have enjoyed " Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay,"
very much. It contains many quaint and amusing facts,
and is written picturesquely. It is pervaded by the flavor
of antiquity in an unusual degree, without being at aU dull.
Prom the Churchman, New York.
It is well done and is full of the interest which attaches
to a life long since entirely passed away. Mr. Bliss has
evidently taken great delight in his work, and his success
approves his pains. Prom the New York Evangelist.
It is a lovely picture of a quaint and individual people.
The discipline of Abigail Muxom for " talking and joaking
like young people " with a man not her husband, shows up
in contrast to the society newspapers of to-day about as
sharply as does the beating of the town drum by the sexton
to call the people to church, with the recent contention as
to the silencing of church bells. Altogether it is a charm
ing book. Prom the New Englander.
The writer of this book has been so successful in what
he has attempted that even those who have never seen the
picturesque scenes which he describes — the fine wood
lands "with soft brown silence carpeted," the rivers and
ponds, the sedgy field brooks — will read these daintily
printed pages with interest, and learn to share with the
author some of the feelings which have given him inspira
tion.

Prom the London Times.
" Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay " shows how slightly
the habits of these simple and strait-laced communities
have changed in the course of a couple of centuries. Like
Dr. Jessop's reconstruction of mediaeval society in our own
eastern counties, it is founded entirely on contemporary
records, kept and preserved with great care.
From the Atlantic Monthly.
" Colonial Times on Buzzard's Bay," by William Root
Bliss. The appearance of a second edition of this book
gives us another opportunity to commend the painstaking
and affectionate labor which has taken material somewhat
scorned by the historian, or used only with unpalatable dry
ness, and has constructed a most readable account of a cor
ner of New England. The new chapters on The Squire,
and Impressments for the King, are distinct additions, and
of a piece with the rest of the book.

This book is for sale by booksellers, and
will be sent to any address, postpaid,
by the publishers, on receipt of the price

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