A TRIP TO HIGHLAND LIGHT. 87 



pigmy forests have the general effect of large 

 trees, the observer is constantly deceived as to 

 proportions and distances. Many times during 

 my stay I was startled to see an apparently 

 gigantic man or colossal quadruped come into 

 view upon the brow of a hill which my eyes had 

 told me was a mile or two distant. In driving 

 or walking, spaces were covered so much more 

 quickly than sight alone led me to expect, that I 

 felt as though my legs must be the owners of 

 the seven-league boots of old. Looking west- 

 ward from the lighthouse, the charm of the 

 view was not in the foreground of undulating 

 pasture thickly grown with reindeer moss and 

 tussocks of brown hudsonia, but in the dis- 

 tance. Cape Cod Bay has that lovely con- 

 tour, that great curve of sand enclosing a mass 

 of placid blue water, which makes a small bay 

 a singularly attractive part of a sea picture. 

 From Highland Light that day the bay seemed 

 full of repose, ignorant of storm. 



Northward the shores of ocean and bay curved 

 away from the east as though the storm winds had 

 bent the end of the Cape round into the bay. 

 Inside of this bent end lay Provincetown, its 

 many windows flashing back the sunlight, and 

 its several spires standing out clearly against the 

 blue background. Between Provincetown and 

 the ocean are dunes, not grass and lichen-grown 



