252 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



is a mushroom town without any oaks, except some scrubs, and little in 

 the way of bluffs except what one gets from the super-christianized people. 

 White pine in the shape of gothic shanties is the only forest growth I have 

 yet found. One is shockingly reminded of the surroundings of a race-track 

 rather than a camp-meeting. The place is not altogether bad. There are 

 some hundreds of little box-like houses of a queer and profane architecture 

 occupied by people of the middle classes or waiting for some one of that 

 class to buy them. These little dabs of dwellings, about as big as boarding- 

 house slices of mince pie, are scattered around through the thick-set copse 

 of oaks! (save the mark) which are not high enough to hide their ten-foot 

 eaves. There is no visible kitchen to them, nor any outward means of exist- 

 ence unless they live on acorns or are fed by the woodchucks or the emaci- 

 ated crows, which look old enough to have performed the work for the Syrian 

 hermit some centuries ago. 



The only substantial and satisfactory thing here is the sea that seems the 

 greater for the weak things on its shore. It is as quiet as a baby to-night, 

 but it looks as if it might claim this sand-heap as its plaything again some 

 day and so make an end of it. The only place to behold the sea is from an 

 island: the mainland seems too steadfast, a boat is too familiar, besides 

 uncomfortable and makes a bitter end of sentiment; but here you are 

 hemmed in by immensity, feeling like Jonah when the whale opened for 

 him. A change of air always excites me ; my young companion has gone to 

 bed overpowered by emotions of a composite kind : affected almost to tears 

 by the grandeur of the sea and the size of his supper. I hear his melancholy 

 snore through the double coat of whitewash and wall-paper which form the 

 wall of my room. I have no one to talk to and only a smoky coal-oil lamp 

 for light, so I must try to sleep it off ; I am obliged to the glacial period for 

 having made my work at this end of the island quite simple. I go to-morrow 

 or Monday to Tisbury, when I shall write again. 



S. W. HARBOR, Sept. 13, 1872. 



. . . Should it continue stormy to-morrow I shall not take the steamer 

 but go by stage to Bangor and then by rail to Eastport, even though it take 

 me another day. Safety is sometimes better than speed. I dined, or supped, 

 as one has a mind to call it, this evening with Mr. and his wife, Balti- 

 more people and very pleasant. The officers have a life of dull routine, but 

 they seem to have their hearts in it. So far the journey has been only moder- 

 ately profitable. I fear that I am not fresh enough to see to the best advan- 

 tage. There is not a bit of holiday spirit in the business. I want to get home 

 and merely work because I am here for that. The Mount-Deserters are a 

 hard set, almost as poor as Carolinians. They have a better excuse, however; 



