ON FIRST TRAIL OF PILGRIMS 77 



the hook of sand and are happy when they are 

 landed. 



The summer voyager of to-day finds this land 

 which was so lone, this sea which was so bleak 

 to the Pilgrims, teeming with humanity. The 

 harbor waters sparkle within their rim of sand 

 and toss innumerable boats on their- bright 

 waves. Provincetown grows steadily between 

 the sand hills and the sea and stretches daily 

 nearer Long Point at one end of the curve and 

 the North Truro line on the other. The town 

 which began with a single little row of houses 

 and the long slant of the beach for a street, is 

 now miles long, has grown somewhat back 

 among its sand hills, and is steadily topping some 

 of them. The fishing-hamlet seaport of a half 

 century ago is rapidly merging in the summer 

 resort of to-day; is fast becoming a Pilgrim 

 shrine also, whither come Mayflower descendants 

 to comfortably worship their ancestors. So far 

 as the old town goes little of its early quaintness 

 remains, and that withdraws more closely within 

 itself day by day. The hardy English fisherman 

 and sailor stock that settled the Cape, such of it 



