28 PENIKESE. 



feet one, of its location, its surroundings, its beau- 

 ties, and its attractions; yet how I wish that you 

 might have seen it as I saw it, and known it as I 

 knew it. 



Penikese Island is situated almost directly south 

 of New Bedford, though perhaps inclining a few 

 points, as the sailors say, to the westward, and is 

 fourteen miles from land. About three miles south 

 of it lies Cutty Hunk, which was, at the time our 

 school first opened, owned, in part at least, by a New 

 York club, the members of which spent their sum- 

 mers there in fishing, hunting, and in yachting. 

 About the same distance from Penikese, and east of 

 Cutty Hunk, lies Nashawena. It is an immense is- 

 land, and is nearly fourteen times the size of its little 

 near neighbor, our Penikese. Still farther eastward 

 lie Pasque, Naushon, Nonamessett, Uncatina, and 

 the minute Weepecket, ranged, with the exception of 

 the last, one after another, in a crescent, and the last 

 separated by only a narrow strait of water from 

 Wood's Hole, as it is on the maps, though someone 

 has perverted it into Wood's Holl, the extremity of 

 the mainland in this direction. The "old-timers," of 

 New Bedford and its vicinity, arrange the names of 

 these islands in a little verse which, they say, enables 

 them the more easily to remember them. It is as 

 follows: 



"Naushon; Nonamessett, 

 Uncatina, Weepecket; 

 Nashawena, Pesquinese, 

 Cutty Hunk, and Penikese." 



Of course we cannot see all of these islands from 

 our school; for, unless the day is unusually fine, we 

 see very little excepting old ocean, calm and glassy 

 as a mirror, or tossing, tossing, tossing, all the day. 

 Yet the air is always delightful, we have no smother- 

 ing hot days, there are no mosquitoes to keep one 

 within doors of an evening, and, after a steady day's 

 and evening's work perfect rest! 



