U^KECKS AND MINOT LIGHT. 465 



in carriages were fastened to the fences near the shore, and, for a 

 mile or more, up and down, the beach was covered with people 

 looking out for bodies, and examining the fragments of the wreck. 

 There was a small island called Brook Island, with a hut on it, 

 lying just off the shore. This is said to be the rockiest shore in 

 Massachusetts, from Nantasket to Scituate, — hard sienitic rocks, 

 which the waves have laid bare, but have not been able to crum- 

 ble. It has been the scene of many a shipwreck. 



The brig St. John, from Galway, Ireland, laden with emigrants, 

 was wrecked o;i Sunday morning \ it was now Tuesday morning, 

 and the sea was still breaking violently on the rocks. There were 

 eighteen or twenty of the same large boxes that I have men- 

 tioned, lying on a green hillside, a few rods from the water, and 

 surrounded by a crowd. The bodies which had been recovered, 

 twenty-seven or eight in all, had been collected there. Some were 

 rai)idly nailing down the lids, others were carting the boxes away, 

 and others were lifting the lids, which were yet loose, and peeping 

 under the cloths, for each body, with such rags as still adhered to 

 it, was covered loosely with a white sheet. I witnessed no signs 

 of grief, but there was a sober despatch of business which was 

 affecting. One man was seeking to identify a particular body, 

 and one undertaker or carpenter was calling to another to know 

 in what box a certain child was put. I saw many marble feet and 

 matted heads as the cloths were raised, and one livid, swollen, 

 and mangled body of a drowned girl, — who probably had in- 

 tended to go out to service in some American family, — to which 

 some rags still adhered, with a string, half concealed by the flesh, 

 about its swollen neck ; the coiled-up wreck of a human hulk, 

 gashed by the rocks or fishes, so that the bone and muscle were 

 exposed, but quite bloodless, — merely red and white, — with 

 wide-open and staring eyes, yet lusterless, dead-lights ; or like the 

 cabin windows of a stranded vessel, filled with sand. Sometimes 

 there were two or more children, or a parent and child, in the 

 same box, and on the lid would perhaps be written with red chalk, 

 " Bridget such-a-one, and sister's child." The surrounding sward 

 was covered with bits of sails and clothing. I have since heard, 

 from one who lives by this beach, that a woman who had come 

 over before, but had left her infant behind for her sister to bring, 

 came and looked into these boxes, and saw in one, — probably 



