160 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



as the salt hay, touched for a brief happy hour at 

 each tide with the cool strength of the sea, re- 

 tains the flavor of it always, so the Irish moss 

 that grows in the depths and is hardly awash at 

 the lowest of the ebb, overflows with it and is so 

 bursting with this fragrance of the unknown 

 that no change that comes to it can drive it out. 

 When the wind is off-shore and you may not 

 scent the sea, when the sun bakes the hot sand 

 and dries the blood so that it seems as if the only 

 way to prolong life is to wade out neck deep in 

 the surges and there stay until the wind comes 

 from the east again, you have but to go to the 

 leeward of these piles of bleaching carragheen to 

 find it giving forth the same cooling fragrance 

 which the tides have made a part of its structure. 

 You may take this moss home with you and cook 

 it, but the heat of your fire will no more destroy 

 its essence than did the heat of the sun, and in 

 your first mouthful of the produce, which may 

 in appearance give no hint of its origin, you 

 taste the cool sea depths and feel yourself nour- 

 ished as if with some vital principle. 



It is no wonder that under the glare of the 

 midsummer sun people forsake the arid uplands 



