152 GREEN TRAILS AND UPLAND PASTURES 



Beacon Street, curving gracefully at the lower end to 

 the granite towers of the middle bridge. Hidden be- 

 hind this level line of houses is the smoky city, with tall 

 church towers rising at intervals; and far to the left the 

 city comes into view tier on tier of red brick dwellings 

 climbing up the slopes of Beacon Hill to the golden 

 dome of the State House. Perhaps an eight-oared 

 shell comes downstream as you stand by the rail, the 

 bare, brown backs of the rowers knotting with the play 

 of tense muscles underneath the tan. The sharp bow 

 disappears beneath you, and, following the crowd, you 

 rush across the bridge to the other side and again 

 look down. Out from the shadow shoots the arrow- 

 like bow, then the knotted backs of the oarsmen, their 

 eight long sweeps flashing in beautiful rhythmic swing, 

 then the little coxswain with a megaphone strapped 

 to his mouth. It is scarcely a moment before the shell 

 is far downstream, the sweeps dripping silver on the 

 wind-wrinkled water. The crowd loiters on, its bit of 

 bridge excitement over. The harbour haze drifts above 

 the golden dome on Beacon Hill, and the tiers of red 

 brick dwellings rising to it send back the westering sun 

 from their windows. Few cities anywhere are more 

 beautiful than Boston from the upper Cambridge 

 bridge. 



There is beauty, too, of a different and stupendous 

 kind in the bridges that connect Manhattan Island with 

 Brooklyn or the mainland. Your first feeling at these 



