196 With Rod and Gun in Nezv England 



s 



Cape Horn, when possible bonanzas were in prospect. Like the earlier 

 argonauts from other Greece, they came home bearing gifts from foreign 

 climes, and every one's sweetheart flew blue peters from their Sunday hats 

 when their lovers' vessels hove in sight. Even now the older dwellings are 

 filled with whilom souvenirs, and dooryards teem with introduced exotics, 

 interspersed with whale's ribs and conch shells. 



It was the fashion then for resident ship owners to build little conning 

 decks with balustrades upon the roofs of their houses between the chimneys, 

 whence they could discover their incoming argosies fifteen miles away. 

 Many of these high perches are conspicuous still at Nantucket, as well as 

 at Martha's Vineyard, and often the summer sojourner will observe thereon 

 a venerable form, white-haired, but stalwart, looking seaward with marine 

 glass, not so much from present interest as force of early habit; for the 

 whaling business took a tumble in 1846, and vessels and captains have 

 long since gone out of commission. Most of the old salts lie in the ceme- 

 teries, with fulsome epitaphs in marble, and of the entire fleet only a sole 

 dismantled hulk survives, creaking lugubriously against the rickety wharf 

 when the waves heave: a mournful memento of pristine activity, and a 

 perennial object of curiosity to fin de Steele visitors at the Vineyard. The 

 first whaler was sent to the Pacific ocean in 1791, and in 1820 there were 

 seventy-two vessels registered at Nantucket alone, not to mention as many 

 more at Edgartown and New Bedford. 



Aye, my mates! things are vastly different now from what they were 

 in the old days when Edgartown was essentially the Vineyard, just as Paris 

 is allowed to be France, and the rustic islanders used to ride pillion into 

 the busy port of entry from the outlying purlieus of Chilmark and the 

 Tisburys, and even from the land's end at Gay Head twenty miles away, to 

 buy knickknacks and comfits, and get the gossip from the mainland by the 

 weekly mail boat, which crossed the sound to Holmes Holl. 



A trip to the main was an event in those days. Excepting those who 

 regularly " followed the sea," few ever left the island. They simply vege- 

 tated and intermarried, as all insulated communities do, until every one 

 became related : so that, whenever any one unfortunate sailor was lost at 

 sea, the whole community mourned. Visitors seldom came, and strangers 

 never cared whether the Vineyard schools kept or not, or whether the 

 Mayhews, Aliens, Marchants, Coffins, or Butlers, ruled the social roost. 

 My mother, born at Tisbury, was an Allen, daughter of Ezra Allen, and a 

 blood relation of them all: and a daughter of hers, born in 1840, bore the 

 collective family names of the whole consociation, by way of compliment, 

 just as a vessel flaunts a string of pennants when she "dresses ship" on a 

 gala day. 



In these end of the century days our Martha has donned a new attire 

 and assumes light airs. She has thrown aside dull care and vulgar trade, 



