vis 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[MaboS 3, 1884. 



if the markets are open to receive them during the 

 prescribed close season. The practical working of this 

 Gilbert trout law, if it shall become a law, will be to 

 encourage the taking of wild trout in close time for the 

 market. The bill then is one which grants special privi- 

 leges to an individual at the expense of public interest. 

 Massachusetts might better get from Mr. Gilbert an esti- 

 mate of the profits he expects from the operation of the 

 law and make him an appropriation out of the public 

 treasury, and have done with it. The amount so ex- 

 pended would not equal the expenditures necessary to 

 provide protection for wild trout in a close-catching and 

 open-marketing season. 



CAPE COD WAY. 



BY CHARLES HALLOCK. 



Last summer, with Thoreau's charming book in my 

 hand, I took a jaunt down Cape Cod to the land's end, 

 where the strong "right arm of Massachusetts" holds the 

 writhing waves in its fist while they hiss and chafe into 

 foam upon the sands. It was July, and the sun was hot, 

 yet an ever cooling and grateful breeze blew across the 

 land from ocean to bay, so that the tramp, instead of 

 being fatiguing, was actually invigorating, and the per- 

 spiration which started betimes upon the brow was dissi- 

 pated as soon as it formed. For mile after mile, with 

 book in hand, I followed the identical route which Thoreau 

 had chosen forty-five years before along the beach and 

 over the dunes, and across the sands, and past the old 

 windmills and wrecks, and into the lighthouses and fish- 

 ermen's huts, and past travesties of so-called "farms," 

 where the soil is so scant that mature corn stands only 

 2ft. high and fruit-bearing apple trees grow no higher 

 than one's head— trudging along with the book as chron- 

 icle rather than guide, whereby I was enabled to make 

 honest comparison of the past with the present, and 

 determine for myself how much man could subdue or 

 appropriate of this weird spit which projects itself 65 

 miles into the expansive ocean. As to losing the way 

 there was small chance in clear midsummer weather, for 

 there was but one direction to follow, and that was 

 straight forward, unless one wished to walk into the 

 ocean on the right hand or the left, and for a dernier 

 ressort the bewildered wayfarer might take to the railroad 

 which traverses the attenuated axis of the Cape like a 

 backbone. No surer guide than this for castaways and 

 shipwrecked mariners w hen there is no fog and the track 

 i3 bare of snow. The average width from shore to shore 

 is not more than five miles, while at a certain point 

 between Truro and Provincetown, some four miles from 

 its extremity, one can almost straddle the narrow neck 

 like a veritable Colossus of Rhodes. 



There was no railroad in Thoreau's time. It was then 

 stage-coach or nothing, with an ever shifting trail through 

 the mobile sands which were here to-day and gone to- 

 morrow, according to the caprices of the winds which 

 moved them. Frequently, between sand hills utterly 

 bare were grassy intervals or marshes, or cranberry bogs, 

 and sometimes little water holes where pond lilies grew 

 and blossomed. Then there were larger ponds of many 

 acres filled with perch and pickerel, many of them 

 scarcely separated from the ocean by a narrow filet of 

 sand. Occasionally there was a brook with speckled trout. 

 At times the homely vehicle would toil for a long dis- 

 tance through a deep hollow with no outlook whatever, 

 and anon it ran over a dune 75 ft. high, from whose top 

 there was an illimitable view. Few trees were to be seen; 

 only patches of scrub oak here and there and small plan- 

 tations of dwarf pitch pine which provident philanthropists 

 had set out betimes to cover the nakedness of the land, 

 and furnish a meagre substitute for the driftwood on the 

 landwash, when that pitiful resource might chance to 

 fail the inhabitants for fuel. And there was seldom a 

 farmhouse; only an occasional fisherman's hut at long 

 intervals, or a wrecker's cabin. Ever and anon there 

 would occur the remains of a stranded whale or blackfish 

 stripped of its blubber, while a continuous selvedge of 

 seaweed marked the edge of the tide. Beyond the town 

 of Wellfleet, these features stand to-day but little changed. 

 But in the interval between the elbow and the wrist (the 

 brawny fore-arm of the Cape), there are no less than seven 

 pretty modern towns, strung like pearls upon the sands 

 and set in shrubbery and shade where good cheer and 

 good fare are held out as attractions for summer guests; 

 while Provincetown itself, a refuge for Pilgrims since 

 1621, has cast off much of its ancient and fish-like smell, 

 and fish flakes have given place to lawn tennis in the 

 yards of the cottagers. Such a novel trip it is seldom 

 one's good fortune to take. The comfort of the present 

 period is that one can accomplish as much of it as he 

 likes on fpot, and when tired take to the railroad cars at 

 convenient stations. Bicycles are obviously not in it. 

 Neither are the Cape Cod Folks, old style, which Mr. 

 Thoreau wrote of. They all lie buried in the wind-swept 

 cemeteries among the sand dunes, with whortleberries 

 clustering around the headstones. There are none left. 

 Railroad communication has placed these once isolated 

 people in sympathetic touch with the progressive world 

 at large, and latest fashions and newest fads prevail 

 throughout. Trains from Boston bring crowds of seaside 

 visitors from remotest regions, and they scatter all over 

 the Cape, from its shoulder to the land's end. New 

 Yorkers who value comfort, economy and dispatch take 

 the Portland, Me., steamers, which, touch at Cottage 

 City, on Martha's Vineyard, and cross to Woods Holl, 

 where they take the train to Buzzard's Bay, while from 

 Boston there is a lovely steamboat route to Province- 

 town — merely a four hours' morning run for one dollar, 

 with a good dinner at Gifford's upon arrival at destina- 

 tion, and an interesting return journey by rail down the 

 entire length of the Cape. 



The rail route is distressfully hot and dusty in mid- 

 summer, and a transit one way over it is enough. Yet it 

 should by no means be omitted. Returning by steamer 

 the voyager gets only the sail and the salt air, but land- 

 wise he sees lots of traces of the early occupation, as 

 well as endless innovations. There are gaunt old wind- 

 mills with bare arms and summer girls with bare arms, 

 antiquated farmhouses and modern villas, starveling 



garden patches and choice bits of lawn, ox teams and 

 pony carts, well sweeps and tennis courts, lilacs and 

 jack roses, poll parrots and canaries, pug dogs and 

 whale ribs, and altogether such a conglomeration of 

 things past and primitive with things present and peren- 

 nial as gives the rusty old cape a blooming and cheerful 

 aspect, and enables the living and progressive generation 

 to hobnob agreeably with those who have played their 

 parts. Rip Van Winkle and the Little Tycoon are both 

 on the stage together. 



Working down toward the land's end, where the sandy 

 neck is no wider than a causeway, one sees at last in the 

 blue distance, away to the left, the extremity of the Cape, 

 curved like the letter C and stretching along the watery 

 expanse in ghostly undulations of white sand, with little 

 green dales between the hillocks, and a fringe of white 

 houses aligned along the curve of the beach. This is the 

 site of ancient Chequocket, now Provincetown, where the 

 Pilgrims and the Mayflower first made land after their 

 precarious voyage across the Atlantic. The city extends 

 for three miles along the water front, and with its numer- 

 ous spires and clustering masts looks like a large and 

 populous seaport. But it really has only a few thousands, 

 and the houses are chiefly confined to the single marginal 

 street, though some few buildings on elevations give it an 

 imposing appearance. From a dominating sand dune 

 75ft. high, which stands almost in the center of the town, 

 the whole surroundings can be seen at a glance. This hill 

 was once the site of the town hall, and a corkscrew car- 

 riage road wound up to the summit; but the building 

 burned down, and afterward, in properous whaling times, 

 the high perch was used as aloockout and signal station to 

 announce incoming vessels. Now it is inclosed with an 

 iron fence and used as a park, provided with seats, and a 

 sightly location it is. Later on it will be occupied by the 

 tall granite shaft of the Pilgrim Memorial Association, to 



X PILGRIM IN THE TOILS. 



commemorate the landing of the Pilgrims on Nov. 21, 

 1620, as well as the first birth and the first death which 

 occurred in the Pilgrim band. 



In the immediate foreground stretches the attenuated 

 shoestring of a town, the long projecting wharves and 

 the shipping, which is a goodly sight when the returned 

 whalers and the fishing fleet are in port. Of the latter 

 there are 150 sail. There are half a dozen or more craft 

 engaged in whaling off Hatteras, N. C, which brought 

 home from 300 to 500 barrels of oil apiece last August. It 

 is one of the crack sights of the town in summer to watch 

 from an eminence the mackerel handliners come in from 

 the cruising grounds outside. When the wind is fair they 

 all arrive in a body, with the foam piled up under their 

 forefeet, and the panorama is then impressive. It is equal 

 to a regatta. 



Back of the town are the restless and mysterious sand 

 dunes inclosing it like an amphitheatre, and interspersed 

 with stunted woods and pretty fresh- water ponds — a novel 

 and expansive tract which it is hoped soon to reclaim 

 entirely from the inexorable drift and convert into a 

 park. Modern sentiment demands this, and the inevitable 

 summer visitor stimulates the movement. Already there 

 are enough summer guests to command the situation. 

 They come by steamboat loads every day the season 

 through, and the antiquated fishing town with its drying- 

 stages, shore traps and seines, has so far transformed her- 

 self to meet the requirements of the fashionable world as 

 to furnish carriages, water works, a steam fire engine and 

 gaslights. It supports a wide awake local newspaper, two 

 livery stables and several comfortable hotel boarding- 

 houses. There are very creditable church edifices and 

 school buildings and a modern Town Hall, steam-heated, 

 with clock and bell tower, seating a thousand people. 

 Provincetown has furbished up. 



From the elevated summit of Town Hill several life- 

 saving stations and four light-houses can be seen on a 

 clear day, with long spots of yellow sand reaching out into 

 the tide like tentacles of a giant octopus in wait for his 

 prey, while away off to the limit of vision the diminutive 

 white sails of the outgoing mackerel fleet appear like 

 alabaster beads strung along the horizon at regular inter- 

 vals, looking for all the world as if the blue canopy of the 

 sky were buttoned down to the selvedge of the aquamarine 

 beneath. It is altogether charming! The formation of 

 these sandspits is a curious study. They are being repro- 

 duced continually all along the Atlantic coast, from Cape 

 Cod to Cape Lookout in North Carolina. Conspicuous 

 examples are noticeable at Chatham, Wellfleet, Hyannis, 

 Barnstable and on the shore lines of Nantucket and 

 Martha's Vineyard. They are formed by the action of 

 tides and counter currents, just like sandbars in rivers, 

 commencing at points of land and extending in a line 

 parallel with the shore until eventually there is only an 

 inlet left for the ebb and flux of the diurnal tides. When 

 these inlets are finally closed by storms and wave action, 

 ponds are formed, sometimes of great extent, which ulti- 

 mately become fresh- water bodies containing only fresh 



water species of fish. These ponds are a common feature 

 of Cape Cod. In North Carolina the largest of them are 

 called "sounds." Currituck Sound is noteworthy. Fifty 

 years ago it was accessible from the ocean with market 

 boats. To-day it abounds with black bass, perch and 

 pickerel, to an extent sufficient to furnish a livelihood for 

 many boatmen who fish exclusively with seines. 



There is something phenomenal about the vegetation 

 which grows in a deep ravine on the north (!) side of 

 Town Hill. It is so luxurious and rank as absolutely to 

 choke the ravine, showing thereby what these silicioua 

 sands are capable of producing when held in place and 

 kept from drifting. The commissioners of the projected 

 Marine Park may take abundant encouragement there- 

 from. An inventory of the trees and plants found there dis- 

 covered the following, of which several are sub-tropical, 

 to wit: Laurel, willow, yarrow, two kinds of maple, oak, 

 apple, woodbine, blueberry, blackberry, two kinds of 

 srnilax, locust, cherry, wild rose, sweet bfiar, beach 

 plum, golden rod, beach grass, mock cranberry, sorrel, 

 scrub pine, silver leaf poplar, balm of gilead, indigo 

 weed, bayberry, poverty grass, beach pea, crowberry, 

 squaw huckleberry, shad bush, bearberry, and several 

 not recognized. It is said that fifty barrels of wild straw- 

 berries were picked at Provincetown last June. Experi- 

 ments prove that exquisite lawns can be grown, and some 

 of the balms of gilead in the village are fully 60ft. in 

 height. 



By all accounts the end of the Cape is a great resort for 

 foxes and rabbits, which love to burrow in the warm sand 

 and forage upon the demesnes of the numerous sea fowl 

 which congregate there, such as black ducks, teal, doe 

 birds, plover, curlew, wild geese and brant. A local 

 authority says that raccoons and quail are numerous. I 

 can testify as to English sparrows. Just imagine. Where 

 will these feathered tramps not penetrate? Parties from 

 New Bedford make yearly visits to this place for the pur- 

 pose of fox hunting. Between coursing, fishing, shoot- 

 ing, bathing, boating and sailing, the local attractions are 

 great, to say nothing of the cool comfort one gets in 

 summer when everywhere else is hot. 



In Pilgrim times the Fathers must have had grand 

 sport. Bradford, the historian of the colony, says: 

 "Beside water foules ther was great store of wild turkies, 

 of which they took many, besides venison, etc." 



In Mourt's journal of the first landing of the Pilgrims 

 at Provincetown he recounts in his gaunt orthography 

 how his party fared during their first exploration on the 

 land, Cape Cod way; how they found two wigwams, an 

 Indian burial ground, two canoes and great store of gar- 

 nered "come, some yellow f some red, and others mixt 

 with blew." They also discovered an old palisaded fort, 

 several planks, a great iron kettle and other evidences of 

 a previous European occupation. On their fust night 

 ashore it rained hard and they made camp "with a Bari- 

 cado to windward, and kept good watch all night with 

 three Sentinells." On the morning of Nov. 27, the narra- 

 tive recites, "We took our kettle and sunk it in the pond, 

 and trimmed our Muskets, for few of them would goe off 

 because of the wett, and so coasted the wood againe to 

 come home, in which we were shrewdley pus-led, and 

 lost our way, as we wandered we came to a tree, where 

 a young Spritt was bowed down to a bow, and some 

 Acornes strewed vnder-neath; Stephen Hopkins sayd it 

 had beene to catch some deere, so we were looking at it, 

 William Bradford being in the Reare, when he came looked 

 also vpon it, and as he went about, it gave a sodaine jerk 

 vp, and he was immediately caught by the leg. It was a 

 very prettie. devise, made with a rope of theire own 

 making, and having a noose as artificially made as any 

 ropeB in England can make, and as like ours as can be, 

 which we brought away with vs." 



"In the end," the story runs, "wee got out of the Wood, 

 and were fallen about a myle too high above the creake 

 where we saw three Bucks, but wee had rather have had 

 one of them. Wee also did spring three couple of Part- 

 ridges; and as we came along by the creake wee saw 

 great flockes of wild Geese and Duckes, but they were 

 very fearefull of vs. So we marched some while in the 

 Woods, some while in the Water vp to the Knees, till at 

 length we came neare the Ship, and then we shot off our 

 Peeces, and the long Boat came to fetch vs." 



After snow fell and the country froze up there was 

 more hardship than sport in their outings, and finally 

 they were fain to eat the "corne, beanes and Indian 

 wheat" which they found stored, in order to keep them- 

 selves from starving. It is on record that 46 of the 101 

 colonists died that winter. 



Reminiscences of this sort make Cape Cod interesting 

 to the visitor of to-day. No town in the good old Com- 

 monwealth of Massachusetts is so replete with historical 

 facts, and all who are familiar with them will rejoice 

 that a suitable monument is to be erected there at an 

 early day to commemorate a period so pregnant with 

 great events. The Land's End will become the Mecca of 

 New England tourists. 



A STORY OF 1864. 



It was the one golden hour of the day. The sun had 

 set and on the extreme edge of the after-glow, like an 

 Esquimaux kayak, sailed the red, crescent moon. Borne 

 faintly to our ears on the fragrant night wind came the 

 voice of the James River as it hurried onward to the sea 

 with its song of the valley. 



From a sportsman's standpoint the day had been a good 

 one, as the great bunches of quail that Aunt Viney was 

 skinning could attest; and now our visitors were seated 

 around on the old veranda enjoying their pipes — all ex- 

 cept the Judge, whose dignity demanded a cigar. 



Now the Judge was from the North, and had occupied 

 during the war a very high position in the Federal Army, 

 so conversation naturally turned to war times and the 

 changes that had taken place in Virginia since then, 

 "Virginia," said the Judge earnestly, "is one of the finest 

 spots on God's green footstool, and I would gladly end 

 my days amid such surroundings. What do you say, 

 Isiah?" 



Isiah — seated on the lower step3 of the veranda engaged 

 in mending the Judge's gun case — looked up and answered: 

 "Wall, seh, Jedge, I was borned an' riz right yeah seh, 

 an' I feels jus' like I was one ob dem oY magnolias down 

 y'on'er, wid dey big feet planted in de groun', dey ain' no 

 win pow'f ul 'nough to far 'em out, an' when de good Lord 

 done see fit to call me home, I knows my ol' bones will 

 res' easy an' comf 'able 'long side of we-all's folks down by 

 de ribber. 



"Thankee, seh, no seh, I don' smoke a seegar very of 'en, 



