THE PLAINS OF NAUSET. 
37 
giant. He appeared to walk slouchingly, as if held up 
from above by straps under his shoulders, as much as 
supported by the plain below. Men and boys would 
have appeared alike at a little distance, there being no 
object by which to measure them. Indeed, to an in¬ 
lander, the Cape landscape is a constant mirage. This 
kind of country extended a mile or two each way. These 
were the Plains of Nauset,” once covered with wood, 
where in winter the winds howl and the snow blows 
right merrily in the face of the traveller. I was glad to 
have got out of the towns, where I am wont to feel un¬ 
speakably mean and disgraced, — to have left behind me 
for a season the bar-rooms of Massachusetts, where the 
full-grown are not weaned from savage and filthy hab¬ 
its, — still sucking a cigar. My spirits rose in propor¬ 
tion to the outward dreariness. The towns need to be 
ventilated. The gods would be pleased to see some pure 
flames from their altars. They are not to be appeased 
with cigar-smoke. 
As we thus skirted the back-side of the towns, for we 
did not enter any village, till we got to Provincetown, 
we read their histories under our umbrellas, rarely meet¬ 
ing anybody. The old accounts are the richest in topog¬ 
raphy, which was what we wanted most; and, indeed, 
in most things else, for I find that the readable parts of 
the modern accounts of these towns consist, in a great 
measure, of quotations, acknowledged and unacknowl¬ 
edged, from the older ones, without any additional infor¬ 
mation of equal interest; — town histories, which at 
length run into a history of the Church of that place, 
that being the only story they have to tell, and conclude 
by quoting the Latin epitaphs of the old pastors, having 
been written in the good old days of Latin and of Greek. 
