54 
CAPE COD. 
with a hoe in the sand, if there is no hollow at hand. Yon 
may see his hooked pike-staff always lying on the bank 
ready for use. He is the true monarch of the beach, 
whose “right there is none to dispute,” and he is as 
much identified with it as a beach-bird. 
Crantz, in his account of Gi;eenland, quotes Dalagen’s 
relation of the ways and usages of the Greenlanders, 
and says, “ Whoever finds drift-woodj or the spoils of a 
shipwreck on the strand, enjoys it as his own, though he 
does not live there. But he must haul it ashore and lay 
a stone upon it, as a token that some one has taken pos¬ 
session of it, and this stone is the deed of security, for 
no other Greenlander will offer to meddle with it after¬ 
wards.” Such is the instinctive law of nations. We 
have also this account of drift-wood in Crantz : “ As 
he (the Founder of Nature) has denied this frigid rocky 
region the growth of trees, he has bid the streams of the 
Ocean to convey to its shores a great deal of wood, which 
accordingly comes floating thither, part without ice, but 
the most part along with it, and lodges itself between the 
islands. Were it not for this, we Europeans should have 
no wood to burn there, and the poor Greenlanders (who, 
it is true, do not use wood, but train, for burning) would, 
however, have no wood to roof their houses, to erect 
their tents, as also to build their boats, and to shaft their 
arrows, (yet there grew some small but crooked alders, 
&c.,) by which they must procure their maintenance, 
clothing and train for warmth, light, and cooking. Among 
this wood are great trees torn up by the roots, which by 
driving up and down for many years and rubbing on the 
ice, are quite bare of branches and bark, and corroded 
with great wood-worms. A small part of this drift¬ 
wood are willows, alder and birch trees, which come out 
