THE BEACH. 
55 
of the bays in the south (i. e. of Greenland) ; also large 
trunks of aspen-trees, which must come from a greater 
distance; but the greatest part is pine and fir. We find 
also a good deal of a sort of wood finely veined, with 
few branches; this I fancy is larch-wood, which likes to 
decorate the sides of lofty, stony mountains. There is 
also a solid, reddish wood, of a more agreeable fragrance 
than the common fir, with visible cross-veins; which I 
take to be the same species as the beautiful silver-firs, or 
zirhelj that have the smell of cedar, and grow’^ on the 
high Grison hills, and the Switzers wainscot their rooms 
with them.” The wrecker directed us to a slight depres¬ 
sion, called Snow’s Hollow, by which we ascended the 
bank, — for elsewhere, if not difficult, it was inconvenient 
to climb it on account of the sliding sand, which filled 
our shoes. 
This sand-bank — the backbone of the Cape — rose 
directly from the beach to the height of a hundred feet or 
more above the ocean. It was with singular emotions 
that we first stood upon it and discovered what a place 
we had chosen to walk on. On our right, beneath us, 
was the beach of smooth and gently-sloping sand, a 
dozen rods in width; next, the endless series of white 
breakers; further still, the light green water over the 
bar, which runs the whole length of the forearm of the 
Cape, and beyond this stretched the unwearied and 
illimitable ocean. On our left, extending back from the 
very edge of the bank, was a perfect desert of shining 
sand, from thirty to eighty rods in width, skirted in the 
distance by small sand-hills fifteen or twenty feet high ; 
between which, however, in some places, the sand pene¬ 
trated as much farther. Next commenced the region of 
vegetation, — a succession of small hills and valleys cov- 
