THE BEACH. 
57 
em had painfully brought up the bank and stacked up 
there to dry, being the only objects in the desert, looked 
indefinitely large and distant, even like wigwams, though, 
when we stood near them, they proved to be insignificant 
little jags ” of wood. 
For sixteen miles, commencing at the Nauset Lights, 
the bank held its height, though farther north it was not 
so level as here, but interrupted by slight hollows, and 
the patches of Beach-grass and Bayberry frequently crept 
into the sand to its edge. There are some pages entitled 
A Description of the Eastern Coast of the County of 
Barnstable,” printed in 1802, pointing out the spots on 
which the Trustees of the Humane Society have erected 
huts called Charity or Humane Houses, “and other 
places where shipwrecked seamen may look for shelter.” 
Two thousand copies of this were dispersed, that every 
vessel which frequented this coast might be provided 
with one. I have read this Shipwrecked Seaman’s Man¬ 
ual with a melancholy kind of interest, — for the sound 
of the surf, or, you might say, the moaning of the sea, is 
heard all through it, as if its author were the sole sur¬ 
vivor of a shipwreck himself. Of this part of the coast 
he says: “This highland approaches the ocean with 
steep and lofty banks, which it is extremely difficult to 
climb, especially in a storm. In violent tempests, during 
very high tides, the sea breaks against the foot of them, 
rendering it then unsafe to walk on the strand which lies 
between them and the ocean. Should the seaman suc¬ 
ceed in his attempt to ascend them, he must forbear to 
penetrate into the country, as houses are generally so 
remote that they would escape his research during the 
night; he must pass on to the valleys by which the 
banks are intersected. These valleys, which the inliab* 
