THE BEACH. 
50 
We yralked on quite at our leisure, now on the beach, 
now on the bank, — sitting from time to time on some 
damp log, maple or yellow birch, which had long fol¬ 
lowed the seas, but had now at last settled on land; or 
under the lee of a sand-hill, on the bank, that we might 
gaze steadily on the ocean. The bank was so steep, 
that, where there was no danger of its caving, we sat on 
Its edge as on a bench. It was difficult for us landsmen 
to look out over the ocean without imagining land in the 
horizon; yet the clouds appeared to hang low over it, 
and rest on the water as they never do on the land, per¬ 
haps on account of the great distance to which we saw. 
The sand was not without advantage, for, though it 
was “ heavy ” walking in it, it was soft to the feet; and, 
notwithstanding that it had been raining nearly two days, 
when it held up for half an hour, the sides of the sand¬ 
hills, which were porous and sliding, afforded a dry seat. 
All the aspects of this desert are beautiful, whether you 
behold it in fair weather or foul, or when the sun is just 
breaking out after a storm, and shining on its moist sur¬ 
face in the distance, it is so white, and pure, and level, 
and each slight inequality and track is* so distinctly 
revealed; and when your eyes slide off this, they fall 
on the ocean. In summer the mackerel gulls — which 
here have their nests among the neighboring sand-hills 
— pursue the traveller anxiously, now and then diving 
close to his head with a squeak, and he may see them, 
like swallows, chase some crow which has been feeding 
on the beach, almost across the Cape. 
Though for some time I have not spoken of the roar¬ 
ing of the breakers, and the ceaseless flux and reflux of 
the waves, yet they did not for a moment cease to dash 
and roar, with such a tumult that, if you had been there, 
