102 
CAPE COD. 
{Arundo, Psammaj or Calamagrostis arenaria)^ Sea-side 
Golden-rod (Solidago sempei'virens), and the Beach Pea 
{Lathyrus maritimus\ 
Sometimes we helped a wrecker turn over a larger 
log than usual, or we amused ourselves with rolling 
stones down the bank, but we rarely could make one 
reach the water, the beach was so soft and wide ; or we 
bathed in some shallow within a bar, where the sea 
covered us with sand at every flux, though it was quite 
cold and windy. The ocean there is commonly but a 
tantalizing prospect in hot weather, for with all that 
water before you, there is, as we were afterward told, 
no bathing on the Atlantic side, on account of the under¬ 
tow and the rumor of sharks. At the light-house both 
in Eastham and Truro, the only houses quite on the 
shore, they declared, the next year, that they would not 
bathe there “ for any sum,” for they sometimes saw tfie 
sharks tossed up and quiver for a moment on the sand. 
Others laughed at these stories, but perhaps they could 
afford to because they never bathed anywhere. One old 
wrecker told us that he killed a regular man-eating shark 
fourteen feet long, and hauled him out with his oxen, 
where we had bathed ; and another, that his father 
caught a smaller one of the same kind that was stranded 
there, by standing him up on his snout so that the waves 
could not take him. They will tell you tough stories 
of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to 
doubt utterly, — how they will sometimes upset a boat, 
or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily 
believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one 
shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputa¬ 
tion of a beach a hundred miles long. I should add, 
however, that in July we walked on the bank here a 
