110 
CAPE COD. 
©tV €(p^ aXoS TToXt^jTj opocov CTTt OLVOTTa TTOVTOP* 
Here and there was a darker spot on its surface, the 
shadow of a cloud, though the sky was so clear that 
no cloud would have been noticed otherwise, and no 
shadow would have been seen on the land, where a 
much smaller surface is visible at once. So, distant 
clouds and showers may be seen on all sides by a sailor 
in the course of a day, wdiich do not necessarily portend 
rain where he is. In July we saw similar dark-blue 
patches where schools of Menhaden rippled the surface, 
scarcely to be distinguished from the shadows of clouds. 
Sometimes the sea was spotted with them far and wide, 
such is its inexhaustible fertility. Close at hand you see 
their back fin, which is very long and sharp, projecting 
two or three inches above water. From time to time 
also we saw the white bellies of the Bass playing along 
the shore. 
It was a poetic recreation to watch those distant sails 
steering for half fabulous ports, whose very names are a 
mysterious music to our ears; Fayal, and Babel-mandel, 
ay, and Chagres, and Panama, — bound to the famous 
Bay of San Francisco, and the golden streams of Sacra¬ 
mento and San Joaquin, to Feather Fiver and the 
American Fork, where Sutter’s Fort presides, and inland 
stands the City de los Angeles. It is remarkable that 
men do not sail the sea with more expectation. Nothing 
remarkable was ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. 
The heroes and discoverers have found true more than 
was previously believed, only when they were expecting 
and dreaming of something more than their contempo¬ 
raries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, that 
is, when they were in a frame of mind fitted to behold 
the truth. Feferred to the world’s standard, they are 
