174 
CAPE COD. 
since theirs is the only Latin which I know to have bee^ 
aimed at Cape Cod. 
“ Cum parati erant, sublato 
velo, cecinit Thorhallus; 
Eo redeamus, ubi conterranei 
sunt nostri! faciamus aliter, 
expansi arenosi peritum, 
lata navis explorare curricula: 
dum procellam incitantes gladii 
morse impatientes, qui terram 
collaudant, Furdustrandas 
inhabitant et coquunt balsenas.’^ 
In other words: “ When they were ready and their sail 
hoisted, Thorhall sang: Let us return thither where 
our fellow-countrymen are. Let us make a bird * skil¬ 
ful to fly through the heaven of sand,t to explore the 
broad track of ships; while warriors who impel to the 
tempest of swords,]: who praise the land, inhabit Wonder- 
Strands, and cook whales.^^ And so he sailed north past 
Cape Cod, as the antiquaries say, “ and was shipwrecked 
on to Ireland.” 
Though once there were more whales cast up here, 
I think that it was never more wild than now. We do 
not associate the idea of antiquity with the ocean, nor 
wonder how it looked a thousand years ago, as we do 
of the land, for it was equally wild and unfathomable 
always. The Indians have left no traces on its surface, 
but it is the same to the civilized man and the savage. 
The aspect of the shore only has changed. The ocean 
is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder than a 
Bengal jungle, and fuller of monsters, washing the very 
wharves of our cities and the gardens of our sea-side 
^ I. e. a vessel. 
The sea, which is arc ed over its sandy bottom like a heavea 
I Battle. 
