182 
CAPE COD. 
sisted in walking in tke sand a long time after the side¬ 
walk was built. This is the only instance which I 
happen to know in which the surplus revenue proved a 
ble.’sing to any town. A surplus revenue of dollars 
from the treasury to stem the greater evil of a surplus 
revenue of sand from the ocean. They expected to 
make a hard road by the time these planks were worn 
out. Indeed, they have already done so since we were 
there, and have almost forgotten their sandy baptism. 
As we passed along we observed the inhabitants en¬ 
gaged in curing either fish or the coarse salt hay which 
they had brought home and spread on the beach before 
their doors, looking as yellow as if they had raked it out 
of the sea. The front-yard plots appeared like what in¬ 
deed they were, portions of the beach fenced in, with 
Beach-grass growing in them, as if they were sometimes 
covered by the tide. You might still pick up shells and 
pebbles there. There were a few trees among the 
houses, especially silver abeles, willows, and balm^of- 
Gileads; and one man showed me a young oak which he 
had transplanted from behind the town, thinking it an 
apple-tree. But every man to his trade. Though he 
had little woodcraft, he was not the less weatherwise, and 
gave us one piece of information; viz. he had observed 
that when a thunder-cloud came up with a flood-tide it 
did not rain. This was the most completely maritime 
town that we were ever in. It w^as merely a good har¬ 
bor, surrounded by land dry, if not firm, — an inhabited 
beach, whereon fishermen cured and stored their fish, 
without any back country. When ashore the inhabitants 
still walk on planks. A few small patches have been 
reclaimed from the swamps, containing commonly half a 
dozen square rods only each. We saw one which was 
