THE SEA AND THE DESEKT. 
195 
tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of 
Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was 
the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only one sail 
in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously 
seeking a harbor. It was high tide when we reached 
the shore, and in one place, for a considerable distance, 
each wave dashed up so high that it was difficult to pass 
between it and the bank. Further south, where the 
bank was higher, it would have been dangerous to 
attempt it. A native of the Cape has told me, that 
many years ago, three boys, his playmates, having gone 
to this beach in Wellfleet to visit a wreck, when the sea 
receded ran down to the wreck, and when it came in 
ran before it to the bank, but the sea following fast 
at their heels, caused the bank to cave and bury them 
alive. 
It was the roaring sea, BdXacrcra rjx^eo-aa ,— 
d[JL(jA de T aKpai 
^H'ioves ^ooducnv, ipevyopevrjs aXos e^o). 
And the summits of the bank 
Around resound, the sea being vomited forth. 
As we stood looking on this scene we were gradually 
convinced that fishing here and in a pond were not, in 
all respects, the same, and that he who waits for fair 
weather and a calm sea may never see the glancing skin 
of a mackerel, and get no nearer to a cod than the 
wooden emblem in the State-House. 
Having lingered on the shore till we were wellnigh 
chilled to death by the wind, and were ready to take 
shelter in a Charity-house, we turned our weather-beaten 
faces toward Provincetown and the Bay again, having 
now more than doubled the Cape. 
