234 
CAPE COD. 
it was a plain contradiction of the law of God, which he 
quoted, and if they did not have some such regulation, 
vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, and paint, 
and they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a 
good argument enough, if he had not put it in the name 
of religion. The next summer, as I sat on a hill there 
one sultry Sunday afternoon, the meeting-house win¬ 
dows being open, my meditations were interrupted by 
the noise of a preacher who shouted like a boatswain, 
profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, I fancied, 
must have taken off his coat. Few things could have 
been more disgusting or disheartening. I wished the 
tithing-man would stop him. 
The Pilgrims say: “ There was the greatest store of 
fowl that ever we saw.” 
We saw no fowl there, except gulls of various kinds; 
but the greatest store of them that ever we saw was on 
a flat but slightly covered with water on the east side of 
the harbor, and we observed a man who had landed 
there from a boat creeping along the shore in order to 
get a shot at them, but they all rose and flew away in a 
great scattering flock, too soon for him, having appar¬ 
ently got their dinners, though he did not get his. 
It is remarkable that the Pilgrims (or their reporter) 
describe this part of the Cape, not only as well wooded, 
but as having a deep and excellent soil, and hardly men¬ 
tion the word sand. Now what strikes the voyager is 
the barrenness and desolation of the land. T/ie^ found 
the ground or earth sand-hills, much like the downs in 
Holland, but much better the crust of the earth, a spit’s 
depth, excellent black earth.” We found that the earth 
had lost its crust, — if, indeed, it ever had any, — and 
that there was no soil to speak of. We did not see 
