242 
CAPE COD. 
the white sails of the mackerel fishers hovering round 
('^ape Cod, and when they were all hull-down, and the 
low extremity of the Cape was also down, their white 
sails still appeared on both sides of it, around where it 
had sunk, like a city on the ocean, proclaiming the rare 
qualities of Cape Cod Harbor. But before the extrem¬ 
ity of the Cape had completely sunk, it appeared like 
a filmy sliver of land lying flat on the ocean, and later 
still a mere reflection of a sand-bar on the haze above. 
Its name suggests a homely truth, but it would be more 
poetic if it described the impression which it makes on 
the beholder. Some capes have peculiarly suggestive 
names. There is Cape Wrath, the northwest point of 
Scotland, for instance ; what a good name for a cape 
lying far away dark over the water under a lowering sky! 
Mild as it was on shore this morning, the wind was 
cold and piercing on the water. Though it be the hot¬ 
test day in July on land, and the voyage is to last but 
four hours, take your thickest clothes with you, for you 
are about to float over melted icebergs. When I left 
Boston in the steamboat on the 25th of June the next 
year, it' was a quite warm day on shore. The pas¬ 
sengers were dressed in their thinnest clothes, and at first 
sat under their umbrellas, but when we were fairly out 
on the Bay, such as had only their coats were suffering 
with the cold, and sought the shelter of the pilot’s house 
and the warmth of the chimney. But when we ap¬ 
proached the harbor of Provincetown, I was surprised 
to perceive what an influence that low and narrow strip 
of sand, only a mile or two in width, had over the tem¬ 
perature of the air for many miles around. We pene¬ 
trated into a sultry atmosphere where our thin coats 
were once more in fashion, and found the inhabitants 
sweltering. 
