PEOVINCETOWN. 
245 
a timber merchant, and I afterward saw him taking the 
diameter of the mainmast with his stick, and estimating 
its height. I returned from the same excursion in the 
Olata, a very handsome and swift-sailing yacht, which 
left Provincetown at the same time with two other 
packets, the Melrose and Frolic. At first there was 
scarcely a breath of air stirring, and we loitered about 
Long Point for an hour in company, — with our heads 
over the rail watching the great sand-circles and the 
fishes at the bottom in calm water fifteen feet deep. 
But after clearing the Cape we rigged a flying-jib, and, 
as the Captain had prophesied, soon showed our consorts 
our heels. There was a steamer six or eight miles 
northward, near the Cape, towing a large ship toward 
Boston. Its smoke stretched perfectly horizontal several 
miles over the sea, and by a sudden change in its direc¬ 
tion, warned us of a change in the wind before we felt 
it. The steamer appeared very far from the ship, and 
some young men who had frequently used the Captain’s 
glass, but did not suspect that the vessels were connected, 
expressed surprise that they kept about the same dis¬ 
tance apart for so many hours. At which the Captain 
dryly remarked, that probably they would never get any 
nearer together. As long as the wind held we kept 
pace with the steamer, but at length it died away almost 
entirely, and the flying-jib did all the work. When we 
passed the light-boat at Minot’s Ledge, the Melrose and 
Frolic were just visible ten miles astern. 
Consider the islands bearing the names of all the 
saints, bristling with forts like chestnut-burs, or echini’* 
dee, yet the police will not let a couple of Irishmen have 
a private sparring-match on one of them, as it is a gov¬ 
ernment monopoly; all the great seaports are in a box- 
