250 
CAPE COD. 
shows you the land and the sea, and part of the time 
two seas. The Great South Beach of Long Island, 
which I have since visited, is longer still without an in¬ 
let, but it is literally a mere sand-bar, exposed, several 
miles from the Island, and not the edge of a continent 
wasting before the assaults of the ocean. Though wild 
and desolate, as it wants the bold bank, it possesses but 
half the grandeur of Cape Cod in my eyes, nor is the 
imagination contented with its southern aspect. The 
only other beaches of great length on our Atlantic coast, 
which I have heard sailors speak of, are those of Bar- 
negat on the Jersey shore, and Currituck between Vir¬ 
ginia and North Carolina; but these, like the last, are 
low and narrow sand-bars, lying off the coast, and sepa¬ 
rated from the mainland by lagoons. Besides, as you go 
farther south the tides are feebler, and cease to add 
variety and grandeur to the shore. On the Pacific 
side of our country also no doubt there is good walking 
to be found; a recent writer and dweller there tells us 
that ‘‘the coast from Cape Disappointment (or the Colum¬ 
bia Biver) to Cape Flattery (at the Strait of Juan de 
Fuca) is nearly north and south, and can be travelled 
almost its entire length on a beautiful sand-beach,” with 
the exception of two bays, four or five rivers, and a few 
points jutting into the sea. The common shell-fish found 
there seem to be often of corresponding types, if not 
identical species, with those of Cape Cod. The beach 
which I have described, however, is not hard enough 
for carriages, but must be explored on foot. When one 
carriage has passed along, a following one sinks deeper 
still in its rut. It has at present no name any more 
than fame. That portion south of Nauset Harbor is 
commonly called Chatham Beach. The part in East- 
