 |
| September 23, 2018 |
We kept along the road to Rockport, some two miles or more, to a “thundering big ledge” by the road, as a man called it; then turned off toward the south shore, at a house with two very large and old pear trees before it. Part of the house was built by a Witham, one of the first settlers, and the place or neighborhood used to be called “the Farms.” Saw the F. hyemalis flitting along the walls, and it was cool enough for them on this cape.
In a marsh by the shore, where was a very broad curving sandy beach, the shore of a cove, found the Ranunculus Cymbalaria, still in bloom, but mostly in fruit. Glaux maritima (?), nearly prostrate, with oblong leaves. Triglochin palustris in fruit. An eleocharis, apparently marine, with lenticular fruit and a wrinkled mitre-shaped beak. Spergularia rubra, etc., samphire, etc.
The narrow road — where we followed it — wound about big boulders, past small, often bevel-roofed cottages where sometimes was a small flag flying for a vane. The number and variety of bevelled roofs on the Cape is surprising. Some are so nearly flat that they reminded me of the low brows of monkeys.
We had already seen a sort of bare rocky ridge, a bare boulder-covered back of the Cape, running northeasterly from Gloucester toward Rockport and for some three miles quite bare, the eastern extremity of the Cape being wooded. That would be a good place to walk.
In this marsh, saw what I thought the solitary tattler, quite tame.
Having reached the shore, we sat under the lee of the rocks on the beach, opposite Salt Island. A man was carting seaweed along the shore between us and the water, the leather-apron kind, which trailed from his cart like the tails of oxen, and, when it came between us and the sun, was of a warm purple-brown glow.
Half a mile further, beyond a rocky head, we came to another curving sandy beach, with a marsh between it and the Cape on the north. Saw there, in the soft sand, with beach-grass, apparently Juncus Balticus (?), very like but not so stout (!) as Juncus effusus.
Met a gunner from Lynn on the beach, who had several pigeons which he had killed in the woods by the shore. Said that they had been blown off the mainland. Second, also a kingfisher. Third, what he called the “ox eye,” about size of peetweet but with a short bill and a blackish-brown crescent on breast, and wing above like peetweet’s, but no broad white mark below. Could it be Charadrius semipalmatus? Fourth, what he called a sandpiper, very white with a long bill. Was this Tringa arenaria? Fifth, what I took to be a solitary tattler, but possibly it was the pectoral sandpiper, which I have seen since.
On the edge of the beach you see small dunes, with white or fawn-colored sandy sides, crowned with now yellowish smilax and with bayberry bushes. Just before reaching Loblolly Cove, near Thatcher’s Island, sat on a beach composed entirely of small paving-stones lying very loose and deep.
We boiled our tea for dinner on the mainland opposite Straitsmouth Island, just this side the middle of Rockport, under the lee of a boulder, using, as usual, dead bay berry bushes for fuel. This was, indeed, all we could get. They make a very quick fire, and I noticed that their smoke covered our dippers with a kind of japan which did not crock or come off nearly so much as ordinary soot.
We could see the Salvages very plainly, apparently ex tending north and south, the Main Rock some fifteen or twenty rods long and east-northeast of Straitsmouth Island, apparently one and a half or two miles distant, with half-sunken ledges north and south of it, over which the sea was breaking in white foam. The ledges all together half a mile long.
We could see from our dining-place Agamenticus, some forty miles distant in the north. Its two sides loomed so that about a third of the whole was lifted up, while a small elevation close to it on the east, which afterward was seen to be a part of it, was wholly lifted up.
Rockport well deserves its name, — several little rocky harbors protected by a breakwater, the houses at Rockport Village backing directly on the beach.
At Folly Cove, a wild rocky point running north, covered with beach—grass. See now a mountain on the east of Agamenticus. Isles of Shoals too low to be seen. Probably land at Boar’s Head, seen on the west of Agamenticus, and then the coast all the way from New Hampshire to Cape Ann plainly, Newburyport included and Plum Island. Hog Island looks like a high hill on the mainland.
It is evident that a discoverer, having got as far west as Agamenticus, off the coast of Maine, would in clear weather discern the coast trending southerly beyond him as far round as Cape Ann, and if he did not wish to be embayed would stand across to Cape Ann, where the Salvages would be the outmost point.
At Annisquam we found ourselves in the midst of boulders scattered over bare hills and fields, such as we had seen on the ridge northerly in the morning, i. e., they abound chiefly in the central and northwesterly part of the Cape. This was the most peculiar scenery of the Cape.
We struck inland southerly, just before sundown, and boiled our tea with bayberry bushes by a swamp on the hills, in the midst of these great boulders, about half way to Gloucester, having carried our water a quarter of a mile, from a swamp, spilling a part in threading swamps and getting over rough places.
Two oxen feeding in the swamp came up to reconnoitre our fire. We could see no house, but hills strewn with boulders, as if they had rained down, on every side, we sitting under a shelving one. When the moon rose, what had appeared like immense boulders half a mile off in the horizon now looked by contrast no larger than nutshells or buri-nut against the moon’s disk, and she was the biggest boulder of all.
When we had put out our bayberry fire, we heard a squawk, and, looking up, saw five geese fly low in the twilight over our heads. We then set out to find our way to Gloucester over the hills, and saw the comet very bright in the northwest.
 |
| Donati’s Comet 1858 |
After going astray a little in the moonlight, we fell into a road which at length conducted us to the town.
As we bought our lodging and breakfast, a pound of good ship-bread, which cost seven cents, and six herring, which cost three cents, with sugar and tea, supplied us amply the rest of the two days. The selection of suitable spots to get our dinner or supper led us into interesting scenery, and it was amusing to watch the boiling of our water for tea. There is a scarcity of fresh water on the Cape, so that you must carry your water a good way in a dipper.
H. D. Thoreau, Journal, September 23, 1858
No comments:
Post a Comment