Lagging Pen-Sketch of Cape Cod Landladies-Relative Consequence of Landlords-Luxury peculiar to Public Houses in this part of the Country-Old friend of "Morris and Willis"-Strap of the Cape Spur-Land like "the Downs of England"-Sea-farming and Landfarming-Solitary Inn-Double Sleep-Hollow of Everett's Cape "Arm"-Pear tree over two hundred years old-Native Accent and Emphasis-Overworked Women-Contrivance to Keep the Soil from blowing away-- Bridge of Winds-Adaptability of Apple-treesFeatures of this Line of Towns-Curious Attachment to Native Soil -The Venice of New England, etc., etc.

66

As you see, dear Morris, my pen follows me on my journey like a tired dog, but it will overtake me in time. Lag as it will, it is a rascal that sticks to its master-(I am sorry to say)-and if I were to go to bed in heaven, without it, I think, I should see its tail wag with the first movement of my hand in the morning. "Love me, love my dog," however, for, like fairy drudges who treat their inevitables like a dog," I prefer to have the abusing of him all to myself. In travelling on Cape Cod, one remembers where he takes tea, for the teapot and the landlady are inseparable, and the landladies are pretty women, from one end of the Cape to the other. The landlord, I noticed, is only "first mate" in this maritime country, and his wife is the indisputable Captain. As is the case all over the surface of the globe, where woman has the whole responsibility, she acquits herself admirably, and I remember no country where the landlady's duties and powers are so judiciously allotted and so well discharged as on Cape Cod-a fact particularly noticeable in America, where everybody does much more and considerably less than he ought to. My companion (Member of Congress from this District), having the "best front chamm-ber" as a matter of course, I was generally lodged in the rear, within cognizance of all the machinery of housekeeping-the trade with the pedlar, the talk with the butcher, the petting of the child, the hurrying of them gals," and the general supervisory orders, from the gridiron in the kitchen to the remotest pillow-case up stairs, coming within unavoidable earshot-and my admiration of the landladyhood of Barnstable County, I freely own, increased with my knowledge of it. But for the view out of the window, I should not always have been sure that the

66

vigorous handler of tongue and broom whom I saw and heard the moment before the bell rang, was the same gentle proposer of "green or black" whom I looked at over my shoulder the moment after; but there she was-the same, save what changes were made, in manner and habiliment, somewhere between back-stoop and parlor. The hair, evidently was dressed in the morning for all day; and, on some habitual nail, probably, hung the cover-all polka, slipped on with the other tone of the voice," in no time;" and, by either, the dullest stranger would know the mistress from her servant. To the former, you looked, only when your cup was out" or for whortleberries and milk. To " pass the potatoes" you must turn to the girl with no collar on. It might have been only a curious coincidence, or it may be a professional attitude, but, when not waiting on guests, the landladies, everywhere on the Cape, presented one picture-seated thoughtfully at the side-table with the cheek resting on the thumb and two fingers. In one or two cases I noticed that it seemed to be a favorite time, when new-comers were taking tea, to receive calls from the young ladies in the neighbourhood — the visitors, whom I had seen radiating towards the house from various directions, coming in without their bonnets, like members of the family, and departing, bonneted, when the meal was over. With the gentlemen about, who were regular boarders," I observed that the landlady was, (as they express excellence in Boston), "A. No. 1," gay, social, and, in manner, something between a sister and a great belle; and, by the way in which my companion's advances to conversation were met, I was satisfied that sociability with the landlady is an understood thing-the public houses on the Cape being thus provided with a luxury, (a lady for a stranger to talk to), which would be a desirable addition, even to the omni-dreamings-of at the incomparable Astor.*

66

* As Ireland is the next country eastward, perhaps it may be apposite to quote a passage from Thackeray's travels, descriptive of Irish innkeepers and their wives-the contrast very much in favor of the kind civility of the same class in Barnstable County, while at the same time, our own hold a much higher relative position in social rank. He says: "I saw only three landlords of inns in all Ireland. I believe these gentlemen commonly, and very naturally, prefer riding with the hounds, or other sports, to attendance on their guests; and the landladies prefer to play the piano, or have a game of cards in the parlor; for who can expect a lady to be troubling herself with vulgar chance customers, or looking after Molly in the bedrooms or Tim in the cellar!"

In the stage proprietor who was to furnish us our vehicle to cross to Orleans, I found one of our old "Mirror" parish, who "knew us both like a book"-all the apartments of his memory papered with the editorials of those days of quarto— and he very kindly took the place of his driver, and put us over the road with his own good whip and better company. We followed a line, that, on the booted leg of the Cape, would be defined by the strap of the spur, and a beautiful evening drive it was, with half a dozen small lakes on the road and a constant alternation of hill and valley-though we were probably indebted to a glowing twilight, and its train of stars and fragrance, for some modification of sand and barrenness. Over this ten miles of hill and water, scarce any one had ever thought it worth while to put up a fence, and, like the open Downs of Sussex in England, more beautiful ground for a free gallop could scarcely be found on the wild prairie. There are few or no farms, from Chatham across to Orleans. Here and there stands a dwelling-house, but its owner farms the more fertile Atlantic, where his plough runs easier even than through the sand, and his crops sow their own seed without troubling him.*

The inn at Orleans reminded me of that solitary albergo half way over the Pontine Marshes-the inside of the house a refuge from the barren loneliness without-though the solidify

The analogy between land-farming and sea-farming is hinted at by quaint old Fuller, who, in one of his sermons, thus delivers himself:"Why doth not the water recover his right over the earth, being higher in Nature? Whence came the salt, and who first boiled it, which made so much brine? When the winds are not only wild in a storm, but even stark mad in a hurricane, who is it that restores them again to their wits and brings them asleep in a calm? Who made the mighty whales, who swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them? Who first taught the water to imitate the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of kine-fishes, the sty of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things the sea the ape of the land? When grows the ambergrease in the sea, which is not so hard to be found where it is, as to know what it is? Was not God the first Shipwright? and all vessels on the water descended from the loins, or rather ribs, of Noah's ark? or else who durst be so bold with a few crooked boards nailed together, a stick standing upright, and a rag tied to it, to adventure into the ocean? What loadstone first touched the loadstone? or how first fell it in love with the north, rather affecting that cold climate than the pleasant east, or fruitful south or west? How comes that stone to know more than men, and find the way to the land in a mist?"

ing salt air of the Cape was different enough from the nervous drowsiness of the malaria. I shall remember Orleans by its dispensation of sleep, for it seemed to me as if two nights had been laid over me like two blankets. Cape air, indeed, day and night, struck me as having a touch of " poppy or mandragora," and, please lay it to the climate if my letter weighs on your eyelids.

With a charming pair of horses and a most particularly native Cape driver, we started, after our breakfast at Orleans, to skirt the full petticoat which Massachusetts Bay drops southward from the projecting head of Cape Ann. The thirty miles to the point of the Cape was one day's work. An hour or so on our way we stopped to see the blown-down trunk of a pear-tree brought over from England by Governor Prince, which had borne fruit for two hundred and twenty years. It lay in an orchard, at the rear of a house as old as itself, and the present tenant sells its branches for relics. The direction of our driver, when we stopped before the door, may perhaps be usefully recorded as a guide to travellers, and I will try to spell it strictly after his unmitigated Cape pronunciation:"Git r-a-ight a-out, and step r-a-ight r-a-ound; it's the back p-a-irt of the h-a-ouse." The letter a, in the native dialect, seems to fill a place like the "bread at discretion" in a French bill of fare; and I was struck also with an adroit way they have of giving point to a remark by emphasizing unexpected words. This same driver, for instance, when we commented upon the worn and overworked look of the middle-aged females whom we met upon the road, replied, (and his voice sounded as if it came up through his nose and out at his eyes,) Y-a-es! they must work OR die!"

66

Around most of the dwellings, along on this shore of the Cape, there is neither tree nor shrub, and this gives to their houses an out-of-door look that is singularly cheerless. One ship on an ocean horizon could not look more lonely. Even the greenness of the poor grass around the cottage is partly lost to them, for they cover it thinly with dead brush, literally to keep the soil from blowing away-so light and thin is the surface of loam upon this peninsula of sand.

Lying between the Atlantic and the stormy Bay so well known as the nose of the bellows of Newfoundland, it is probably but a bridge of wind for the greater portion of the year, A few apple-trees, which we saw in one place, told the story

-the branches all growing horizontally from near the root, and sticking so close to the ground that a sheep could scarcely pass under them.

We ploughed sand, all along through Eastham, Wellfleet, and Truro, seeing but the same scanty herbage, houses few and far between, flat-chested and round-backed women and noble-looking old men, and wondering, (I, at least,) at the wisdom of Providence in furnishing the human heart with reasons for abiding in the earth's most unattractive regions. "All for the best," of course, but one marvels to remember, at the same time, that the most fertile and beautiful land in the world, on the Delaware and Susquehannah, equi-distant from New York and easier of access, can be bought for half the price of these acres of Sahara.

The remainder of the Cape, from Truro to Provincetown, is the Venice of New England-as unlike anything else as the eity of gondolas is unlike the other capitals of Italy-and deserves the other end of a letter. In the brevity of this, too, I take a certain vacation liberty, which I need, on the venerable and time-worn principle, that

"All work and no play,

Makes Jack a dull boy."

Yours, &c.

LETTER FROM THE END OF CAPE COD.

Descriptive of the last few Miles of Cape Cod, and the Town at its Extremity.

Ar the point where I resume my sketch of Cape Cod, dear Morris, I could not properly date from "terra firma." The sand hills, which compose the last few miles of the way to Provincetown, are perpetually changing shape and place, and -solid enough though they are, to be represented in Congress-the ten-mile extremity of the Cape is subject to a ground swell," for the sea-sickness of which even Congress has thought it worth while to prescribe. I must define this to you more fully, for, literally true as it is, it sounds very much like an attempt at being figurative.

Whoever travels between Truro and Provincetown, though he goes up hill and down dale continually, runs his wheel

D