Impressions of America During the Years 1833, 1834 and 1835. Volume 2 (of 2)

LONDON: PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY, Dorset Street, Fleet Street.


This rocky peninsula is truly a very wild and unworldlike little territory, jutting boldly out as it does into the mighty bay of Massachusetts, and commanding a view of its whole extent, from Cape Cod to Cape Anne, together with the many islands, towns, and villages scattered along the coast; whilst in front spreads out the Atlantic Ocean.
To sit within the upper gallery of this house upon the cliff, and watch the rising moon fling her golden bridge from the far horizon's edge, until it seems to rest upon the beach below, is a sight which would be worth something in a poet or a painter's eyes.

I never, either in the East or in the Mediterranean, beheld anything exceed in colour the glory of these evening skies, or their depth by night. Round about, near to the edge of the cliffs, are scattered a number of dwellings, built in the style of the southern cottage, having low projecting eaves covering a broad gallery which usually encircles the building: these are objects upon which the eye is pleased to rest when the moon deepens their shadows on the barren rock.
One or two of the highest and most conspicuous points, whether viewed from the land or the sea, have been very properly selected for buildings, whose uses, however humble, admitted of classic form. Beneath the roof of a temple to Minerva, built upon the extreme eastern point of the lofty headland, may be found the billiard-table of the hotel; lower down, the little edifice containing a range of baths is entered by a Doric portico. The proportions of these buildings are in good taste; the chaste cold moon clothes them in grace and beauty; and for the material, what matters it, when, by her light, painted pine may be fancied Parian marble! The cliff itself is a very Leucadia, and as well fitted for a leap as love-sick heart could seek: but there are no Sapphos now-a-days; the head of Nahant is likely to remain un-be-rhymed.