The beach is the mall of Marblehead. It opens upon Nahant Bay, and is much exposed to the force of south-east gales. Over this beach a causeway is built, which from time to time has required extensive repairs. Under the province, and as late even as 1812, the favorite method of raising moneys for such purposes was by lottery, duly authorized. In this way a work of public necessity was relegated to the public cupidity.
A run over the Neck revealed many points of interest. There are rock cavities of glassy smoothness, worn by the action of pebbles, chasms that receive the coming waveband derisively toss it high in air; and there are precipitous cliffs which the old stone-cutter and lapidary can never blunt, though he may fret and fume forever at their base. Looking off to sea, the eye is everywhere intercepted by islands or sunken ledges belted with surf. They have such names as Satan, Roaring Bull, Great and Little Misery, Great and Little Haste, Cut-throat Ledge, the Brimbles, Cat Island, and the like. Each would have a story, if it were challenged, how it came by its name. The number of these islands is something surprising. In fact they appear like a system, connecting the craggy promontory of Marblehead with the cape side. At some time the sea must have burst through this rocky barrier, carrying all before its resistless onset. The channels are intricate among these islands, and must be hit with the nicest precision, or a strong vessel would go to pieces at the first blow on the sharp rocks.
The Neck is the peculiar domain of a transient population of care-worn fugitives from the city. The red-roofed cottages were picturesque objects among the rocks, but bore marks of the disorder in which the winter had left them. They seemed shivering up there on the ledges, though it was the seventh day of May, for there had been a light fall of snow, followed by a searching north-west wind. Not even a curl of smoke issued from the chimneys to take off the prevailing chilliness. Down at the harbor side there was an old farmstead with some noble trees I liked better. On the beach I had trod in Hawthorne's "Foot-prints." I might here rekindle Longfellow's "Fire of Drift-wood:"
"We sat within the farm-house old,
Whose windows, looking o'er the bay,
Gave to the sea-breeze, damp and cold,
An easy entrance night and day.
"Not far away we saw the port,
The strange old-fashioned silent town,
The light-house, the dismantled fort,
The wooden houses quaint and brown."
The light-keeper, whom I found at home, indulged me in a few moments' chat. He could not account, he said, for the extraordinary predilection of the Light-house Board for whitewash. Dwelling, covered way, and tower were each and all besmeared; and the keeper seemed not overconfident that he might not soon receive an order to put on a coat of it himself. He did not object to the summer, but in winter his berth was not so pleasant. I already felt convinced of this. To a question he replied that Government estimated his services at five hundred dollars per annum; and he pointedly asked me how he was to support a family on the stipend? Yet he must keep his light trimmed and burning; for if that goes out, so does he.
All the light-houses are supplied with lard-oil, which burns without incrusting the wick of the lamp; but the keeper objected that it was always chilled in cold weather, and that he usually had to take it into the dwelling and heat it on the stove before it could be used. A good deal of moisture collects on the plate-glass windows of the lantern when the wind is off-shore, but if it be off the land the glass is dry. In very cold weather, when it becomes coated with frost, the light is visible but a short distance at sea. To remedy this evil, spirits of wine are furnished to keepers, but does not wholly remove the difficulty.
DRYING FISH, LITTLE HARBOR.
Afterward we spoke of the commerce of Marblehead. The only craft now in port were five or six ballast-lighters that had wintered in the upper harbor; with this exception it was deserted. The keeper had been master of a fishing vessel. I could not help remarking to him on this ominous state of things.