On the hill was formerly a windmill, having the flyers inside, so resembling, say the town annalists, a lofty tower. It was a famous landmark for vessels making the port. The chart-makers have now replaced it with the town hall, and every mariner steering for Provincetown has an eye to it.
The harbor is completely landlocked. There is good anchorage for vessels of the largest class. Ofttimes it is crowded with shipping seeking a haven of refuge. This morning there were perhaps fifty sail, of every kind of craft. An inward-bound vessel must steer around every point of the compass before the anchor is let go in safety. In the Revolution the port was made use of by the British squadrons, to refit, and procure water.[220] The tide flows on the bay side of the Cape about twenty feet, while at the back of it there is a flow of only five or six feet.
The town is of extreme length, compared with its breadth, being contracted between the range of high sand-hills behind it and the beach. It lies fronting the south-east, bordering the curve of the shore, which sweeps grandly around half the circumference of a circle on the bay side. In one direction extends the long line of shore. If Boston be your starting-point, you must travel a hundred and twenty miles to get fifty; and, by the time you arrive at the extremity of the Cape, should be able to box the compass. Looking south, Long Point terminates the land view. Following with the eye the outline of the hook, it rests an instant on the shaft of the light-house at Wood End, the extreme southerly point of the Cape. Thence the coast trends north-west as far as Race Point, which is shut out from view by intervening hills. Race Point is the outermost land of the Cape. All these names are well known to mariners, the world over.
The shores are bordered with dangerous bars and shallows. As shipping could not get up to the town, the town has gone off to it, in the shape of a wharf of great length. Our Pilgrim ancestors had to wade a "bow shoot" to get on dry land. A resident told me that with fishing-boots on I could cross to the head of Herring Cove at low tide. Assuredly, it is one of the most wonderful of havens, and little likely to be dispensed with, even if the vexed question of
"A way for ships to shape,
Instead of winding round the Cape
A short-cut through the collar,"
be answered by a ship-canal from Barnstable to Buzzard's Bay.[221]
On the summit of Town Hill you are almost astride the Cape, having the Atlantic on one side, and Massachusetts Bay in full view on the other. The port is not what it was when some storm-tossed bark, in accepting its shelter, was the town talk for months. Ships come and go by scores and hundreds, folding their wings and settling down on the water like weary sea-gulls.
With an outward appearance of prosperity, I found the people bemoaning the hard times. Taxes, they said, were twenty dollars in the thousand, and only ten at Wareham; fish were scarce, and prices low, too, though as to the last item consumers think otherwise. The fishermen I saw were burly, athletic fellows, apparently not more thrifty than their class everywhere. They are averse to doing any thing else than fish, and, if the times are bad, are content to potter about their boats and fishing-gear till better days, much as they would wait for wind and tide. If they can not go fishing they had as lief do nothing, though want threatens.
The boys take to the water by instinct. I saw one adrift in a boat without oars, making his way to land by tilting the side of the dory. They go to the fishing-banks with their fathers, and can hand, reef, and steer with an old salt. One traveler tells of a Provincetown cow-boy who captured and killed a blackfish he descried near the shore. As soon as they had strength to pull in a fish, they were put on board a boat.
I noticed the familiar names that have been transplanted and thriven everywhere. Those of Atwood, Nickerson, Newcomb, Rich, Ryder, Snow, and Doane have the Cape ring about them. In general they are "likely" men, as the phrase here is, getting on as might be expected of a people who literally cast their bread upon the waters, and live on a naked crust of earth that the sea is forever gnawing and growling at. The girls are pretty. I say it on the authority of an expert in such matters who accompanied me. Not all are sandy-haired.