June 5, 1864. Provincetown. Came in here to get cheated in buying a boat, and succeeded admirably! It was taken on board, not quite breaking beneath its own weight; the anchor soon followed; we were away. Past the long spit of sand on the north and west; past the new batteries, over which floated the flag that for months would not again gladden our eyes, save at the mast-head of some wandering ship; then, with change of course, past the long curving neck of the desert cape; and so out upon the open ocean we sped, with a free wind, a crested wave, and a white wake. The land grew a low, blue cloud in the west, then melted into the horizon. But before it faded, the heart of one man clung to it, regretful, penitent, saying, "It was not well to go; it were better to have stayed and suffered, as you, O Land, must suffer."
But when it was gone; then the Before built to itself also a cloudland and drew me on. The mystic North reached forth the wand by which it had fascinated me so often, and renewed its spell. Who has not felt it? Thoreau wrote of "The Wild" as he alone could write; but only in the North do you find it,—unless you make it, as he did, by your imagination. And even he could in this but partially succeed. Talk of finding it in a ten-acre swamp! Why, man, you are just from a cornfield, the echoes of your sister's piano are still in your ears, and you called at the post-office for a letter as you came! Verdure and a mild heaven are above; clunking frogs and plants that keep company with man are beneath. But in the North Nature herself is wild. Of man she has never so much as heard. She has seen, perchance, a biped atomy creeping through her snows; but he is not Man, lording it in power of thought and performance; he is a muffled imbecility, that can do nothing but hug and hide its existence, lest some careless breath of hers should blow it out; his pin-head taper must be kept under a bushel, or cease to be even the covert pettiness it is. The wildness of the North is not scenic and pictorial merely, but goes to the very heart of things, immeasurable, immitigable, infinite; deaf and blind to all but itself and its own, it prevails, it is, and it is all.
The desert and the sea are indeed untamable, but the North is more. They hold their own, and Civilization is but a Mrs. Partington, trying to sweep in at their doors. But Commerce, though it cannot subdue, stretches its arms across them; while Culture and Travel go and come, still wearing their plumes, still redolent with odors of civilized lands. The North reigns more absolutely. Commerce is but a surf on its shores. Travel creeps guardedly, fearfully in, only to turn and creep still more fearfully out.
We, indeed, are feeble even in our purposes of travel. Not Kanes, Parrys, Franklins, not intrepid to brave the presence of the Arctic Czar, and look on his very face, with its half-year lights and shades,—we go only to see the skirts of his robe, blown southward by summer-seeking winds. But even the hope of this fills the Before with enchantment, and lures us like a charm.
Lures the ship, too, one would think: for how she flies! Fair wind and fog we had, where clear skies were looked for,—fair wind and clear skies, where we had expected to plough fog; Cape Sable forbears for once to hide itself; the shores of Nova Scotia are seen through an atmosphere of crystal and under an azure without stain, and on the third day the Gut of Canso is reached, and anchor cast in the little harbor of a little, dirty, bluenose villagette, ycleped "Port Mulgrave."
Port Mulgrave? Port Filth, Port Rum, Port Dirk-Knife, Port Prostitution, Port Fish-Gurry, Port everything unsavory and unconscionable!
"What news from the war?" asks Bradford of the first man, on landing.
Answer prompt. "Good news! Grant has been beaten, lost seventeen thousand men, and is making for Washington as fast as he can run!"
Respondent's visage questionable, however,—too dirty, and too happy. Hence further researches; and at last a man is found who (under prospects of trade) can contrive to tell the truth; and he acknowledges that even the Canadian telegraph has told no such story.
In the evening, as some of us go on shore, there is a drunken fight. Knives are drawn, great gashes given, blood runs like rain; the combatants tumble together into a shallow dock, stab in the mud and water, creep out and clench and roll over and over in the ooze, stabbing still, with beast-like, unintelligible yells, and half-intelligible curses. A great, nasty mob huddles round,—doing what, think you? Roaring with laughter, and hooting their fish-gurry happiness up to the welkin! Suddenly there is a surging among them; then Smith, our young parson, ploughs through, springs upon the fighters, who owe to nothing but extreme drunkenness their escape from the crime of murder. He clutches them,—jerks one this way, the other that, heedless of the still plunging knives,—fastens upon the worst hurt of the two, and drags him off. Are the lookers-on abashed? Never think it! They remonstrate! Smith jets at them fine sentences of fiery, rebuking eloquence. "Bah!" they say, "this is nothing; we are used to it!" It was their customary theatricals, their Spanish bull-fight; and they were little inclined to be robbed of their show.