Smith, Brown, and Jones; but let us prevent them from setting their traps for our infirmities in the spots God has chosen for his noblest works. What a triple brass must such men have about their consciences to dare to flaunt their falsehoods in such places! It is a blasphemy against Nature. We might use Peter's words to them,—"Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God." Ananias and Sapphira were slain for less. But they think, I suppose, that the age of miracles has passed, or survives only in their miraculous cures, and so coolly defy the lightnings of Heaven. I was so much excited on this subject that Thompson suggested to me to give up my situation, turn Peter the Hermit, and carry a fiery scrubbing-brush through the country, preaching to all lovers of Nature to join in a crusade to wash the Holy Places clean of these unbelieving quacks.
It is pleasant to see that the Nantucket people are all healthy, or, if ailing, have no idea of being treated as they treat bluefish,—offered a red rag or a white bone, some taking sham to bite upon, and so be hauled in and die. As regards the salubrity of the climate, I think there can be no doubt. The faces of the inhabitants speak for themselves on that point. I heard an old lady, not very well preserved, who had been a fortnight on the island, say to a sympathizing friend, into whose ear she was pouring her complaints, "I sleeps better, and my stomach is sweeter." She might have expressed herself more elegantly, but she had touched the two grand secrets of life,—sound sleep and good digestion.
Another comfort on this island is, that there are few shops, no temptation to part with one's pelf, and no beggars, barelegged or barefaced, to ask for it. I do not believe that there are any cases of the cacoethes subscribendi. The natives have got out of the habit of making money, and appear to want nothing in particular, except to go a-fishing.
They have plenty of time to answer questions good-humoredly and gratis, and do not look upon a stranger as they do upon a stranded blackfish,—to be stripped of his oil and bone for their benefit. "I feel like a man among Christians," I declaimed,—"not, as I have often felt in my wanderings on shore, like Mungo Park or Burton, a traveller among savages, who are watching for an opportunity to rob me. I catch a glimpse again of the golden age when money was money. The blessed old prices of my youth, which have long since been driven from the continent by
'paper credit, last and best supply,
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly,'
have taken refuge here before leaving this wicked world forever. The cordon sanitaire of the Atlantic has kept off the pestilence of inflation."
One bright afternoon we took horse and "shay" for Siasconset, on the south side of the island. A drive of seven miles over a country as flat and as naked of trees as a Western prairie, the sandy soil covered with a low, thick growth of bayberry, whortleberry, a false cranberry called the meal-plum, and other plants bearing a strong family likeness, with here and there a bit of greensward,—a legacy, probably, of the flocks of sheep the natives foolishly turned off the island,—brought us to the spot. We passed occasional water-holes, that reminded us also of the West, and a few cattle. Two or three lonely farm-houses loomed up in the distance, like ships at sea. We halted our rattle-trap on a bluff covered with thick green turf. On the edge of this bluff, forty feet above the beach, is Siasconset, looking southward over the ocean,—no land between it and Porto Rico. It is only a fishing village; but if there were many like it, the conventional shepherd, with his ribbons, his crooks, and his pipes, would have to give way to the fisherman. Seventy-five cosey, one-story cottages, so small and snug that a well-grown man might touch the gables without rising on tip-toe, are drawn up in three rows parallel to the sea, with narrow lanes of turf between them,—all of a weather-beaten gray tinged with purple, with pale-
