Provincetown is so barren that if the State should cut off the end of the Cape and leave it out in the cold, her people would be left to subsist, like the aborigines, upon fish and quahogs. I should advise them, therefore, to keep shady, stick to the Constitution and the laws, and vote the straight Republican ticket. I wish to describe a few things that I saw in the course of this ramble. No one should come to the Cape without exploring the Desert, which is remarkable for its extent and barrenness. It lies on the ocean side of the Cape, back of Provincetown, and is about six miles long and a mile in width, extending from the end of the Cape into Truro a succession of desolate sand-hills and hollows.
Sand is a misnomer to apply to it.
Its smoothness and graceful curves and blended light and shadow fascinate the eye of the beholder, who involuntarily gazes at it until he is blinded by its dazzling brilliancy. We pass from the desert to the beach, an uninterrupted stretch of surf-beaten sand, and grand enough in its loneliness to have satisfied even Byron s idea of a lonely shore. An east wind had raged for hours, and the sea was madly beating its waves into foam and spray for miles along the beach, rushing upon the shore like white-maned steeds, while the shore in turn hissed them back in derision as often as they advanced. A strange sensation comes over one as he stands here alone, a merciless ocean in front and a desert waste behind. He involuntarily looks about him for something diminutive, as a pebble or a shell, to befriend him, and to assure himself that he still retains his personal identity.