The Savannah morning news., 1901-10-06

Almost Faded from Mems Minds,
Says the Distinguished English
Visitor-The Silent Old Sea Cap
tains Who Have Seen So Much and
Who Know So Much, Yet Who
Rarely Speak-The Old Watch
Towers Have Given Way to the
Pleasure Resorts-No Trophies OF
the Long Fight with the Sea
which Established This Old Town.
BY Frank T. Bullen.
Author of 1.-The Cruise OF the Cacha-
lot" Etc.
Copyright 1901, by Frank T. Bullen0
Regard it how 1 win, Nantucket
strikes me as most pathetically lonely.
This know will seem strange TO many
who have visited the wonderful old
town in these latter days Of its ex-
istence and has found it transformed
into a favorite summer resort, which
is growing more and more popular
year by year. It's quaint cobble-paved
streets just now are tronged with gay
visitors from many states, its ship
deserted wharves ring with merry
laughter and its beautiful beach Is
dotted with groups Of pleasure and
health-seeking bathers, while at night
an excellent band makes night melodi-
Gus in the broad, old-fashioned mar
ket place where the visitors sit or
stand around cooling off after the days
exertions.
But in spite of all this gayety Nan
tucket viii persist, to my thinking at
any rate, in wearing an air of being
deserted, bereft of her reason to be.
Her glorious past still clings about her
like the aroma of faded rose petals in
long. unused bureaus, and on every
hand the mental vision will discern
evidences Of what Nantucket once was,
and that, as men count time, not very
long ago.
I say mental vision advisedly, for
perhaps one of the most striking proofs
of the brevity of mans memories-the
ease with which they will allow the
most majestic memories of a mighty
past to fade away and die-that can
be found anywhere will be found in
Nantucket 1t is a most profound
mystery to me how in town like this,
which should surely occupy a place in
the very foremost ranks of America s
glorious history, it is possible to roam
everywhere without meeting any out
ward and visible sign of its departed
greatness. Do American citizens real
lie. I wonder, what the sperm whale
fishery was to note merely New Eng
land. but the whole of the infant coll
ony. and later to the Herculean babe
of their young republic? Is 1t possible
that Americans can have forgotten
what kind of men they were-these
strong, silent islanders, who not con-
tent with Drawing the perils of the deep
nowhere more perilous than around
these intricate shores-added to them
a hundred-fold by initiating a traffic
which had for its central factor the
most Titanic warfare the world has
ever witnessed, a warfare mightler
by far than any of which Homer sang.
but which, alas, has produced no Ho-
mer to give it the need of deafness
verse it deserves? 1t seems almost in
sulting so to imagine; yet fear there
is no way to avoid such an idea More
than that, / cannot help feeling that
such memories as do survive have
been allowed in the outward express
sion to become trivial and Je1une-no
more worthy of the town, the state, OF
the nation, than would have been a
lumber monument decked out in gaudy
meretriciousness of paint to the fra
grant memory of Lincoln or GARFIELD.
The reason for such feelings of mine
is that in Nantucket I saw poor, pit
iful broadsheet pasted on the walls OF
a mean building grandiloquently styled
the Athenaeum Museum. 1t set forth
that within might be seen the lower
law of a giant sperm whale, fully fur
nished with teeth and many other Gu
riosities, the charge to view which
would be Is cents! I did not go in,
for / felt sick at heart. l should nave
expected to find jaws of sperm whales,
arches of their monstrous ribs, colos-
sal fragments of their vertebrae, the
splendid chariots of their skulls, adorn-
ing the lawns of those pretty houses
round about, scattered in lavish pro-
fusion everywhere, stupendous tro-
phies of the long, long fight that dld
SO much to establish the foundation
of this magnificent land, and enduring
memorials to the prowess of the war
riors who had brought them from out
of the vast mysterious deep, had col
lected them from the confines of the
round world. Had I seen such bill
nasted on a temporary booth in q
mushroom English seaside resort,
should have smiled sadly and passed
on thinking possibly How are the
mighty fallen." The monarch of the
deep's gigantic remains being made
the object of a six-penny show! But
20 And such an atrocity perpetrateo
/ should have expected to see not mere
Nv a splendid statue of Herman Mel
Vile, but an heroic group in marble OF
bronze of a whaleboat's crew attack
ing a sperm whale set up in the mar
ket place-this confess gave me such
a shock as / have not yet been able
70 recover from. In word, the bill
the building, and the environments
thereof seemed to me unutterablS
paItry and unworthy of so stupendous
a past.
Well. / have unpacked my heart o
words even II / have not fallen "a
cursing like a very drab," and zee
better Now 1 can go on to repor'
what l saw that was really full Of
the tragedy. the pathos of the past
There is a square, red brick BUILDING
labelled Custom House, which Is aIs'
the United States meteorological sta
ton, at the head Of one OF the deserted
wharves. In the town end OF thi'
building there is a room wherein ma!
be met in the cool of the evening
little company OF ancient men wh'
have been through all the seas OF al
the world engaged in that mighty
never-ending warfare between man an'
beast that is summed up IN the 1--WE
words sperm whaling" Several o
them have lived far beyond the allot
ted span of life, but all, with the ex
ception of an occasional slight dear
ness, look hale and vigorous to such
degree that one is compelled to believ'
their long, long voyages have general
ed such a store of vitality in them al
nothing but accident can dissipate. Blu
L..