Boardwalk

“ In the suburbs pretty drives and shady walks are to be found. The trees are interlaced with climbing plants of great variety, and the undergrowth of mosses and exquisite ferns of singular grace and beauty. A person who is sure-footed enough to walk on a single wooden rail of, say three inches wide (belonging to one of the saw-mills) , could penetrate to places in the forest full of charming interest that would well repay a walk. A walk along the sea beach is also enjoyable, and sometimes creatures of rare forms are thrown up at high water out of reach of the returning tide. ”

“ Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride seems like [pg 11] eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf, the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and flat by the keen east wind—their stems twisted like a dishclout or like the olives around Florence. ”

“ A good livery-stable is kept here, well filled with fine, fast horses, trained to trot, or wade in the surf, allowing visitors to admire the wonderful vastness of the most beautiful expanse of waters which wash the Atlantic shores. At ebb-tide the imagination cannot conceive of a finer place, the beach being so firm that a pair of horses and carriage scarcely make an indentation on the surface in passing over it. The pavement is God’s own workmanship, being composed of white sand, occasionally interspersed with shells, many of them the tiniest in existence. ”

“ Running strings of incandescent bulbs draped up into festoons every so often by equidistant arc-lights follow the course of the well-oiled driveway, which in turn follows the course of the river as truly as a path made by a canal horse. A ledge of park, narrow as a terrace, slants to the water's edge, and of summer nights lovers drag their benches into the shadow of trees and turn their backs to the lampposts and to the world. ”

“ Between the curving line of hotels and the lake is a broad avenue with lamps and a double rank of low shade trees. The lake front is walled with masonry like a pier, and has a railing, to keep people from walking overboard. All day long the vehicles dash along the avenue, and nurses, children and tourists sit in the shade of the trees, or lean on the railing and watch the schools of fishes darting about in the clear water or gaze out over the lake at the stately border of snow-hooded mountain peaks. Little pleasure-steamers, black with people, are coming and going all the time ”

“ You see deep, dark places amongst the lights; there are the park lands. Then raise your eyes and look farther west; there is the sea. It shines as a silver mirror. The soft winds from the west are blowing, and the wavelets, dancing in the light of the moon, play with her shining rays as they leap on to break gently on the sandy beach. ”

“ So steep are the streets descending to the harbor,—by flights of old mossy stone steps,—that looking down them to the azure water you have the sensation of gazing from a cliff. From certain openings in the main street—the Rue Victor Hugo—you can get something like a bird's-eye view of the harbor with its shipping. The roofs of the street below are under your feet, and other streets are rising behind you to meet the mountain roads. They climb at a very steep angle, occasionally breaking into stairs of lava rock, all grass-tufted and moss-lined. ”

“ Bridges are such companionable things; they fall so readily into one's mood, and there are, I imagine, few persons who do not possess pleasant memories of one or another. Whether in town or country, there is always fascination in staying one's journey for a few minutes to lean over the parapet and watch the stream—the basking of a trout amongst the pebbles, the sway of the water-weeds, the trailing of heavy barges, or the twinkling shore-lights. ”

“ There is parking along the shore of the bay, then a broad drive, with two sidewalks, a track for bicycles and a soft path for equestrians, all overhung with far-stretching boughs of immense and ancient trees, which furnish a grateful shade against the sun and add to the beauty of the landscape. ”

“ The pedestrian seeks wide horizons, but he seeks more than that. The only classical walk which the writer now recalls, taken in a level region, was Thoreau’s tour along the beaches of Cape Cod; but there was the sea—itself an unending delight and stimulus to imagination—and the sand dunes, with all the beauties of mountain form in miniature.
There are, of course, the great recreation grounds of the world: the Swiss Alps, the Tyrol, and in our own country the Glacier National Park, the Yellowstone, and the Yosemite. Such [72] a place is the pedestrian’s paradise. ”

“ For six miles along one of the finest bathing beaches on the Atlantic seaboard extends the world-famed board walk, sixty feet wide, topped with planking and built upon a steel and concrete foundation, where promenade health and recreation seekers from all parts of America and foreign climes. There are four great piers varying in length from one thousand to three thousand feet, with auditoriums and all kinds of amusements which are as varied as the visitors are versatile. The shops of the board walk are one of its most attractive features. ”

“ But what again greatly compensates for the mediocrity of this park, is the astonishing number of people who, towards evening in fine weather, resort here; our finest walks are never so full even in the midst of summer. The exquisite pleasure of mixing freely with such a concourse of people, who are for the most part well-dressed and handsome, I have experienced this evening for the first time.
Before I went to the park I took another walk with my little Jacky, which did not cost me much fatigue and yet was most uncommonly interesting. ”

“ A natural road of beautiful sand was formed by a beach, which, extending all the way around the lake, separated its waters from the precipitous rock on the one hand, and on the other from the steep and broken hill; and being no where less than five or six yards in breadth, and in most places greatly more, offered around its whole circuit a tempting opportunity to the rider, who desired to exercise and breathe the horse on which he was mounted. ”

“ The Multiple Speed Sidewalk is also called the Travelling Sidewalk, or the Locomotive Sidewalk. It is a mechanical device for facilitating travel on the long pier—nearly one half a mile long and two hundred and fifty feet wide—near the Peristyle, thus enabling the tourist to make the trip over the pier in ease and comfort, refreshed by the lake breeze. ”

“ And to those who visit us but at intervals we can open not only yonder park, set like an emerald in the great circular sweep of our boundaries from the waters of the Narrows to the waters of the Sound, but also their readiest approach to the ocean. ”

“ Few places are better loafing-ground than a pier, with its tranquil 'lucid interval' between steamers, the ever recurrent throb of paddle-wheel, the rush and foam of beaten water among the piles, splash of ropes and rumble of gangways, and all the attendant hurry and scurry of the human morrice. ”

“ At low tide, the Crescent could be easily reached by any pedestrian. One in passing from The Harbor to Boardman Blake’s, could [104] leave the road, and at low tide cross over to the Crescent, pass along its ledges and sand, and leaving it, at its easterly extremity, regain the land without wetting the feet. This course would carry one not far from the lane that straggled from the life saving station up to Boardman Blake’s; and although a much longer route than by the road, it had its attractions for those who liked to see the surf tumble on the rocks. ”

“ There were lovely moonlight nights when we would stand by the sea-wall on the ocean boulevard and watch the transports that so often filled the harbor, resting on the glistening waves. But there were other [248] nights when, clad in storm raiment, we enjoyed equally as well seeing the great waves dash over the wall and across the boulevard in turbulent anger. ”

“ The promenade is a broad gravel walk, in the centre of a railed square, and is bounded by little garden plots, fountains, and huge overhanging tropical trees. Those who have not brought with them any domestic furniture, occupy, when weary with walking, the stone benches at the outskirts of the square and in the line of march. The promenaders form a kind of animated oval as they parade the boundaries of the gravel walk, and they consist chiefly of ladies attired in pretty muslin dresses, but divested of all head covering save that which nature lavishly supplies. ”

“ The beach ride is wearisome, with the perpetual roll of the broad-tire wheels over the unelastic wet sand, and the constant view of a restless waste of water on one hand, with dry, drifting sand between us and the mountains on the other, varied only with patches of marsh and groups of scraggy pines at intervals. ”

“ Lowering the hill the scenery is yet more agreeable. The near inclosures are margined with trees, through whose open branches are seen whole fields of the most lively verdure. The trees gather into groups, and the lawn swells into gentle inequalities, while the river winding beneath renders the whole truly pleasing.
Breakfasted at the inn at Tinnyhinch, and then drove to the park to see the waterfall. The park itself is fine; you enter it between two vast masses of mountain, covered with wood, forming a vale scattered with trees, through which flows a river on a broken rocky channel. ”

“ Our road never carried us far from the lake, and with the beating of the waves, the sparkling sunshiny water, boats, the opposite hills, and, on the side on which we travelled, the chance cottages, the coppice woods, and common business of the fields, the ride could not but be amusing. But what most excited our attention was, at one particular place, a cluster of fishing-boats at anchor in a still corner of the lake, a small bay or harbour by the wayside. ”

“ On the bridge is the mate, pacing backward and forward, and watching the course he has given to the man at the wheel, who is close to him. The paddles are impetuously beating into the sea, and now and then breaking into thunder, as one or the other of the wheels runs wild, as the rolling lifts it clear of the water. ”

“ There is no lack of material [Pg 67] for solid paths in the neighbourhood; but judging from appearances the ravine gets none of it. The path follows the course of the brook, and brings you out upon a beach where fishing-boats, and nets, and lobster-pots, and heaps of ballast, and a smoky fire, and fishy refuse and a smell of tar, and sturdy men and women, make up divers pictures for the eye, and odours for the nostrils. ”

“ The principal street stretches more than a mile in a circular form around the bay, and is built upon only one side, the houses all overlooking the water, which washes a broad beach of fine white sand. Double rows of trees are planted on the street next the beach, and thickly planted trees and shrubbery form a deep shade around each dwelling. ”

“ The pleasure and accommodation of the visitors have been carefully studied. Spacious streets, fifteen yards in breadth and nearly a mile in length, insure a free circulation of air, and throw open an agreeable promenade to the public, who resort thither in great numbers during the summer and autumn. The partiality evinced for this watering place, (of which the inhabitants can so readily take advantage,) is every day adding to the number of its visitors, and thereby contributing to the further extension of the original plan. ”

“ There is also a trickle of drays and wagons across the park—a mere leakage from the streets, as though the near-by traffic in the pressure had burst its pipes. But only at morning and night when the city collects or discharges its people, are the sidewalks filled. Then for a half hour the nozzle of the city plays a full stream on us.
The park seems to be freer and more natural than the streets outside. A man goes by gesticulating as though he practiced for a speech. A woman adjusts her stocking on the coping below the fence with the freedom of a country road. ”

“ These continue for a mile or more, and at the lower end terminate at lofty chalk-cliffs of a stupendous height,—producing a grand and unusual appearance, being very precipitous and of a chalky whiteness. In front of the buildings named is a grand watering-place promenade-avenue, in front of which, the entire length, is a pebbly beach, and this is washed by the waters of the bay. Thousands of people, old and young, were here, and much of gay life and fashion displayed. Never will be lost sight of the grand entertainment we thus had, and which was so unexpected to us. ”

“ The best way, and the only right way is to begin on the top of the ridge of them surf hills and walk lengthwise of the Beach, just as near a bee-line as possible; and when you’ve gone over one length of the ground, then turn and walk back within two feet of the first line, and so on till you’ve gone over the hull ground to the edge of the woods. ”

“ In the summer months the sea-fowl are very numerous, thousands will be seen hovering round the huge rocks and caverns of which the coast is composed, and contribute much to impress the minds of visitors with a due sense of the grandeur and sublimity of the scene. After a few turnings, and expressions of surprise, in reference to the romantic scenery, the numerous birds wheeling in every direction, and their plaintive cry—the bridge will be attained. ”