Cape

“ Are they spirits abroad by day?
Or the foes of my clan that are come, bringing death by a perilous way?”
183
The valley was gouged like a vessel, and round like the vessel’s lip,
With a cape of the side of the hill thrust forth like the bows of a ship.
On the top of the face of the cape a volley of sun struck fair,
And the cape overhung like a chin a gulf of sunless air.
“Silence, heart! What is that?—that, which flickered and shone,
Into the sun for an instant, and in an instant gone? ”

“ For an instant its vast summit hovered overhead, and then, with a roar like ten thousand cataracts, it poured over us. The ship was swept before it like a feather on a gale. With the waters dashing and hissing over the decks, and whirling in wild eddies under our lee, we drove in the direction of the cape. I held my breath in awe. A strong man might almost have leaped on the extreme point of the promontory. I closed my eyes shuddering. The next instant a hurrah met my ear. I looked up. We had shot by the cape, and miles of dark water were before us. ”

“ The great cape thrusts its knees far out into the Mediterranean, and close down by the sea on the very point a lighthouse stands out from the green mass like a white pencil. South-westwards the land runs sharply back in heights of tangled undergrowths and trees, overhangs a wide bay and drops at the end of the bay to the mouth of a spacious, empty harbour. Eastwards the cape slopes inland at a gentler angle with an undercliff, a narrow plateau, and behind the plateau mountain walls. ”

“ On afternoons of a clear land wind the cape is lit up by the sun in every crevice of its sheer white cliffs and stands out like an island in mid-ocean—with a strong resemblance to the southern cliffs of England. ”

“ Thanks to this cape, you can go amidst the boundless waters, walk among the winds, see closely the eagles soar and the monsters swim, let your humanity wander mid the eternal hum, penetrate the impenetrable. ”

“ The columns of Cape Colonna, [35] or the cape itself? The rocks at the foot of it, or the recollection that Falconer's ship [36] was bulged upon them? There are a thousand rocks and capes far more picturesque than those of the Acropolis and Cape Sunium in themselves; what are they to a thousand scenes in the wilder parts of Greece, of Asia Minor, Switzerland, or even of Cintra in Portugal, or to many scenes of Italy, and the Sierras of Spain?
But it is the "art," the columns, the temples, the wrecked vessels, which give them their antique and their modern poetry and not the spots themselves. ”

“ The oceans which this Cape for ever lave
While time shall last is that great sailor’s grave;
And Nature’s self proclaims his honours here,
By such a monument o’er such a bier.{104}
Along the coast they sail. With pleasured eyes
They view new shores—new hills, new plains, arise,
The Cape St. Blaise and Longkloof Mountains past,
The hoped-for, longed-for haven comes at last;
Then, ’midst the glories of an April day,
They cast their anchor in Algoa Bay,
Whose outstretched arms receive in their embrace
Those dauntless settlers of a Northern race. ”

“ I caught the guide at last. After a very rough journey we reached the village of Finisterra, and wound our way up the flinty sides of the huge bluff head which is called the Cape. Certainly in the whole world there is no bolder coast than the Gallegan shore. There is an air of stern and savage grandeur in everything around, which strangely captivates the imagination. After gazing from the summit of the Cape for nearly an hour we descended to the village. On reaching the house where we had taken up our habitation, I flung myself on a rude and dirty bed, and was soon asleep. ”

“ Of the old-timey features of the Cape, no one is more impressive than the witch-like windmill with its peaked cap, outspread arms and slanting broomstick, reminding us that the Pilgrims came from Holland. ”

“ Yet, after every precaution, we are at the mercy of the elements, and in an instant the sudden doubling of a cape may expose us, under a serene sky, to a blast which, taking us with all sails spread, may overset us and wreck us irretrievably. ”

“ Vatternish (water cape) , in Skye; Borrowstounness or Bo’ness, in West Lothian (the cape near Burward’s dwelling) ; Holderness (the woody promontory) ; Langness and Littleness, in Man; Dungeness (danger cape) ; Furness (the cape of the beacon-fire) , the site of an ancient lighthouse in Lancashire; Saturnness (the southern cape) , in Kirkcudbright; Shoeburyness, corrupt. from Sceobirig (the cape of the sea-fortress) ; Skegness (the cape [146] near the wood, skogr) ; Skipness (ship headland) ; Sviatanos, Sclav. (holy cape) , in Russia; Caithness (the promontory of the Catti, a tribe) . ”

“ The cape is distant from the place where the Christians were murdered 150 leagues towards the east, and this cape is 8° from the equinoctial line to the south. In navigating we saw one day a great multitude of people on the beach, gazing at the wonderful sight of our ships. As we sailed we turned the ship towards them, anchored in a good place, and went on shore with the boats. We [39] found the people to be better conditioned than those we had met with before, and, responding to our overtures, they soon made friends, and treated with us. ”

“ The ship is then ready for the worst; and if, in reeling round the headland, she receives a broadside, it generally goes well with her. If ill, all hands go to the bottom with quiet consciences.
Among sea-captains, there are some who seem to regard the genius of the Cape as a wilful, capricious jade, that must be courted and coaxed into complaisance. ”

“ Friday 2.Smoky Cape was in sight next morning; but the wind coming round to south, and blowing fresh with thick weather, we tacked towards the shore; and at noon landed behind a small ledge of rocks, about three leagues short of the Cape. The distance run these twenty-four hours was eighty five miles, and the southwardly current had moreover given its assistance.
This ledge of rocks lies on the north side of a point upon which there are some hummocks; and on ascending the highest, I saw a lagoon into which the tide flowed by a narrow passage on the inner side of the point. ”

“ The other side of the cape ends abruptly in black bastions and baby cliffs some thirty feet high. The apex of the triangle which forms as it were the cape proper is a similar kenyte bluff. The whole makes a tricky place on which to walk in the dark, for the surface is strewn with boulders of all sizes and furrowed and channelled by drifts of hard and icy snow, and quite suddenly you may find yourself prostrate upon a surface of slippery blue ice. ”

“ The land trends from this cape north-west by west into the bay, and on the other side south-west per compass, which is south-west 9 degrees west, allowing the variation which is here 9 degrees east. The land on each side of the cape is more savannah than woodland, and is highest on the north-west side. The cape itself is a bluff point of an indifferent height with a flat tableland at top. ”

“ Indeed, the experience I had had of the Cape began to make me fear that I had founded my determination on chimeras.
287We were now sailing smoothly towards the equator, on this tropical sea, on which we had to go upwards of three thousand leagues. Our little vessel composed our universe. What a vast field of meditation! to find one’s self alone, for about a hundred days, on the vast ocean without any other shelter than the immense expanse of the heavens, on a floating atom, and separated only by a frail plank from the voracity of sea monsters, and an unfathomable abyss! ”

“ At a distance it makes like a mountain rising out of the sea, but, on approaching nearer to it, a narrow neck of land appears.
"We found from twenty to thirty fathoms water, at the distance of a mile from the cape; and saw several outlying breakers about half a mile off shore. From the steep and rocky nature of these coasts one would not expect to find soundings until close to the land: but on every outer part of this coast, that we have visited, the bottom may be reached with the sounding line. Some natives were seen under the cape, who made a large fire. ”

“ The cape at the south is Cape Henry, in honor of our most noble prince. The land white hilly sands, like unto the Downes, and all along the shores great plentie of pines and firres.
“The north cape is called Cape Charles, in honor of the worthy Duke of Yorke; the isles before it, Smith’s Isles, by the name of the discoverer. Within is a country that may have the prerogative over the most pleasant places knowne, for large and pleasant navigable rivers; heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation. ”

“ This sand-bank—the backbone of the Cape—rose directly from the beach to the height of a hundred feet or more above the ocean. It was with singular emotions that we first stood upon it and discovered what a place we had chosen to walk on. On our right, beneath us, was the beach of smooth and gently-sloping sand, a dozen rods in width; next, the endless series of white breakers; further still, the light green water over the bar, which runs the whole length of the forearm of the Cape, and beyond this stretched the unwearied and illimitable ocean. ”

“ Our third drawing shows two pretty hats and two of the most fashionable capes, which still contrive to hold their own in the dress of the present season. The figure on the left wears a short cape of heliotrope silk, tucked and trimmed with frills of white chiffon, and it has one of those stoat fronts, which are quite new this year. The cape to the right is of grey satin, with pointed fronts, and a large collar of white satin, with front revers of the same. The whole is edged with a ruche of black chiffon. The hat is of the new Cavalier shape, with feathers and a buckle. ”

“ I say that the Cape of St. John, called Cape Breton, and the Cape of the Franciscan, are northeast and southwest, and range a point from an east and west course, and there are one hundred and forty leagues on the course, and which makes one cape, called the Cape of Norombègue. The said cape is in forty-one degrees of the height of the arctic pole. The said coast [i. e. of Connecticut] is all sandy, ... [455] flat, [355] without any mountain. And along this coast there are many isles of sand and the coast very dangerous on account of banks and rocks. ”

“ In coming from Cape Farewell to Cape Stephens, I had a better view of the coast than I had when I passed in my former voyage, and observed that about six leagues to the east of the first-mentioned cape, is a spacious bay, which is covered from the sea by a low point of land. ”

“ This cape, as I have observed before, is the northernmost extremity of this country, and the easternmost point of a peninsula, which runs out N. W. and N. W. by N. seventeen or eighteen leagues, and of which Cape Maria Van Diemen is the westernmost point. Cape Maria lies in latitude 34° 30ʹ S., longitude 187° 18ʹ W.; and from this point the land trends away S. E. by S. and S. E. beyond Mount Camel, and is every where a barren shore, consisting of banks of white sand. ”

“ It being hollowed out as much as they wish, they scrape it all over with stones, which they use instead of knives. These stones resemble our musket flints.
On the next day, the 17th of the month, we weighed anchor to go to a cape we had seen the day before, which seemed to lie on our south-south-west. This day we were able to make only five leagues, and we passed by some islands covered with wood. I observed in the bay all that the savages had described to me at Island Cape. As we continued our course, large numbers came to us in canoes from the islands and main land. ”

“ I have been accustomed to make excursions to the ponds within ten miles of Concord, but latterly I have extended my excursions to the seashore.
I did not see why I might not make a book on Cape Cod, as well as my neighbor on “Human Culture.” It is but another name for the same thing, and hardly a sandier phase of it. As for my title, I suppose that the word Cape is from the French cap; which is from the Latin caput, a head; which is, perhaps, from the verb capere, to take,—that being the part by which we take hold of a thing:—Take Time by the forelock. ”

“ In the South, after Skibbereen, Skull, its neighbour, seems to have suffered most. To cross from Cape Clear to Skull—partly rowing, partly sailing—in a stiff breeze is very exciting, and might well cause apprehension, but for the crew of athletic Cape men, or Capers, as the people of the mainland call them, in whose hands you have placed your safety. With them you are perfectly secure. Those hardy, simple-minded people are as used to the sea as a herdsman is to green fields. ”

“ As we round the base of the cape, we find ourselves in a pretty little harbor called Baker's Bay, with an island or two in it, and surrounded by heights of sloping ground covered with a dense growth of spruce, fir, and hemlock, with many varieties of lesser trees and shrubs. Along the strip of low land, crescent-shaped and edged with a sandy beach, are the officers' quarters and soldiers' barracks; for the cape has been fortified, and has three powerful batteries on the channel side. Nearest of all is the residence of the light-house keeper—a modest mansion under the shelter of the cape. ”

“ The aspect of the Cape, as you approach it from the sea, is very favorable. You discern cultivated hills, the white mansions of the wealthy, and thatched cottages, neat and apparently comfortable, abodes of the poorer class. ”