rigging, and with its keel yet stanch, except that the stern-post is
gone,--so that each tide sweeps in its green harvest of glossy kelp,
and then tosses it in the hold like hay, desolately tenanting the place
which once sheltered men. The floating weed, so graceful in its own
place, looks but dreary when thus confined. On that fearfully cold
Monday of last winter (January 8, 1866) when the mercury stood at -10
deg.; even in this mildest corner of New England,--this vessel was
caught helplessly amid the ice that drifted out of the west passage of
Narragansett Bay, before the fierce north-wind. They tried to beat into
the eastern entrance, but the schooner seemed in sinking condition, the
sails and helm were clogged with ice, and every rope, as an eye-witness
told me, was as large as a man's body with frozen sleet. Twice they
tacked across, making no progress; and then, to save their lives, ran
the vessel on the rocks and got ashore. After they had left her, a
higher wave swept her off, and drifted her into a little cove, where
she has ever since remained.

There were twelve wrecks along this shore last winter,--more than
during any season for a quarter of a century. I remember when the first
of these lay in great fragments on Graves Point, a schooner having been
stranded on Cormorant Rocks outside, and there broken in pieces by the
surf. She had been split lengthwise, and one great side was leaning up
against the sloping rock, bows on, like some wild sea-creature never
before beheld of men, and come there but to die. So strong was this
impression that when I afterwards saw men at work upon the wreck,
tearing out the iron bolts and chains, it seemed like torturing the
last moments of a living thing. At my next visit there was no person in
sight; another companion fragment had floated ashore, and the two lay
peacefully beside the sailors' graves (which give the name to the
point), as if they found comfort there. A little farther on there was a
brig ashore and deserted. A fog came in from the sea; and, as I sat by
the graves, some unseen passing vessel struck eight bells for noon. For
a moment I fancied that it came from the empty brig,--a ghostly call,
to summon phantom sailors.

That smouldering brand, which has alternately gleamed and darkened for
so many minutes, I brought from Price's Neck last winter, when the
Brenton's Reef Light-ship went ashore. Yonder the oddly shaped vessel
rides at anchor now, two miles from l