Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/252

248 Nahanta, an Indian princess, or the consort of a chieftain. It was purchased with that sense of equity, which often marked similar transactions with the natives, first, in 1630, for a suit of clothes, then for two old coats, and lastly, for "two pestle stones."

It is said to have been originally devoted to pasturage and to forest-ground uses, which its present aspect contradicts to a remarkable degree. "It is well wooded with oaks, pines and cedars," wrote a historian of 1638, "also it hath good store of walnuts, ashes and elms." He who now traverses it, would be fain to wonder where they could have taken root, or how resisted the deleterious influence of the ocean-spray. Yet it seems that it was of old the scene of wolf-hunting on a grand scale, as there is a record that, in 1634, the militia of Lynn and Salem were drafted for this belligerent expedition; and as such animals are not prone to choose the sterile, open rock for their habitation, the manes of those same hunted wolves corroborate the words of the historian.

Yet, however vague may be the earlier legends of Nahant, there is no doubt of its being now the favorite resort of the beauty and fashion of the vicinity, as well as from distant parts. Its pure air is invigorating, even to exhilaration, and there is deep delight in watching the rolling of its magnificent surf, wandering amid the romantic and sublime formation of its rocky coast, now scooped into caverns, and long, subterranean channels for the resounding wave, or towering into lofty columns, that mock the fury of the tempest.