We had a sun-dog at evening and a rainbow in the morning, full-arched, and rising out of the sea, a sure forerunner, say veteran observers, of foul weather. Says the quatrain of the forecastle: "Rainbow in the morning, Sailors take warning; Rainbow at night, Is the sailor's delight." [Illustration: LEDGE OF ROCKS, SMUTTY NOSE.] I spent a quiet, breezy afternoon in exploring Appledore. The landing from the harbor side has to be made in some cleft of the rock, and is not practicable when there is a sea running. Passing by the cottage at the shore, I first went up the rocky declivity to the site of the abandoned settlement of so long ago. It may still be recognized by the cellars, rough stone walls, and fragments of bricks lying scattered about. Thistles, raspberry-bushes, and dwarf cherry-trees in fragrant bloom, were growing in the depressions which marked these broken hearth-stones of a forgotten people. The poisonous ivy, sometimes called mercury, so often found clinging to old walls, was here. Some country-folk pretend its potency is such that they who look on it are inoculated with the poison; a scratch, as I know to my cost, will suffice. Here was a strip of green grass running along the harbor side, and, for the first time, the semblance of a road; I followed it until it lost itself among the rocks. A horse and a yoke of oxen were browsing by the way, and on a distant shelf of rock I saw a cow, much exaggerated in size, contentedly ruminative. Clumps of huckleberry and fragrant bayberry were frequent, with blackberry and other vines clustering above the surface rocks. [Illustration: SOUTH-EAST END OF APPLEDORE, LOOKING SOUTH.] I am inclined to doubt whether, after all, the habitation of Appledore[120] was abandoned on account of the Indians, for Star Island, as has been remarked, could give no better security. Probably the landing had much to do with it. Without some moving cause the inhabitants would hardly have left Appledore and its verdure for the bald crags of Star Island. The choice of Appledore by the first settlers was probably due to its spring of pure water, the only one on the islands.