"_Launcelot._ Turn up on your right hand at the next turning, but at the next turning of all on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand, but turn down indirectly to the Jew's house."--_Merchant of Venice._ Marblehead is a backbone of granite, a vertebra of syenite and porphyry thrust out into Massachusetts Bay in the direction of Cape Ann, and hedged about with rocky islets. It is somewhat sheltered from the weight of north-east storms by the sweep of the cape, which launches itself right out to sea, and gallantly receives the first bufferings of the Atlantic. The promontory of Marblehead may once have been a prolongation of Cape Ann, the whole coast hereabouts looking as if the ocean had licked out the softer parts, leaving nothing that was digestible behind. This rock, on which a settlement was begun two hundred and forty odd years ago, performs its part by making Salem Harbor on one hand, and another for its own shipping on the east, where an appendage known as Marblehead Neck[150] is joined to it by a ligature of sand and shingle. The port is open to the north-east, and vessels are sometimes blown from their anchorage upon the sand-banks at the head of the harbor, though the water is generally deep and the shores bold. At the entrance a light-house is built on the extreme point of the Neck; and on a tongue of land of the opposite shore is Fort Sewall--a beckoning finger and a clenched fist. [Illustration: GREAT HEAD.] The harbor, as the "Gazetteer" would say, has a general direction from north-east to south-west. It is a mile and a half long by half a mile wide, with generally good holding ground, though in places the bottom is rocky. La Touche Treville lost the _Hermione's_ anchor here in 1780, when he brought over M. De Lafayette, sent by the king to announce the speedy arrival of Rochambeau's army.[151] Probably the good news was first proclaimed in the narrow streets of Marblehead, though it has hitherto escaped a spirited lyric from some disciple of Mr. Browning. The geologist will find Marblehead and the adjacent islands an interesting ground, with some tolerably hard nuts for his hammer. The westerly shore of the harbor is indented with little coves niched in the rock, and having each a number, though the Marbleheaders have other names for them. One or two wharves are fitted in these coves, but I did not see a vessel unlading or a bale of merchandise there. The flow of the tide as it sucked around the wooden piles was the only evidence of life about them. [Illustration: "THE CHURN."]