The oldest burial-ground in Marblehead is on the summit and slopes of the highest of its rocky eminences. Here, also, the settlers raised the frame of their primitive church; some part of which, I was told, has since been translated into a more secular edifice. At the head of a little pond, where a clump of dwarfish willows has become rooted, is a sheltered nook, in which are the oldest stones now to be seen. This was probably the choice spot of the whole field, but it now wears the same air of neglect common to all these old cemeteries. A stone of 1690 with the name of "Mr. Christopher Latimore, about 70 years," was the oldest I discovered. As I picked my way among the thick-set head-stones, for there was no path, and I always avoid treading on a grave, I came upon a grave-digger busily employed, with whom I held a few moments' parley. The man, already up to his waistband in the pit, seemed chiefly concerned lest he should not be able to go much farther before coming to the ledge, which, even in the hollow places, you are sure of finding at no great depth. On one side of the grave was a heap of yellow mould, smelling of the earth earthy, and on the other side a lesser one of human bones, that the spade had once more brought above ground. [Illustration: GLIMPSE OF THE SEAMEN'S MONUMENT AND OLD BURIAL-GROUND.] After observing that he should be lucky to get down six feet, the workman told me the grave was destined to receive the remains of an old lady of ninety-four, recently deceased, who, as if fearful her rest might be less quiet in the midst of a generation to which she did not belong, had begged she might be buried here among her old friends and neighbors. Although interments had long been interdicted in the overcrowded ground, her prayer was granted. An examination of the inscriptions confirmed what I had heard relative to the longevity of the inhabitants of Marblehead, of which the grave-digger also recounted more instances than I am able to remember. I asked him what was done with the bones I saw lying there, adding to the heap a fragment or two that had fallen unnoticed from his spade. "Why, you see, I bury them underneath the grave I am digging, before the folks get here. We often find such bones on the surface, where they have been left after filling up a grave," was his reply. This did not appear surprising, for those I saw were nearly the color of the earth itself. Seeing my look directed with a sort of fascination toward these relics of frail mortality, the man, evidently misconstruing my thought, took up an arm-bone with playful familiarity, and observed, "You should have seen the thigh-bone I found under the old Episcopal Church! I could have knocked a man down with it easy. These," he said, throwing the bone upon the heap, with a gesture of contempt, "are mere rotten things." Who would be put to bed with that man's shovel!