If the streets were better than I had thought, the houses were far better. The great number of them were of wood, looking as most New England houses look--ready for the torch. They usually had underpinnings of brick, instead of being, as formerly, built on posts, in order that the sand might blow underneath them. There were willows, poplars, locusts, and balm of Gilead, standing about in odd corners, and of good size. I saw a few sickly fruit-trees that appeared dying for lack of moisture; and some enterprising citizens were able to make a show of lilacs, syringas, pinks, and geraniums in their front yards. I talked with them, and saw that the unremitting struggle for life that attended the growth of these few simple flowers seemed to increase their love for them, and enlarge their feeling for what was beautiful. All the earth they have is imported. I called to mind those Spanish vineyards, where the peasant carries a hamper of soil up the sunny slopes of the mountain-sides, and in some crevice of the rocks plants his vine. There are two principal streets in Provincetown. One of them, I should imagine, more than a mile in length, runs along the harbor; the other follows an elevated ridge of the sand-hills, and is parallel with the first. A plank-walk is laid on one side of the avenue by the shore, the other side being occupied by stores, fish-houses, and wharves. No sinister meaning is attached to walking the plank in Provincetown; for what is the whole Cape if not a gang-plank pushed out over the side of the continent? Where the street on the ridge is carried across gaps among the hills, the retaining walls were of bog-peat, which was also laid on the sides of those hills exposed to the force of the wind. Whortleberry, bayberry, and wild rose were growing out of the interstices. They flourish as well as when the Pilgrims were here, though all the primitive forest disappeared long ago. I ascended the hill on which the town-hall building stands. You must go up the town road, or break the law, as I saw, by the straggling foot-paths, the youngsters were in the habit of doing. Read sand for scoriæ, and the fate of Herculaneum seems impending over Provincetown. The safeguards taken to prevent the hills blowing down upon it impresses the stranger with a sense of insecurity, though the inhabitants do not seem much to mind it. I have heard that in exposed situations on the Cape window-glass becomes opaque by reason of the frequent sand-blasts rattling against the panes. On the hill was formerly a windmill, having the flyers inside, so resembling, say the town annalists, a lofty tower. It was a famous landmark for vessels making the port. The chart-makers have now replaced it with the town hall, and every mariner steering for Provincetown has an eye to it.