'paper credit, last and best supply, That lends corruption lighter wings to fly,' have taken refuge here before leaving this wicked world forever. The _cordon sanitaire_ of the Atlantic has kept off the pestilence of inflation." One bright afternoon we took horse and "shay" for Siasconset, on the south side of the island. A drive of seven miles over a country as flat and as naked of trees as a Western prairie, the sandy soil covered with a low, thick growth of bayberry, whortleberry, a false cranberry called the meal-plum, and other plants bearing a strong family likeness, with here and there a bit of greensward,--a legacy, probably, of the flocks of sheep the natives foolishly turned off the island,--brought us to the spot. We passed occasional water-holes, that reminded us also of the West, and a few cattle. Two or three lonely farm-houses loomed up in the distance, like ships at sea. We halted our rattle-trap on a bluff covered with thick green turf. On the edge of this bluff, forty feet above the beach, is Siasconset, looking southward over the ocean,--no land between it and Porto Rico. It is only a fishing village; but if there were many like it, the conventional shepherd, with his ribbons, his crooks, and his pipes, would have to give way to the fisherman. Seventy-five cosey, one-story cottages, so small and snug that a well-grown man might touch the gables without rising on tip-toe, are drawn up in three rows parallel to the sea, with narrow lanes of turf between them,--all of a weather-beaten gray tinged with purple, with pale-blue blinds, vines over the porch, flowers in the windows, and about each one a little green yard enclosed by white palings. Inside are odd little rooms, fitted with lockers, like the cabin of a vessel. Cottages, yards, palings, lanes, all are in proportion and harmony. Nothing common or unclean was visible,--no heaps of fish-heads, served up on clam-shells, and garnished with bean-pods, potato-skins, and corn-husks; no pigs in sight, nor in the air,--not even a cow to imperil the neatness of the place. There was the brisk, vigorous smell of the sea-shore, flavored, perhaps, with a suspicion of oil, that seemed to be in keeping with the locality.