The scene on the beach is in marked contrast to what might have been witnessed a generation ago. Then one would have found here and there a family group just driven down in the old-fashioned carryall, and enjoying a feast of clam-chowder cooked over a fire of drift-wood. Now the beach is thronged by crowds of many thousands; immense hotels vie with those of the metropolis in grandeur; there are avenues and parks, flying horses, tennis-grounds, shops for the sale of everything that the city affords, and some that it does not, dog-carts and goat-wagons, fruit and peanut-stands, bowling-alleys, shooting-targets, and, in fact, as many devices to empty the pocket-book as are usually found at a cattle-show and a church-fair together. An excursion party has just arrived, but this occurs, sometimes, several times in a day,--for Nantasket is a Mecca to the excursionist. Societies and lodges come here; clubs resort hither for a social dinner; mercantile firms send their employes on an annual sail to this place, and philanthropists provide for hundreds of poor children a day's outing on this beach. Thus, there is no exclusiveness about Nantasket; but, at the same time, the tone of the place is excellent, and there seems to be no tendency toward its falling into disrepute, as has been the case with other very popular watering-places. It is, in fact, admitted by a New York newspaper that "Bostonians are justly proud of Nantasket Beach, where one can get cultured clams, intellectual chowder, refined lager, and very scientific pork and beans. It is far superior to our monotonous sand-beach in its picturesqueness of natural beauty, in the American character of the visitors, and in the reasonableness of hotel charges, as well as the excellence of the service." The oldest of the large hotels now in existence at the beach is the Rockland House, which was opened in 1854 by Colonel Nehemiah Ripley, who was proprietor for many years. At first, it had forty rooms; it now has about two hundred, and is beautifully furnished. It stands at the head of a broad, rising lawn, and from its balconies and windows the view of the sea is magnificent. It is now in the hands of Russell & Sturgis, who are also proprietors of the Hotel Nantasket,--the most effective in its architecture of any of the great houses here. Its towers and pinnacles are numbered by the score, and it has the broadest of piazzas. In front of the hotel, toward the water, is the band-stand from which Reeve's celebrated band gives two concerts daily during the season, their entrancing music mingling with the monotone of the surf, to the delight of large audiences which assemble on the piazzas. The Rockland Cafe, also under the same management, is joined to the hotel by a long arcade, and enjoys an excellent reputation for its chowders and fish dinners.