I carried a pair of field glasses with me, along with the somewhat thoughtlessly assembled equipment I wore on my back and which seemed increasingly heavy as time went on. When not too conscious of my burden I would use the glasses to bring an inland or offshore bird closer to me. I noticed five eider ducks across the troughs of the waves, a remnant of the thousands that winter off the Cape along with such other sea birds as brant, Canada geese, scoters, mergansers, old squaws, and various members of the auk family. I passed a dead gannet lying on the sand. It had been badly oiled, reminding me of the hazards of jettisoned tanker or freighter oil to all these water birds which land on the sea to rest or feed. There were a number of kingbirds on the dune rims, and they kept dropping down over the beach in their special way, to hover with fast wingbeat and flutter after flying insects. I heard the grating call of redwings, indicating marshy areas inland of the beach, but the cliffs above began to increase until they were 100 to 150 feet high or more, and the sun was so fierce that I had little interest in trying to scale them to see what was on the other side. I plodded on, noticing very little after a while, my attention blunted, reduced to seeing that one foot got in front of the other. The more level upper parts of the beach provided fairly good walking, but the sand was soft, and to relieve my aching muscles I would then angle down to the water’s edge where it was firmer, and there I was obliged to walk with one leg below the other because of the inclination of the beach. So I would return to the upper beach again and push ahead. I walked on, very hot and slow, seeing no one for miles until I came up to a group of bathers below a road and parking lot giving access to the beach, of the kind that are scattered along its reaches; and there I refilled my canteen at a cottage and went on. I found that if I rested too long during this hike I had little desire to go on again, so I confined myself to an army “break” of ten minutes every hour. Renewed walking unlimbered me a little and the wind off the water cooled my sweating skin. I listened to the sound of the waves. In addition to their rhythmic plunge and splash, their breathing, they clashed occasionally with a sound like the breaking of heavy glass, the falling of timber, or a load of bricks.