THE MODERN ATHENS.

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XXVI.

THE MODERN ATHENS.

THE railway approaching the great New England metropolis from the south, skirts the harbor and crosses the narrow Fort Point channel separating South Boston from the city proper, and enters the terminal station just beyond. To the northward the city rises gradually, ridge above ridge, until the centre culminates in the famous Beacon Hill, surmounted by the brightly-gilded dome and lantern top of the Massachusetts State-House. From all sides the land, with its varied surfaces of hill and valley, slopes toward the water-courses running into the deep indentation of Massachusetts Bay, and thus adding to the facilities of Boston harbor. The rounded peninsula forming the original Boston was the Indian "Shawmut," or the "sweet waters,” a name preserved in many ways in the modern city. It is said that hunting for good water by the first colony led to this settlement at Shawmut, the colonists who had come from Salem crossing over from Charlestown in 1630, and finding William Blackstone, of whom I have already written, as the sole white inhabitant of the place, he having lived there in solitude for about five years. The old gentleman was not partial to having near neighbors, so they finally bought him out and got the whole town-site for about one hundred and fifty dollars, which was the value of all Boston in 1634, when Blackstone, disgusted with the Puritan "Lords Brethren," avoided them by going farther into the wilderness. The two leading men of the colony came from Boston in England, and hence the adoption of the name, but the younger city has far outstripped the elder, as more than half a million people are now living around Boston harbor in the various towns and suburbs that make up the "Hub of the Universe." When this first colony was established in 1630 one of the depressed

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settlers described Shawmut as a hideous wilderness, possessed by barbarous Indians, very cold, sickly, rocky, barren, unfit for culture, and like to keep the people miserable." Yet the settlement, though so inauspiciously begun, persisted in growing, and, as an early historian says, " Philadelphia was a forest and New York was an insignificant village long after its rival, Boston, had become a great commercial town." In 1663 a visitor from England described the place, and wrote that "the buildings are handsome, joining one to the other as in London, with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble-stones. In the high street toward the Common there are faire houses, some of stone." The young colony encouraged commerce and became possessed of many ships, the earliest built at Boston being the bark Blessing of the Bay, of thirty tons, which soon got into lucrative trade. This noted vessel, which was considered a wonder in her time, belonged to Governor John Winthrop, for many years the ruler of Boston. He is described as an amiable gentleman, who believed in moderate aristocratic principles. In one of his messages, which always contained solid chunks of wisdom, was the announcement that "the best part of a community is always the least, and of that part the wiser are still less." His descendant in the sixth generation, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, still lives in Boston at a venerable age, one of the leading citizens. He was formerly Speaker of the House at Washington.

BOSTON HARBOR.

The harbor of Boston covers a surface of about seventyfive square miles, having various arms, such as South Boston Bay, Dorchester Bay, and the estuaries of the Charles, Mystic, and Neponset Rivers. There is much natural beauty in the harbor, heightened by the adornments of buildings and other improvements, its surface gradually narrowing toward the city and dotted with craggy, undulating islands

having long stretches of bordering beaches, interspersed with jutting cliffs, broad promontories, and both low and lofty shores. The coasts are lined with villages that gradually merge into the suburbs of the great city. In this extensive harbor there are at least fifty large and small islands, and most of these, which were bare in Winthrop's day, are now crowned by lighthouses, forts, almshouses, hospitals, and other institutions, several of them being most striking buildings that give a pleasing variety to the scene. The splendid guiding beacon for the harbor-entrance, Boston Light, stands upon Lighthouse Island at about one hundred feet elevation, with a revolving light visible sixteen miles. George's Island, near the entrance and commanding the approach from the open sea, has upon it the chief defensive work of Boston, Fort Warren, about two miles west of Boston Light. Farther in is Castle Island, with Fort Independence, the successor of the earliest Boston fort, the "Castle," built in 1634. Opposite and about one mile northward is Governor's Island, containing the incomplete works of Fort Winthrop. This island was originally the "Governor's Garden" of old John Winthrop, and he paid a yearly rent of two bushels of apples for it. The part of the island not held by the Government is said to still continue in possession of his family. These forts are nearly all constructed of Quincy granite, but none of them have yet seen practical warfare beyond the imprisonment of Confederates in Fort Warren. Upon Long Island, which covers considerable area and is a high, craggy place, there is another lighthouse. To the eastward is a low, rocky islet bearing as a warning to the mariner a curious stone monument which is known as "Nix's Mate." Here, it is said, the colonists used to hang the pirates caught off the New England coasts. There are also Deer and Rainsford Islands, occupied by the city hospitals and reformatory institutions. Upon Thompson's Island, which is fantastically shaped like an unfledged chicken, is an asylum and farm-school for in

digent boys. Spectacle, Half Moon, and Apple Islands have got their names from their shapes. The narrow ship-channel leading up through the harbor passes between, and can, if necessary, be readily defended by the forts upon, Castle and Governor's Islands.

THE BOSTON SUBURBS.

At the inward or western extremity of the harbor is the Shawmut peninsula of Boston, having waterways all around it. Upon the one side is South Boston and upon the other Charlestown, the comparatively narrow intervening watercourses of Fort Point channel and Charles River being in parts almost roofed over with bridges that grudgingly open their draws to let through the schooners laden with lumber and coal. To the north-east, upon another peninsula which formerly was an island, is East Boston, having Chelsea beyond. Toward the north-east, across the broadened estuary of Charles River, is Cambridge, and the branch of this estuary that comes in at the west end of Boston, and is known as the Back Bay, has been largely encroached upon to create more land for the crowded and spreading city. The outlying suburbs of Roxbury and Dorchester are to the southward, and to the westward are Brookline, Brighton, and Somerville. Upon the Shawmut peninsula the original limits of Boston covered only seven hundred and eightythree acres, but by filling in various flats and reclamations from the Back Bay this has been much more than doubled. To help make South Boston, the city absorbed Dorchester Neck, and it took in Noddle's Island to make East Boston, so that by filling up their flats and marshes it thus got eighteen hundred and thirty-eight acres more surface. Then it subsequently absorbed Roxbury, Dorchester, Charlestown, and Brighton, so that to-day it covers nearly forty square miles and is about thirty times the area of the original Boston. What with cutting down hills, the improvements made everywhere, and the great changes

wrought by fires that have obliterated the older narrow and crooked streets, it is now said that Boston has become entirely changed, so that the alignments of the ancient maps can scarcely be recognized.

Scarcely a vestige thus remains of the Boston of early colonial times. Its Shawmut peninsula was then the “Trimountain," which has been shortened into "Tremont," now a common Boston designation. As the first settlers saw the place from Charlestown, whence they came athirst to seek the "sweet waters" of the Indians, Shawmut seemed to chiefly consist of three high hills, which were respectively named Copp's, Beacon, and Fort Hills. The highest of these, the Beacon Hill, was in itself a sort of "tri-mountain," having three well-developed surmounting little peaks. These, however, were afterward cut down, although the massive elevation of Beacon Hill, whereon the colonists burnt their signal-fires, still remains to bear upon its tops and slopes the weight of the most exclusive aristocracy of Boston. The younger generation, of later wealth and more modern aggrandizement, however, is being generally gathered into the more imposing and newer residences recently built upon the filled-in lands reclaimed from the Back Bay. The city's sturdy growth requires constant expansion.

BOSTON COMMON.

Boston, as now developed, is clustered around the wellknown park that has come down from the colonial days as "Boston Common," and upon its northern verge this park rises toward Beacon Hill. The city, no matter by what route approached, has the appearance of a broad cone with a wide base, ascending by a gradual plane to the bulb-like apex of the gilded State-House dome. The surface is occasionally broken by a tall building looming above the mass, or is pierced by church-spires or fanciful towers of modern architecture or by a high chimney pouring out black smoke