It was hard work, this groping through the mist, and made me wish for the Janus power of gazing out of the back of my head to save the trouble of continually turning.  The look-out was now necessarily more vigilant than when on the lower shore, as I was entirely ignorant of the coast and could not see twenty feet before me.  The sea was calm, save the ever-swinging ground-swell, which does not show its power till it meets with some resistance; and though without crest, the surf on the rocks was very high.  There was nothing to deaden the force of the sea, and it came on in huge green masses, sliding bodily up on the rocks with a sound like distant thunder, making one feel that a boat would be shivered to splinters, should she fall into its power.  Once the breakers nearly caught me broadside on, as I had begun to pull along the shore, compelling me to keep outside the line of surf and thus follow it till the rocky headland loomed up on the other side of the bay, then past the reefs again till another bay curved inward,—­nothing to be seen but fog, dim white surf, and dimmer rocks.  Once, when passing an outlying point, I saw, for a moment, a couple of men fishing; they shouted something which the surf rendered inaudible; then rock and fishers melted away into the mist.  After rowing in this manner for about an hour, the water shoaled, the fog lightened, and an island appeared to the east, with the sea rippling over the sand-bar which joined it to the shore.  I pulled on and found the depth but a few inches, just enough to cross without touching.  The island was very picturesque, and the end towards the west was broken into ledges, on which were perched eight or ten small weather-beaten houses.  Half floating by the beach under the cliff, or drawn up on it, were a number of dories, while a troop of little children were wading, splashing, and shouting in the shallow water on the bar.  They stopped when they saw me, clustered together watching as I passed, and when I was fairly over set up a shout and resumed their play.  I rowed on until two in the afternoon, when the fog became thinner, and finding myself between two rocky headlands, in “Milk Island Strait,” as I conjectured, and it being dinner-time, I went ashore in a little inlet, took out my provisions, and dined.

The mist, meanwhile, had disappeared, leaving the sky perfectly clear.  It was nearly three when dinner was finished.  The Isles of Shoals were full twenty-one miles distant, and if they were to be reached before night, there was no time to be lost.  So I backed out of the inlet, and, getting the bearings, aimed for a point on the horizon where I supposed the islands to be, and pulled without stopping for three hours.  The wind was fresh from the southeast, the sea high, and there was not the least trace of the fog.  The hills of Cape Ann, as I went on, changed from green to blue, and the color grew fainter in the distance.  The land, which was ten miles inside to the westward, had now come nearer, and the dark line of the woods was just visible.