What a tremendous thing an ocean is!  Ever in powerful motion; so wonderful and awful in its unknown depths, and stretching so far, far, far away!

But, even on the coasts of this great ocean, our days seem all too short, as we search among the rocks and in the little pools for the curiosities of the sea-side.  Here are shells, and shells, and shells,—­from the great conch, which you put up to your ear to hear the sound of the sea within, to the tiny things which we find stored away in little round cases, which are all fastened together in a string, like the rattles of a snake.

In the shallow pools that have been left by the tide we may find a crab or two, perhaps, some jelly-fish, star-fish, and those wonderful living flowers, the sea-anemones.  And then we will watch the great gulls sweeping about in the air, and if we are lucky, we may see an army of little fiddler-crabs marching along, each one with one claw in the air.  We may gather sea-side diamonds; we may, perhaps, go in and bathe, and who can tell everything that we may do on the shores of the grand old ocean!

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And if we ever get among the fishermen, then we are sure to have good times of still another kind.  Then we shall see the men who live by the sea, and on the sea.  We shall wander along the shore, and look at their fishing-vessels, which seem so small when they are on the water, but which loom up high above our heads when they are drawn up on the shore—­some with their clumsy-looking rudders hauled up out of danger, and others with rudder and keel resting together on the rough beach.  Anchors, buoys, bits of chains, and hawsers lie about the shore, while nets are hanging at the doors of the fishermen’s cottages, some hung up to dry and some hung up to mend.

Here we may often watch the fishermen putting out to sea in their dirty, but strong, little vessels, which go bouncing away on the waves, their big sails appearing so much too large for the boats that it seems to us, every now and then, as if they must certainly topple over.  And then, at other times, we will see the fishermen returning, and will be on the beach when the boats are drawn up on the sand, and the fish, some white, some gray, some black, but all glittering and smooth, are tumbled into baskets and carried up to the houses to be salted down, or sent away fresh for the markets.

Then the gulls come circling about the scene, and the ducks that live at the fishermen’s houses come waddling down to see about any little fishes that may be thrown away upon the sand; and men with tarpaulin coats and flannel shirts sit on old anchors and lean up against the boats, smoking short pipes while they talk about cod, and mackerel, and mainsails and booms; and, best of all, the delightful sea-breeze comes sweeping in, browning our cheeks, reddening our blood, and giving us such a splendid appetite that even the fishermen themselves could not throw us very far into the shade, at meal-times.