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.

The Atlantic House, which crowns the hill of the same name, is a spacious and elegant hotel, always filled during the season with guests, including many of the representatives of wealth and culture in the metropolis.  The view from here is very grand, commanding the entire beach and a vast expanse of the sea.  The proprietors are L. Damon & Sons.

Bathing is, naturally enough, a prominent feature of Nantasket’s attractions.  Bath-houses are scattered all along the beach, where one may, for a small sum,—­fifty to two-hundred per cent. of its value,—­obtain the use of a suit for as long a time as he or she may choose to buffet the waves of the briny Atlantic.  The most appreciative patrons of the surf seem to be the children, who are always ready to pull off shoes and stockings, and, armed with a wooden pail and shovel, amuse themselves with digging sand, and letting the surf break over their feet.  It is very evident that not a few older people envy the children in this innocent amusement.

It is said that the life of the hotels and the drift of excursionists, great as they appear, are falling into the background, while the popularity of cottage life is rapidly on the increase.  This plan is much more economical than boarding at the highest-price hotels, although those who have ample means find a summer spent at either the houses of Russell & Sturgis, or at the hostelry of Damon & Sons, most eminently satisfactory in every respect.  New cottages spring up like mushrooms every year from one end of the beach to the other, and they represent every style of architecture, although Queen Anne is held responsible for the most frequent style as yet.  But in size, coloring, and expense the cottages vary as widely as the tastes and wealth of their several owners.  “There are big houses and little; houses like the Chinese pagodas in old Canton blue-ware; houses like castles, with towers and battlements; houses like nests, and houses like barracks; houses with seven gables, and houses with none at all.”