life was absolutely new, and who was disposed to regard it as peculiarly Yankee—­the staid dissipation of a serious-minded people.  King, looking at it more broadly, found this pasteboard city by the sea one of the most interesting developments of American life.  The original nucleus was the Methodist camp-meeting, which, in the season, brought here twenty thousand to thirty thousand people at a time, who camped and picnicked in a somewhat primitive style.  Gradually the people who came here ostensibly for religious exercises made a longer and more permanent occupation, and, without losing its ephemeral character, the place grew and demanded more substantial accommodations.  The spot is very attractive.  Although the shore looks to the east, and does not get the prevailing southern breeze, and the beach has little surf, both water and air are mild, the bathing is safe and agreeable, and the view of the illimitable sea dotted with sails and fishing-boats is always pleasing.  A crowd begets a crowd, and soon the world’s people made a city larger than the original one, and still more fantastic, by the aid of paint and the jigsaw.  The tent, however, is the type of all the dwelling-houses.  The hotels, restaurants, and shops follow the usual order of flamboyant seaside architecture.  After a time the Baptists established a camp, ground on the bluffs on the opposite side of the inlet.  The world’s people brought in the commercial element in the way of fancy shops for the sale of all manner of cheap and bizarre “notions,” and introduced the common amusements.  And so, although the camp-meetings do not begin till late in August, this city of play-houses is occupied the summer long.  The shops and shows represent the taste of the million, and although there is a similarity in all these popular coast watering-places, each has a characteristic of its own.  The foreigner has a considerable opportunity of studying family life, whether he lounges through the narrow, sometimes circular, streets by night, when it appears like a fairy encampment, or by daylight, when there is no illusion.  It seems to be a point of etiquette to show as much of the interiors as possible, and one can learn something of cooking and bed-making and mending, and the art of doing up the back hair.  The photographer revels here in pictorial opportunities.  The pictures of these bizarre cottages, with the family and friends seated in front, show very serious groups.  One of the Tabernacle—­a vast iron hood or dome erected over rows of benches that will seat two or three thousand people—­represents the building when it is packed with an audience intent upon the preacher.  Most of the faces are of a grave, severe type, plain and good, of the sort of people ready to die for a notion.  The impression of these photographs is that these people abandon themselves soberly to the pleasures of the sea and of this packed, gregarious life, and get solid enjoyment out of their recreation.

Here, as elsewhere on the coast, the greater part of the population consists of women and children, and the young ladies complain of the absence of men—­and, indeed, something is desirable in society besides the superannuated and the boys in round-abouts.