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But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers , cannibals , and bumpkins to show her visitors . Not at all . Still New Bedford is a queer place . Had it not been for us whalemen , that tract of land would this day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador . As it is , parts of her back country are enough to frighten one , they look so bony . The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live in , in all New England . It is a land of oil , true enough : but not like Canaan ; a land , also , of corn and wine . The streets do not run with milk ; nor in the spring - time do they pave them with fresh eggs . Yet , in spite of this , nowhere in all America will you find more patrician - like houses ; parks and gardens more opulent , than in New Bedford . Whence came they ? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country ? Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty mansion , and your question will be answered . Yes ; all these brave houses and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic , Pacific , and Indian oceans . One and all , they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom of the sea . Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that ? In New Bedford , fathers , they say , give whales for dowers to their daughters , and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a - piece . You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding ; for , they say , they have reservoirs of oil in every house , and every night recklessly burn their lengths in spermaceti candles . In summer time , the town is sweet to see ; full of fine maples — long avenues of green and gold . And in August , high in air , the beautiful and bountiful horse - chestnuts , candelabra - wise , proffer the passer - by their tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms . So omnipotent is art ; which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation’s final day . And the women of New Bedford , they bloom like their own red roses . But roses only bloom in summer ; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens . Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs , ye cannot , save in Salem , where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk , their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore , as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands . CHAPTER 7 . The Chapel . In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel , and few are the moody fishermen , shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific , who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot . I am sure that I did not . Returning from my first morning stroll , I again sallied out upon this special errand . The sky had changed from clear , sunny cold , to driving sleet and mist . Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin , I fought my way against the stubborn storm . Entering , I found a small scattered congregation of sailors , and sailors ’ wives and widows . A muffled silence reigned , only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm . Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other , as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable . The chaplain had not yet arrived ; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets , with black borders , masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit . Three of them ran something like the following , but I do not pretend to quote : —
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