ce in its outlines, and quietly
respectable. They tell me here that they don't want the excursion crowds
that overrun Atlantic City, but an Atlantic City man, whom I met at the
pier, said that Cape May used to be the boss, but that Atlantic City had
got the bulge on it now--had thousands to the hundreds here. To get the
bulge seems a desirable thing in America, and I think we'd better see
what a place is like that is popular, whether fashion recognizes it or
not."

The place lost nothing in the morning light, and it was a sparkling
morning with a fresh breeze. Nature, with its love of simple, sweeping
lines, and its feeling for atmospheric effect, has done everything for
the place, and bad taste has not quite spoiled it. There is a sloping,
shallow beach, very broad, of fine, hard sand, excellent for driving
or for walking, extending unbroken three miles down to Cape May Point,
which has hotels and cottages of its own, and lifesaving and signal
stations. Off to the west from this point is the long sand line to Cape
Henlopen, fourteen miles away, and the Delaware shore. At Cape May Point
there is a little village of painted wood houses, mostly cottages to
let, and a permanent population of a few hundred inhabitants. From the
pier one sees a mile and a half of hotels and cottages, fronting south,
all flaming, tasteless, carpenter's architecture, gay with paint.
The sea expanse is magnificent, and the sweep of beach is fortunately
unencumbered, and vulgarized by no bath-houses or show-shanties. The
bath-houses are in front of the hotels and in their enclosures; then
come the broad drive, and the sand beach, and the sea. The line is
broken below by the lighthouse and a point of land, whereon stands the
elephant. This elephant is not indigenous, and he stands alone in the
sand, a wooden sham without an explanation. Why the hotel-keeper's mind
along the coast regards this grotesque structure as a summer attraction
it is difficult to see. But when one resort had him, he became a
necessity everywhere. The travelers walked down to this monster, climbed
the stairs in one of his legs, explored the rooms, looked out from the
saddle, and pondered on the problem. This beast was unfinished within
and unpainted without, and already falling into decay. An elephant on
the desert, fronting the Atlantic Ocean, had, after all, a picturesque
aspect, and all the more so because he was a deserted ruin.

The elephant was, however, no emptier t