arrows had been flying thickly around the whites, but no one had been injured.

The great majority of the party had run to recover their weapons and protect the shallop, for the preservation of the little craft was a prime essential. The two divisions were out of each other's sight. When, therefore, the four at the barricade, by firing in alternate couples, had caused the savages to fall back, they anxiously shouted for those in the shallop, not knowing but they had been cut off, or at least the craft and weapons destroyed. Back, out of the semi-darkness, came the cheering answer: "Well, well, every one!" "Be of good courage!" Three of their guns, probably on board, were fired, and there was a call for coals to light the other matches. One at the barricade (very likely Bradford himself) seized a huge blazing firebrand, and throwing it over his shoulder, darted out through the dim light among the bushes and supplied the want. This sudden apparition terrified the Indians greatly.

There was one stout fellow, probably the Indian leader, who took a position behind a tree within half musket-shot of the English, whence he deliberately shot three arrows, which were all seen and skilfully avoided by the persons aimed at. Three shots were fired at him without his flinching. But one, taking more careful aim, struck the tree close by this chief's head, throwing a shower of bark and splinters about his cars, upon which the savage gave a terrific "shrike" and fled, followed by his whole support. The Indians numbered from thirty to fifty, and were screened by the darkness of the woods, while the English were exposed by their fire or position on the beach. It is very remarkable that in what was really a sharp skirmish no white man was wounded, though the coats hanging in the barricade were shot through and through, and that no Indian is known to have been injured.

When the men first ran out to regain their arms, the Indians, with terrible cries, swept around them; but some who were clad in armor and had cutlasses, made a dash and caused the savages to fall back. By the time the arms were regained,

1620.]

CAPE COD. — THE THIRD EXPLORATION.

89

the Indians with renewed courage were again ready for a charge, and were only deterred by a sharp fire. Their warcry is represented by Bradford to have been "Woach, woach, ha ha hach woach!" These words are not Indian, nor is their intended sound quite evident. It is unfortunate that no one has yet explained the explanation.

Six men being left to guard the shallop, the remaining twelve pursued the flying savages a quarter of a mile. Then, that the latter might understand that the English claimed a victory, the whites shouted in concert several times and fired two muskets. This defiance was thought necessary to discourage the natives from future assaults. Returning, the whites picked up eighteen arrows, which they afterwards sent by Jones to their friends in England. The arrows were headed, some with brass, some with deer's horn, and others with eagle's claws. The brass may have come from the French wreck, for these were the Nausets, the only inhabitants from Chatham to Provincetown. There evidently was little or no traffic between the tribes, wampum being unknown in that whole region; otherwise, quartz and flint arrow-heads would have found their way from the mainland, where their manufacture was a regular trade, and was one of the few industrial pursuits not deemed disgraceful to men. The diluvium of the Cape affording no good mineral for the purpose, the arrow-heads were made as described.

The place of this attack was unquestionably Great Meadow Creek (Herring River), in Eastham. Morton has named another place; but it is one which the land party could not have reached in time to encamp when they did. After a prayer of thanksgiving for their deliverance, the travellers

1 Mourt says that doubtless many more arrows were shot, "for these we found were almost covered with leaves." This seems to mean that the ground was then free from snow, and the arrows buried themselves in the surface-layer of dead leaves. Dr. Dexter, in his "Mourt" (note 191), is certainly ingenious in the theory that the meaning is that the arrows in flying through the air strung themselves with the dead foliage still on the trees. If so, how did the "many more" arrows get lost, Doctor? The Indians at such close quarters would not have aimed so high.

named the spot "The First Encounter."

They then stood
Manomet was

away before an easterly and southerly wind. some forty-five miles distant by a coasting route, and the explorers intended to reconnoitre the intervening shore.

After two hours it began to snow and be rough, to which fact Young attributes their not putting in at Barnstable Harbor, where he thinks it highly probable they otherwise would have settled. The waves became so violent by the middle of the afternoon that the hinges of the rudder were broken, and the steering had to be done by two men with oars. At length Coppin, looking ahead through the storm, announced that he saw the harbor to which they were bound. A press of sail was carried, so as to bring the craft in before dark; but the gale increasing, its mast split in three pieces, the sail dragged overboard, and the shallop narrowly escaped foundering. Fortunately, they were near the entrance of Plymouth Harbor; and having the flood-tide with them, easily rowed in by Manomet.

As they made an entrance the excited Coppin shouted, "The Lord be merciful unto us, for my eyes never saw this place before!" Then he and Clark undertook to run the craft ashore between Saquish and the Gurnet, in a cove full of breakers, where destruction would have been swift and sure; but a stout, cool-headed sailor who held one of the steering oars, bade the rowers, if they were men, to pull her head to port, or they were lost. He was promptly obeyed; upon which he told them to give way, for he saw a fair sound before them, and doubted not to find a safe anchorage. These words inspirited his comrades; and though it was dark and rainy, he soon had them fast in a sheltered position between Clark's Island and Saquish Head, which was then also an island.2

1 This was only three miles from the point on the Atlantic side where, in 1605, Indians murdered one of Champlain's men for the sake of the kettle in which he was getting water. The French chastised them for this.

2 Dr. Dexter ("Mourt," n. 196) thinks the wind was northeast, and that the cove was on the south side of the harbor. But I do not think the heavy shallop could have been rowed in the teeth of a gale from Warren's Cove over Brown's

1620.]

THE THIRD EXPLORATION.—CLARK'S ISLAND.

91

The explorers were now safe; but they and their equipments were wet through. They did not dare to land in the darkness, for fear of savages, except a few of the more venturesome, who succeeded, after great effort, in kindling a fire on Clark's Island in the rain. About midnight, however, the wind shifted to the northwest, with a freezing temperature that drove all the company to the watch-fire. Such was their rude welcome to Plymouth Harbor. (This place, nearly five years before, had been named Plymouth by Captain John Smith. Of course the Pilgrims had his map, which was common in England, and on that the name and position were distinctly set down, and from the discussion upon Ipswich it appears that they had studied his narrative.1 The story that their new home was named from a grateful recollection of Plymouth, England, is pleasant but unfounded. They found the place named to their hand, and began using the name during the first year of their residence. In time the town was known as Plymouth, and the whole Colony as New Plymouth.)

Saturday, December 19th, rose bright and warm. The explorers at daylight found themselves in a safe position on a small, uninhabited island, abundantly wooded with their favorite red-cedar. They then or soon after named the place Clark's Island, from the master's mate, because he was the first to land upon it.2 They proceeded to repair the Island shoal to Clark's Island. A northeast gale there at that time of year is pretty sure to blow itself out; but a southeast one, with rain or snow, is yet surer to whirl into the northwest, with clear cold weather. By the latter test, the gale was southeast, and, by Mourt, the shallop in entering the harbor bore up northward, and by continuing that course would have been cast away. 1 See map, Chapter XI.

2 Clark's Island contains eighty-four and a quarter acres, and is of good soil. Crops of figs are matured there every year in the open air. Near the middle of the island is a huge boulder, formerly called "Election Rock," from the picnic parties held there on the ancient election holiday. Of late years a story, taking the form of tradition, has averred that under the shelter of this rock the Pilgrims held this Sunday's worship. Some members of the Massachusetts Historical Society have therefore cut on the rock's perpendicular southern face the words from Mourt, "ON THE SABBOTH DAY WEE RESTED." The boulder is now called "Pulpit Rock." While this tradition is groundless and of modern origin, the author in many a twilight hour has found it very full of sermons, especially when its late veteran owner, "The Lord of the Isle," Edward F. Watson (colloquially known as "Uncle Ed."), has acted as expounder.

shallop and put the arms in order. By the end of the mild, bright day they were once more in good trim and ready to advance. Time was of exceeding value to them. How many in their situation would not have felt justified in examining the harbor, even on Sunday? Like Moses, they could see their promised land; unlike his case, an hour's sail would take them into it. But their historian says: "And this being the last day of ye weeke, they prepared ther to keepe ye Sabath;" and Mourt's Journal simply states: "On the Sabboth day wee rested." Much has been eloquently and poetically said concerning the worship of the Pilgrim explorers on that famous Sunday, but the two quotations above given comprise all that can be known,concerning it.

Monday, Dec. 21, N. S. (II, O. S.), was the birthday of New England; for then was the technical landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. Bradford (“ History," pp. 87, 88) says of this day: "On Monday they sounded the harbor and found it fit for shipping; and marched into the land and found divers cornfields and little running brooks, -a place (as they supposed) fit for situation; at least it was the best they could find."

For situation, the explorers required four conditions, - a ship-harbor, cleared land, an abundance of good water, and natural defences. Various places, like Pamet, offered some of these; but in all that region the only sufficient combination of the four was at Plymouth. The harbor, if not excellent, was truly "the best they could find" between Cape Cod Harbor (Provincetown) and Boston Bay; there were the broad cornfields left by the Patuxets only three years before (the only cleared land known to have been thereabouts); while a deliciously pure water filtering from the sandy background danced across the fields to the sea, forming the only group of brooks around Plymouth Bay; the site was protected on the east by the harbor, on the south by a great brook in a ravine, on the west by an abrupt hill of a hundred and sixty-five feet elevation, and on the remaining side was an open field ready for a palisade which would be covered by cannon on the hill.