s
of determining. All were constructed of logs, with the interstices
filled with sticks and clay; the roofs were covered with thatch; the
chimneys were of fragments of wood, plastered with clay; and oiled paper
served as a substitute for glass for the inlet of light.

The whole of this first winter was a period of unprecedented hardship
and suffering. Mild as was the weather, it was far more severe than that
of the land of their birth; and the disease contracted on shipboard,
aggravated by colds caught in their wanderings in quest of a home,
caused a great and distressing mortality to prevail. In December six
died; in January, eight; in February, seventeen; and in March, thirteen;
a total of forty-four in four months--of whom twenty-one were signers of
the compact. It is remarkable that the leaders of the colony were
spared. The survivors were unwearied in their attentions to their
companions; but affection could not avert the arrows of the Destroyer.
The first burial-place was on Cole's Hill; and as an affecting proof of
the miserable condition of the sufferers it is said that, knowing they
were surrounded by warlike savages, and fearing their losses might be
discovered and advantage be taken of their weakness to attack and
exterminate them, the sad mounds formed by rude coffins hidden beneath
the earth were carefully levelled and sowed with grain!

However rapidly we have sketched, in the preceding pages, the history of
the Pilgrims from their settlement in Holland to their removal to
America, no one can fail to have been deeply impressed with the
inspiring lessons which that history teaches. As has been well said:
"Their banishment to Holland was fortunate; the decline of their little
company in the strange land was fortunate; the difficulties which they
experienced in getting the royal consent to banish themselves to this
wilderness was fortunate; all the tears and heartbreakings of that
ever-memorable parting at Delfthaven had the happiest influence on the
rising destinies of New England. All this purified the rank of the
settlers. These rough touches of fortune brushed off the light,
uncertain, selfish spirits. They made it a grave, solemn, self-denying
expedition, and required of those who were engaged in it to be so too."

Touching also is the story of the "long, cold, dreary autumnal passage"
in that "one solitary, adventurous vessel, the Mayflower, of a forlorn
hope, freighted with the prospects of a future