north. Not deeming it safe to land, they remained in their boat
during the night, and the next morning landed under a cliff. Here they
found some natives, who seemed to cower before them in terror. It
appeared afterward that Squantum had told the natives that the English
had a box in which they kept the plague, and that, if the Indians
offended them, they would let the awful scourge loose. Every where the
English saw evidences of the ravages of the pestilence to which we
have so often referred. There were desolate villages and deserted
corn-fields, and but a few hundred Indians wandering here and there
where formerly there had been thousands. The kindness with which they
treated the Indians, and the fairness with which they traded with
them, won confidence. Squantum at one time suggested that, by way of
punishment, and to teach the savages a lesson, they should by violence
take away their furs, which were almost their only treasures. Our
fathers nobly replied, "Were they ever so bad, we would not wrong
them, or give them any just occasion against us. We shall pay no
attention to their threatening words, but, if they attack us, we shall
then punish them severely."

The Pilgrims explored quite minutely this magnificent harbor, then
solitary and fringed with rayless forests, now alive with commerce,
and decorated with mansions of refinement and opulence. The long
promontory, now crowded with the busy streets and thronged dwellings
of Boston, was then a dense and silent wilderness, threaded with a few
Indian trails. Along the shore several rude wigwams were scattered,
the smoke curling from their fires from among the trees, with naked
children playing around the birch canoes upon the beach.

In the evening of a serene day the moon rose brilliant on the harbor,
illumining with almost celestial beauty the islands and the sea. Many
of the islands were then crowned with forests; others were cleared
smooth and verdant, but swept entirely clean of inhabitants by the
dreadful plague. The Pilgrims, rejoicing in the rays of the autumnal
moon, prepared to spread their sails. "Having well spent the day,"
they write, "we returned to the shallop, almost all the women
accompanying us to trucke, who sold their coats from their backes, and
tyed boughes about them, but with great shamefastness, for indeed they
are more modest than some of our English women are. We promised them
to come again to them, and they us to keep their skins.

"W