hanged. The waterfront is ugly with rough wharves and coal
pockets, store-houses and factories. The famous rock itself
reposes beneath a monstrous granite canopy and seems to have so
little connection with the sea that one at first sight is inclined
to levity, wondering where the landing party got the gang plank
which bridged such a distance. Yet it was in all reverence that I
sought Plymouth, hoping to in some measure bridge the three
centuries that lie between that day and this, and see the New
World in some measure as they saw it, at the same season.

For at least the seasons have not changed. The storms and the
calms, the snow and the sunshine, come now, as then, in cycles
that may not match day by day in all instances, but, taking year
by year, come surprisingly near it. There is more in the Old
Farmer's Almanack's serene forecast of the weather for an entire
year ahead than most of us are willing to admit. There are people
who back its oracle against the Weather Bureau and claim that they
travel warmer and drier by so doing. Yet if one makes a study of
Farmers' Almanack weather he finds that it wins by predicting the
same storms and the same cold snaps, the same drought and the same
rain for just about the same seasons, year after year, spreading
the prophecy over days enough to give it considerable leeway.
"About this time expect a storm," it says, and in the ten days of
the aforesaid time the storm is pretty apt to come.

So, to my joy, I found in Plymouth on my few days there on
Forefathers' Day week just about the weather Bradford reports for
that first voyage of the Mayflower's shallop to its harbor. "After
some hour's sailing," says Bradford, "it began to snow and rain,
and about the middle of the afternoon the wind increased and the
sea became very rough and they broke their rudder and it was as
much as two men could do to steer her with a couple of oars. But
their pilot bade them be of good cheer as he saw the harbor, but
the storm increased and night coming on they bore what sail they
could to get in while they could see. But herewith they broke
their mast in three pieces and their sail fell overboard in a very
grown sea, so that they were like to have been cast away."

[Illustration: Billington Path along the Border of "Billington Sea"]

Anyone who knows that Massachusetts coast in December will
recognize the weather, a wind from the northeast bringing mingled
rain and snow, not a gale, but a squall