The Landing of the Pilgrims (5 page)

The sun rose red over the rim of the eastern horizon and tinted the sails of the
Mayflower
a delicate gold. Captain Jones sniffed the westward breeze, smelling the sweet fragrance of the land. Overside, the blue-black of deep water had turned to emerald green. After nine weeks of the wild Atlantic, land was overdue. The leadsman had found bottom at eighty fathoms, and now from the lookout at the maintop came the cry, “Land ho! Land ho-o-o-o-o!” The
Mayflower
had made a sixty-seven-day crossing, covering about three thousand miles at an average speed of two miles an hour.

At once the whole ship came alive and into action. The passengers piled out of their bunks, hastily pulled on their clothing, rushed on deck, and crowded to the rail. Yes—there it was—a dark
streak, with flecks of white cliff, running north and south as far as the eye could reach.

At the long-awaited sight of land, the women’s faces became wet with tears, and the men stood silent with hearts too full for words. Kneeling on the deck for morning prayer, they thanked God and sang
Old Hundredth
with a fervor they had never known before. Their eyes had seen the Promised Land.

In the ship’s cabin, Captain Jones explained that the land was not Virginia, but Cape Cod, many leagues to the north—a long bent finger that ran out into the Atlantic and beckoned toward Europe, calling to the Old World from the New.

But, said the Elders, their patent said Virginia. They had contracted with the company to take them to Virginia, and they insisted that the Captain carry out the company’s part of the bargain.

And so, the
Mayflower
tacked about and ran due south. All day the passengers at the rail gazed curiously at the low-lying coast of Cape Cod.

As twilight came on, the wind died down. The ship had suddenly come in among shoals and breakers. They were in the perilous waters of a ships’ graveyard, the broken part of Pollack’s Rip, one of the most dangerous stretches of water on the New England coast. At any moment the treacherous currents might carry the ship upon the deadly shoals.

“Pray as you never prayed before,” said Captain Jones to the Pilgrim Elders. Mercifully the wind sprang up from the south and filled the
Mayflower
’s sails, slowly pulling her out of the shoals into deep water. She was safe.

As darkness fell, the Captain hove her to for the night. In the morning, the Pilgrims held a council in the cabin with the Captain. It seemed best to take advantage of the good south wind that had saved them and run north to anchor in Cape Cod Bay.

Next day, with a fair wind continuing from the south, the
Mayflower
ran up the coast. By nightfall they were off Race Point, the northernmost point of Cape Cod. Tomorrow, by God’s grace, their ship would find anchorage.

There had been some glib talk that day among the “strangers” who came aboard at London and were not of the Congregation. These people had said that when the ship landed at Cape Cod, they would not be bound by the Virginia patent, and so would take orders from none, but would be their own masters.

This, thought Elder Brewster that night, is none other than the voice of Satan seeking to sow discord, trouble and mutiny among the Lord’s people. He cast about in his mind for the wording of a compact. If the
Mayflower
passengers were not under the laws of Virginia, then they would make their own law, and agree to abide strictly by it.

Next morning the ship nosed into Provincetown harbor around the Long Point. After morning prayer, the passengers assembled between decks to hear their Pastor’s message. They stood silent and hushed in a solemn pause between two worlds: the Old World behind them and the New World on which they had not set foot.

Mr. Brewster stood up and said,

(November 1620)

The
Mayflower
had put her anchor down in Provincetown Harbor during mid-morning on a Saturday in November 1620. White gulls screamed about the ship, and vast flocks of birds took wing along the shores. Inland the low hills were covered with goodly trees and the white beach stretched as far as the eye could see.

Because of shallow water, the ship could not come near shore by three-quarters of an English mile. “It is a harbor wherein a thousand sail of ships may ride!” wrote Mr. Winslow with delight.

Already that morning the forty-one had put their names to the compact. Every passenger was ready for action after nine weeks of idleness at sea.

At noon, sixteen men went ashore in the longboat for wood and water and to explore what the land was. They had to wade the distance of a
bow shot or two in the shallow water before they could beach the boat. Ashore they found springs of sweet water and filled their kegs. From the woods men brought back a boatload of fragrant juniper for the cook’s fire.

The shallop brought from England would have been useful in traveling between ship and shore, but when she was examined she was found badly in need of repairs, a job for the ship’s carpenter. Monday morning she was brought ashore and work on her started at once, but it was sixteen days before she could be made seaworthy.

In spite of this difficulty, the passengers were eager to feel the good earth underfoot again. On Monday morning, the women loaded the longboat with soiled linen and went ashore to do their washing in fresh water.

“Be sure the Indians don’t carry you off,” said a sailor laughingly, as he helped a plump matron down the ship’s ladder. “Though I’m thinking you would be making a toothsome dish for a cannibal chief,” he added with a guffaw.

Captain Jones, who was leaning on the half-deck rail, found it hard not to smile at this, so he looked away. Lifting his eyes seaward, he saw a thin spout of vapor rising in the air.

“Thar she blows!” he called, as the black backs of a school of whales rose about the ship.

“Thar floats a good four-thousand-pounds’ worth of sperm oil, if only we had the harpoons
and tackle to take it,” replied the mate wistfully.

The passengers crowded to the rail, marveling at the strange sea monsters, as one whale, longer than the ship itself, came almost alongside. A young man hastily loaded a musket and aimed at the whale. There was a sudden explosion. The bursting gun barrel flew into splinters, knocking the man flat on the deck. The whale, with a sweep of his mighty tail, dove for the bottom of Cape Cod Bay.

When they picked up the dazed whale hunter, it was found that miraculously neither he nor anyone else had been injured by the explosion of the overcharged musket.

But there were more important things than shooting whales to be done. In order that no time be lost, on November 25th a party of sixteen goodly men volunteered under Captain Miles Standish to explore the coast for a place of settlement. Each man was given a sword, a musket, and a steel corselet to protect his ribs against Indian arrows. The captain put on the steel helmet with nose and cheek guards that he had worn in the wars in Flanders.

In single file the company marched down the endless strip of beach toward the Unknown. Under his visor, the blue eyes of the Captain ranged the distance, alert and ready for danger, adventure, and the unexpected in the mysterious land that lay before them.

Far ahead he saw a little group of figures advancing toward them on the beach. At first he thought they must be Master Jones and his men, who had gone ashore for wood. But as they came nearer there was no mistaking them. The figures were five naked Indians and a dog. The strangers now saw them and stood still. As the Captain waved and shouted, the Indians turned and ran at top speed back down the beach.

The Englishmen followed on the run, but because of their heavy guns and armor, they were soon outdistanced by the racing Indians. For ten miles the Englishmen followed their footprints until they turned off into the woods.

At last darkness overtook them, so they built a barricade of logs and brush, and ate their biscuits and cheese by a roaring fire. It was their first night in the wilderness, so the Captain posted three sentinels, and the rest of the men lay down by their muskets. Soon the weary men were all asleep.

In the dawn they kneeled and prayed, breakfasted, and marched on into the woods. For hours the discoverers struggled on through the thick brush that tore at their clothes and armor, but they found no trace of Indians. Exhausted and thirsty, they followed deer paths down a steep valley. There they threw themselves down by a cool spring of fresh water. “And drank our first New England water with as much delight as ever we drank drink in all our lives.”

Farther on they came upon a clear pond of fresh water (Pond Village in Truro) where the deer came to drink, and along the banks were flocks of water fowl.

In an open field they found new stubble where the Indians had grown corn. Nearby were some old boards where an Indian lodge had been and by it an iron ship’s kettle. Each find hinted of a strange story about the mysterious people of the forest. Nearby was a newly made mound of sand marked with the print of hands. Under it they found a little old basket of gleaming Indian corn.

Perhaps even now, they thought, the unseen people were watching them from the forests. Sentinels stood watch as the discoverers began to dig about the Indian mounds. They uncovered a large new basket beautifully woven and took out thirty-six ears of red and golden corn. The basket held three or four bushels of corn. This was a treasure more precious than gold to men who would have to get their food from this very soil. The men filled the iron kettle and their pockets with corn and buried the rest till they would come again.

Marching on, they came to a river (Pamet Harbor) where they found two Indian canoes cleverly made of bark. As it was time to return, they followed their trail back to the Fresh Water Ponds and made their barricaded camp. They slept from weariness in the cold rain, while three
sentinels kept watch through the night.

The next morning, after fighting their way through the entangling underbrush, they became aware that they were lost in the forest. In the woods ahead, Stephen Hopkins was calling. When the party came up, he pointed to a bent sapling with a cord and noose cunningly made and set in a deer path about a bait of acorns.

“It is how the Indians catch deer!” said Stephen.

As William Bradford stepped forward to examine it, the sapling gave a jerk, and he found himself suddenly hanging by one leg upside down. The woods rang with laughter as he was released from the trap and set upon his feet.