Early Explorations—John Cabot—Bartholomew Gosnold—The Old Colony—The Mayflower—Plymouth—Plymouth Rock—Duxbury—Samoset—Governor Bradford—Miles Standish—Cape Cod—Chatham—Barnstable—Truro—Highland Light—Provincetown—The Puritan Compact—Quincy—Marshfield—Daniel Webster—Minot's Ledge—Nantasket—Hingham—Squantum—Boston—Shawmut—Boston Harbor and Islands—Boston Common—Beacon Hill and the State House—The Codfish—Boston Attractions—Old South Church—Old State House—Faneuil Hall—Old Christ Church—Boston Fire—Boston Development—The New West End—Parks and Suburbs—Brook Farm—Newton—Nonatum Hill—Natick—Cochituate Lake—Wellesley—Sudbury—The Wayside Inn—Charlestown—Old Ironsides—Jackson's Head—Bunker Hill—Cambridge—Harvard University—Henry W. Longfellow—James Russell Lowell—Oliver Wendell Holmes—Margaret Fuller—Waltham—Lexington—Concord in Middlesex and its Bridge—Ralph Waldo Emerson—Nathaniel Hawthorne—Henry D. Thoreau—The Alcotts—Massachusetts North Shore—Lynn—Nahant—Swampscott—Marblehead—Salem and the Witches—Beverley—Wenham Lake—Ipswich—Andover—Merrimack River—Salisbury—Concord in New Hampshire—Manchester—Nashua—Lowell—Lawrence—Haverhill—Newburyport—Bridal of Pennacook—Cape Ann—Gloucester—The Fisheries—Norman's Woe—Wreck of the Hesperus—Land's End—Thatcher's Island—Rockport—Lanesville—Granite—The Fishermen.

EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

John Cabot was the first explorer of the coasts of New England under British auspices. After Columbus had discovered America, fabulous tales were told of its outlying islands. The primitive maps represented the Atlantic Ocean as full of islands, some being very large, especially the Island of Brazil, and the fabled Island of the Seven Cities. The latter was said by sailors to be inhabited by Christians who years before had fled from seven cities of Asia, under their seven bishops, taking refuge there. Bristol was then the leading English seaport, and five years after the discovery by Columbus, John Cabot started from it on a western voyage of exploration in search of these famous islands. King Henry VII. encouraged the enterprise, and in May, 1497, Cabot sailed in the little ship "Matthew," with a crew of eighteen, and going westward he discovered one of these islands, which he called the New Found Land. It was Cape Breton Island, but being apparently unproductive and without inhabitants, although some signs of people were seen, he soon returned to England. The greatest excitement followed his arrival home, and the report got abroad that he had discovered the Island of the Seven Cities and the coast of Asia. Cabot became all the rage in England, and a writer of that time records that Englishmen called him "the Great Admiral," followed him about "like madmen," that he was "dressed in silks," and "treated like a prince." Cabot, feeling his importance, wanted his friends to share his good fortune, so he appointed some of them governors, and others bishops over the new world he had discovered, while King Henry was so delighted at the success of the voyage that he sent Cabot a letter of thanks and the munificent present of £10. King Henry VII. was always regarded as being "a little near."

In 1498, another and larger expedition was fitted out, Cabot planning to sail westward until he reached the land he had discovered in the previous year, and then he thought by turning south he would come to the Island of Cipango (Japan), where he would fill his ships with spices and jewels, a half-dozen small vessels making up the fleet. They took a more northerly course than before, got among icebergs, and where the summer days were so long there was very little night. They reached Labrador, where the sailors were frightened at the amount of ice, and turning south, Cabot sailed along the American coast nearly to Florida, once trying to plant a colony, but being discouraged by the barren soil, abandoning it. Yet sterile as the land might be, the waters were filled with fish, so that Cabot called the country the "Land of the Codfish," there was such an abundance of them. The explorers recorded that the bears were harmless, they could so easily get food, describing how they would swim out into the sea and catch the fish. Then Cabot disappeared from view. Whether he died on the homeward voyage or after he returned is unknown, as everything about his subsequent career has faded from history. But his two voyages were the foundation of the British claim to the Atlantic coast from Labrador to Florida, and the basis of all the English grants for the subsequently formed American colonies.

Bartholomew Gosnold planted the first English colony in the Old Bay State. Upon Friday, May 14, 1602, after elaborate preparations, he sailed from Falmouth, England, in the ship "Concord," his party numbering thirty-two, of whom about a dozen expected to remain in the new country as settlers. Crossing the ocean and coming into view of the American coast, he steered south, soon finding his progress barred by a bold headland, which encircled him about. He had got into the bight of Cape Cod Bay, and thus discovered that great bended, sandy peninsula, to which he gave the name from the abundance of codfish he found disporting in the waters. Many whales were also seen, and vast numbers of fish of all kinds. He tried to get out of the bay, and coasting around the long and curiously hooked cape, emerged into the Atlantic, and then coming down the outer side got into Vineyard Sound, where he planted his colony on Cuttyhunk Island, but soon abandoned it. Gosnold returned to England, and in 1607 sailed with Newport's expedition, carrying Captain John Smith to Virginia.

THE OLD COLONY.

The first English settlement permanently planted in New England was the famous "Old Colony" at Plymouth. The Puritan Separatists, from the Church of England, sought refuge from English persecution in Holland, living in Leyden under their pastor, John Robinson, for eleven years, when they decided to migrate to America. They arranged with the Virginia Company to send them across the ocean, and about the middle of the summer of 1620 the little band of Pilgrims sailed from Delft-haven, the port of Leyden, on the "Speedwell," in charge of Elder Brewster. The "Mayflower" joined at Southampton with other Puritans from England, but the "Speedwell" sprung a leak and they put into Plymouth roads. Then they decided to go on in the "Mayflower" alone, and the party left Plymouth early in September. They were seeking Virginia, but found the land, after a voyage of over two months, at Cape Cod, anchoring inside the Cape. Then they thanked God, "who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth." While the ship lay there, the famous "Mayflower Compact" was drawn up, pledging the signers to obey the government that it established, and John Carver was chosen the first Governor, forty-one men signing the compact. After nearly a month spent in exploration, their shallop going all about the coasts, Plymouth was selected, and the pioneers landed December 21, 1620, the day being now annually celebrated as "Forefathers' Day."

Plymouth has a little land-locked harbor behind a long and narrow sand beach, projected northward from the ridge of Manomet below, this beach acting as a protective breakwater to the wharves. The harbor is so shallow, however, that there is little trade by sea. The town spreads upon the bluff shores, and on a plateau to the hills in the rear. There is now a population of about nine thousand, engaged mainly in manufacturing cordage and textiles, and having a considerable fishery fleet. While the town is of modern build, yet it is devoted to the memory which gives it deathless fame, every relic of the Pilgrims being restored and perpetuated. There is little to be seen that comes from the olden time, however, outside of the hills and harbor and original streets, excepting the carefully cherished relics of the "Mayflower's" passengers, that have been gathered together. The choice of Plymouth as the landing-place seems to have been mainly from necessity, when protracted explorations failed to find a better place, and the coming of winter compelled a landing somewhere. The actual location was hardly well considered, the Pilgrims themselves being far from satisfied. After the "Mayflower" anchored inside of Cape Cod, several weeks were passed in explorations, and finally, upon a Sunday in December, 1620, a landing was made upon Clark's Island, where religious services were held, the first in New England. Upon the most elevated part of this island stands a huge boulder, about twelve feet high, called from some local circumstance the "Election Rock." Its face bears the words taken from Mourt's Relation, which chronicled the voyage of the "Mayflower":

Eighteen of the Pilgrims thus "rested," after their shallop, in making the shore, had been almost shipwrecked. The next day they sailed across the bay to the mainland, their first landing being then made at Plymouth, and upon the second day, December 22d, the entire company came ashore and the settlement began.

Within the Pilgrim Hall, a fireproof building upon the chief street, are kept the precious relics of the "Mayflower" and the Pilgrims, with paintings of the embarkation from Delft-haven and landing at Plymouth, and old portraits of the leaders of the colony. Among the interesting documents are autograph writings, establishing a chain of acquaintanceship connecting the original Pilgrims with the present time. Peregrine White was the first child of the new colony, the infant being born on the "Mayflower" after she came into Cape Cod Bay, in November, 1620, and he was only a month old when they landed. The baby, surviving all their hardships, lived to a ripe old age, and "Grandfather Cobb," born in 1694, knew him well. Cobb, in his day, lived to be the oldest man in New England, his life covering space in three centuries, for he exceeded one hundred and seven years, dying in 1801. William R. Sever, born in 1790, knew Cobb and recollected him well, and living until he was ninety-seven years old, died in 1887. These three lives connected the Pilgrim landing almost with the present day. The old cradle that rocked Peregrine White on the "Mayflower," and after they landed, is preserved—an upright, stiff-backed, wicker-work basket, upon rude wooden rockers. One of the chief paintings represents the signing of the memorable "Mayflower Compact." There are also in the hall some of the old straight-backed chairs of the Pilgrims, with their pots and platters, and among other relics Miles Standish's sword. In the court-house are the original records of the colony, the first allotment of lands among the settlers, their deeds, agreements and wills, and the patent given the colony by Earl Warwick in 1629. There are also shown in quaint handwriting, with the ink partly faded out, records of how they divided their cattle, when it was decided to change from the original plan of holding them in common. Signatures of the Pilgrims are attached to many of these documents. Governor Carver died the first year, William Bradford succeeding, and there is preserved in Governor Bradford's writing the famous order establishing trial by jury in the colony.

THE PLYMOUTH ROCK.

Thus begins Mrs. Hemans' beautiful hymn on the landing of the Pilgrims. Unfortunately for the poetry, however, sand is everywhere about, and scarcely a rock or boulder can be seen for miles, excepting the very little one on which they landed. Down near the water-side is this sacred stone, worshipped by all the Pilgrim descendants, the retrocession of the sea having left it some distance back. It is a gray syenite boulder, oval-shaped, and about six feet long. It was some time ago unfortunately split, and the parts have been cemented together. At the time of the landing this boulder lay on the sandy beach, partly embedded, being almost solitary on these sands, for unlike the verge of Manomet to the southward, and the coast north of Boston, this sandy shore is almost without rocks of any kind. Dropped here in the glacial period, and lying partly in the water, the rock made a boat-landing naturally attractive to the water-weary Pilgrims when they coasted along in their shallop from Clark's Island, so they stepped out upon it to get ashore dry-shod. The rock is in its original location, but has been elevated several feet to a higher level, is surmounted by an imposing granite canopy, and is railed in for protection from the relic-hunter. The numerals "1620" are rudely carved upon its side, and a sort of fissure in its face seems like the impress of a foot. Surmounting the canopy is a scallop shell, the distinctive emblem of the pilgrim. The scallop has been called the "Butterfly of the Sea," and in the time of the Crusades, a scallop shell fastened in the cap denoted that the wearer had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus it is said in the Hermit:

Behind the Plymouth Rock rises the bluff shore into Cole's Hill, having its steep slopes sodded, this having been the place up which the Pilgrims climbed after the landing. A view to the front shows the wharves, and across the bay the narrow sandspit protecting the harbor, while on the right hand is the long ridge of Manomet, and over the water to the left appear distant sand-dunes along Duxbury Beach. Off to the northward rises the "Captain's Hill" of Duxbury, surmounted with the monument to Captain Miles Standish, erected in 1889, rising one hundred and ten feet. Upon Cole's Hill was the first burial-place of the Pilgrims, and here were interred about half the intrepid band, who died from the privations of the first winter. Their bones were occasionally washed out by heavy rains, or found in digging for the foundations of buildings, but all have been carefully collected, and, with several of the dead thus exposed, were again entombed in the canopy over Plymouth Rock. A little way to the southward is Leyden Street, running from the water's edge for some distance back up the slope to the side of the "Burial Hill," the first cemetery. This was the earliest highway laid out in New England, although it did not receive its present name until long afterwards. Upon this street the Pilgrims built their first rude houses, the lots extending southward from it to the "Town Brook," a short distance beyond, which supplied them with good water, and was the chief feature inducing them to select this place for settlement.

The story of their landing is told in Mourt's Relation, written by one of the actors in this great historical drama. After describing their explorations and hasty selection of the place, he continues: "So, in the morning, after we had called on God for direction, we came to this resolution, to go presently ashore again, and to take a better view of two places which we thought most fitting for us; for we could not now take time for further search or consideration, our victuals being much spent, especially our beer, and it being now the 19th of December. After our landing and viewing the places so well as we could, we came to a conclusion, by most voices, to set on a high ground, where there is a great deal of land cleared, and hath been planted with corn three or four years ago; and there is a very sweet brook runs under the hillside, and many delicate springs of as good water as can be drunk, and where we may harbor our shallops and boats exceeding well; and in this brook fish in their season; on the further side of the river also much corn-ground cleared. In one field is a great hill on which we point to make a platform and plant our ordnance, which will command all around about. From thence we may see into the bay and far into the sea, and we may see thence Cape Cod. Our greatest labor will be the fetching of our wood, which is half a quarter of an English mile; but there is enough so far off. What people inhabit here we know not, for as yet we have seen none. So there we made our rendezvous, and a place for some of our people, about twenty, resolving in the morning to come all ashore and to build houses." About a week after landing they began constructing their first fort on the hill, and allotted the plots of land on their street, subsequently named Leyden. Thus the town was begun, and behind it rose two hills, the one now known as the Burial Hill being at the head of this street, and elevated about one hundred and fifty feet above the sea. Miles Standish, with his military eye, for he had seen veteran service in Flanders, selected this hill for the fort, and here in 1622 was built the square timber block-house that made them both a fort and a church, the entire settlement as it then existed being enclosed with a stockade for further protection. This caused the hill to be named Fort Hill, and it was not until long afterward that it was used as a cemetery and called Burial Hill, the first interred being some of the original Pilgrims after the graveyard on Cole's Hill, down by the waterside, had been abandoned.

Upon Fort Hill was built the "Watch House," where an outlook was kept for the Indians. Stones now mark the locations both of the fort and the watchhouse, and surrounding them are the graves of several of the "Mayflower" Pilgrims, with many of their descendants, the dark slate gravestones having been brought out from England. There is a fine outlook from Burial Hill, far over the sea to the distant yellow sand-streak of Cape Cod. About a half-mile northward is the other hill, rising somewhat higher, and upon it is the National Monument to the Pilgrims, dedicated in 1889. This is a massive granite pedestal forty-five feet high, surmounted by the largest stone statue in existence, a colossal figure of Faith, thirty-six feet high, and adorned by large seated statues emblematic of the principles upon which the settlement was founded, representing Law, Morality, Freedom and Education. Upon this great monument are also representations of the landing of the Pilgrims, their names, and the "Mayflower Compact." It was into this infant colony of Plymouth, after some weeks of careful parley and investigation, there strode the stalwart Indian Samoset, making their acquaintance and paving the way for the subsequent treaty and alliance with Massasoit, which for many years was scrupulously observed by both parties, and not broken until after he died. Canonicus, of the Narragansetts, to the southward, sent to the colony after Massasoit's death a sheaf of arrows bound with a rattlesnake's skin as a token of hostility. Governor Bradford did not want war, but he knew they must maintain a brave outlook, so he promptly filled the skin with powder and shot and sent it back to Canonicus, who understood the grim challenge, and fearing the deadly musketry, prudently restrained the hostile instincts of his tribe. The privations of the first year, which killed half the settlers, and were only relieved by succor from England, are said to have originated the New England Thanksgiving Festival Day, which has since spread over the whole country. In December, 1621, they had their first Thanksgiving, upon the arrival of a relief ship from abroad. Such was the dawning of the ruling race of the American nation.

DUXBURY AND MILES STANDISH.

Upon the upper side of Plymouth Bay, enclosing its northern portion, is one of those long peninsulas of sand and rocks, abounding upon the Massachusetts coasts, which projects about six miles southeastward into the sea and terminates in a high knob, called the Gurnet, with a hook turned inward. This elongated sand-strip is Duxbury Beach, the town of Duxbury being upon the mainland inside, a fishing village probably best known as the terminus of the French Atlantic Cable. It was at Duxbury that the first regular pastor was Ralph Partridge, whom Cotton Mather described as having "the innocence of a dove and the loftiness of an eagle." The Pilgrims allotted this district to Miles Standish and to their youngest member, John Alden. Standish named it from Duxbury Hall, in Lancashire, the seat of his English ancestors. The brave Miles was not a Puritan and did not belong to their church, but as he was an experienced warrior, they made him the commander of their standing army of twelve men. Is is said that there have been only two renowned military chieftains in history who were personally acquainted with all their soldiers—Julius CÆsar and Miles Standish. The redoubtable old captain lost his wife Rose soon after the landing, and he then engaged the fascinating and youthful Alden to do his courtship for him and woo the gentle Priscilla Mullins, with the usual result that the maiden preferred the more attractive Alden to the grim old soldier. Standish has been described as "a short man, very brave, but impetuous and choleric, and his name soon became a terror to all hostile Indians." His is the romance of early Plymouth, for he has been made the hero of Longfellow's poem, and of renowned operas and many New England tales, while the fair Priscilla gave her name to the great Long Island Sound steamer. Standish lived upon the "Captain's Hill," out on the Duxbury peninsula, the highest land thereabout, rising one hundred and eighty feet, upon a broad point projecting into Plymouth Bay. His monument is near the site of his house upon the bare-topped, oval-shaped hill, a rather bleak place, however, to have selected for a home. Beyond it the projecting Duxbury Beach ends in the high Gurnet, with twin lighthouses, and then hooks inward to another bold terminating bulb, the headland of Saquish. To the northward is Clark's Island, where the Pilgrims first landed, a similarly round-topped mass rising from the water. Thus is Plymouth Bay environed, for to the southward its long guarding ridge on that side, Manomet, projects far into the sea.

CAPE COD.

The Old Bay State presents a front to the rough Atlantic like a gladiator at bay. She has in Cape Cod one defensive forearm boldly extended, and she likewise is prepared, if necessary, to thrust out the other, which keeps close guard upon her rugged granite breast in Cape Ann. These capes are the portals of Massachusetts Bay, and of the ocean entrance to Boston. Everyone, in viewing the map, marvels at the extraordinary formation of Cape Cod. Thoreau, who in days gone by tramped all over the Cape, says, "A man may stand there and put all America behind him." This great sandy headland stretches eastward from the mainland at Sandwich about thirty miles, then turns north and northwest thirty miles more, finally terminating in a huge hook, bent around to the south and east again, and forming the spacious landlocked harbor of Provincetown. At Harwich and Chatham the elbow sharply bends, the shoulder is at Buzzard's Bay, the wrist at Truro, and the closing fingers make Provincetown's haven. The Cape is nearly all white sand, with boulders occasionally appearing, particularly near the extremity. Thin layers of soil extend as far as Truro, but the sand is seen through many rents, and the extremity is completely bare, being a wilderness of sand, kept in partial motion by the winds, and making constantly shifting dunes. The prevalent northeast winds and surf are regarded as having made the hooked end of the Cape by gradually moving the sands upon the shore around to the west and south. This hooked end impressed the Colonial navigators, and the ancient Dutch maps call it Staaten Hoeck, and the enclosed waters Staaten Bay. The extremely white sand, in contrast with the darker rocks of more northern shores, led Champlain to name it Cape Blanc. Gosnold, as already announced, from the abundance of codfish named it Cape Cod, whereof the faithful historian, Cotton Mather, who records the fact, writes naÏvely that he supposes it will never lose its name "till swarms of codfish be seen swimming on the highest hills."

This remarkable cape came near being an island, Buzzard's Bay on the south and Cape Cod bay on the north being so deeply indented that their waters approach within about seven miles. The isthmus is a low, broad alluvial valley stretching between, having Monumet River flowing from Herring Pond south into Buzzard's Bay, and the Scusset River north from the divide, their headwaters only a thousand yards apart, so that this narrow neck of land, nowhere elevated more than twenty-five feet, is all that saves the famous Cape from being an island. A canal was projected there as early as 1676, and the proposed "Cape Cod Ship Canal" has been regularly agitated ever since, and may at some time be constructed, saving the shipping from the long detour around the Cape. This neck has been called "the collar of the Cape," and beyond was the Indian domain of Monomoy. Chatham then was Nauset, and Barnstable was Cummaquid, these, as indeed every village on the Cape, being famous nurseries of sailors and fishermen. Here is some agriculture, the farms and towns having roomy old houses, and the extensive cranberry bogs showing one of the chief industries of the people. Along the southern shore are Marshpee, Cotuit, and Hyannis, all changing from fishing-ports to modern fashionable watering-places. The surface is composed of sharply defined hills of white sand, having broad sandy levels between that are almost desert plains. There are some trees, but the growth becomes gradually stunted, as the journey is made out upon the Cape, and villages are less frequent and population sparser. Modern cottages crown the hilltops, and the frequent cranberry bogs are as level as a floor, being thickly grown with the myriad runners and sombre foliage of the prolific plant.

Passing Yarmouth and Harwich, the railway turns northward at the elbow of the cape, where Chatham is on the ocean shore. Brewster is northward, and Eastham, noted for its fortified church, whose colonial pastor received by law, for his salary, part of every stranded whale coming upon the shore. To the left is Welfleet, on the bay shore, and to the right the triple lighthouses of Nauset Beach, in front of which the ocean tides divide, moving in opposite directions, one current south to Nantucket Sound, and the other north, to go around the Cape into Massachusetts Bay. Northward is the sandy desert of Truro, the "Dangerfield" of early days, regarded as the most fatal coast in New England. This town of Truro has been described as "a village where its able-bodied men are all ploughing the ocean together as a common field," while in North Truro "the women and girls may sit at their doors and see where their husbands and brothers are harvesting their mackerel fifteen to twenty miles off on the sea, with hundreds of white harvest-wagons." Here, upon the high hill making the ocean shore, where the headland curves from north around to the west, is the guardian beacon of Cape Cod, the lofty Highland Light, forty-one miles southeast of Boston Light, and whose powerful white rays shine for twenty miles over the ocean without, and the bay within. The tower stands on a hill one hundred and forty-two feet high, and the light is elevated nearly two hundred feet. Along here Thoreau walked on the "sand-bar in the midst of the sea," and as he gazed far over the ocean, thus reflected: "The nearest beach to us on the east was on the coast of Galicia in Spain, whose capital is Santiago, though by old poets' reckoning it should have been Atlantis, or the Hesperides; but Heaven is found to be farther west now. At first we were abreast of that part of Portugal entre Douro e Mino, and then Galicia and the port of Pontevedro opened to us as we walked along, but we did not enter, the breakers ran so high. The bold headland of Cape Finisterre, a little north of east, jutted toward us next with its vain brag; for we flung back 'Here is Cape Cod, Cape Land's Beginning.' A little indentation toward the north—for the land loomed to our imaginations like a common mirage—we knew was the Bay of Biscay, and we sang, 'There we lay, till next day, in the Bay of Biscay, O!' A little south of east was Palos, where Columbus weighed anchor, and further yet the pillars which Hercules set up."

THE PURITAN COMPACT.

At the extremity of Cape Cod is Provincetown, among the sand dunes, a town with about forty-five hundred inhabitants, encircling the harbor on its western verge, a long, narrow settlement between the high white sand-hills and the beach. There are two main streets, one along the beach and the other parallel to it back among the hills. Upon the highest hill is the Town Hall, the mariner's landmark entering the harbor, and from it are good views over ocean and bay, displaying the curious end of the Cape sweeping grandly around and enclosing the spacious harbor with room enough for anchoring an enormous fleet. To the west and south is the great bended hook having Race Point on its northwesterly verge and a lighthouse on the southern termination, whence a tongue of beach juts over towards Truro. This is a haven for many fishermen, and the people, who are among the purest descendants of the original Puritans, devote their energies largely to catching mackerel and cod, curing and stacking the fish all around the bay. The first appearance of Provincetown in history was when the "Mayflower" entered the harbor with the Pilgrims in November, 1620. Cape Cod was the first land they saw after leaving the English Channel, then not bare as now, but wooded down to the shore. They anchored in the bay, and the men were forced to wade "a bow-shoot" to the shore to make a landing, and it was this wading and subsequent exposure which gave them the colds and sickness resulting in the deaths of so many during the subsequent winter. It is recorded that upon Monday, November 23, 1620, the women went ashore to wash, and thus they inaugurated that universal institution which has extended all over the country, the great American Monday washing-day. It was while anchored in Provincetown harbor the Pilgrims framed and signed the celebrated Puritan Compact, so long ruling Plymouth, which is regarded as the foundation of constitutional government. John Quincy Adams said of it: "This is perhaps the only instance in human history of that positive original social compact which speculative philosophers imagined as the only legitimate source of government." It was signed by forty-one Pilgrims, of whom twenty-one died during the ensuing four months. It reads:

"In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our direct sovereign lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and expedient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof, we have hereunder inscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th day of November (old style), in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord King James, of England, France and Ireland, the 18th, and of Scotland, the 54th, Anno Domini, 1620."

Provincetown was a long time afterwards started, and began with a few fishermen's huts, which grew in the eighteenth century to a small village with extensive fish-drying flakes. The people top-dressed the soft sands with clay, shells and pebble, thus making the streets. There are relics of wrecks all about the extremity of the Cape, and it has had a sad history, though now, being better lighted and having life-saving stations, these terrible disasters are rare. The town has become an attractive summer resort, and has quite a development of pleasant homes. The visitor mounts High Pole Hill to get the view, and all around it is over the sea, for, gaze whither one may as the winds blow freshly across the Cape, the scene is of dazzling white sand or deeply blue water.

APPROACHING MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

From Plymouth Harbor northward to Massachusetts Bay is but a short distance. Inland from the coast-line the land rises into the noted "Blue Hills of Milton," their highest dome-like summit elevated six hundred and fifty feet and surmounted by an Observatory. These are granite hills, having the picturesque town of Quincy stretching down to the sea, with a broad fringe of salt marshes in front. Thus are named the "Quincy granites," famous for building, and it was to get these huge stones out that the earliest rude railway in New England was constructed in 1826, a line three miles long to Neponset River, the cars being drawn by horses. It is said by the geologists that these hills of Milton are an older formation than the Alps, and their earliest English name, designated by King Charles I., was the Cheviot Hills. Among the salt marshes just north of Duxbury is Marshfield, the home of Daniel Webster, whose remains lie in an ancient graveyard on an ocean-viewing hill not far away. Beside him are the graves of his sons—Edward, killed in the Mexican War, and Fletcher, killed at Bull Run in the Civil War. An ornamental villa has replaced his old house, which was burnt, and the homestead has gone to strangers. Close by Webster's is the grave of the early Pilgrim Governor Winslow, whose quaint old dwelling is near. Quincy is famous as the home of the greatest families of the original colony of Massachusetts Bay—Quincy and Adams. The antique church of Quincy, known as the Adams Temple, has in the yard the graves of the two Presidents Adams, father and son. John Hancock, whose bold signature leads the Congress in the Declaration of Independence, was a native of Quincy. It was among the earliest Massachusetts settlements, having been colonized by a number of Episcopalians at Merry Mount, who were such jovial people that the strict Puritans of Plymouth were aghast at their goings on, and sent Miles Standish with the whole army against them, and capturing the leaders shipped them prisoners back to England. This severe treatment was administered a second time before they were subdued. Thomas Morton, who was among those twice banished, wrote the New England Canaan, giving this curious account of the aborigines: "The Indians may be rather accompted as living richly, wanting nothing that is needful, and to be commended for leading a contented life, the younger being ruled by the elder and the elder ruled by the Powahs, and the Powahs are ruled by the Devill; and then you may imagine what good rule is like to be amongst them." This theory was generally prevalent among the early colonists, for Cotton Mather was convinced that "the Indians are under the special protection of the Devill."

The coast, as Massachusetts Bay is approached, rises into the rocky shores of Scituate and Cohasset. Here is the dangerous reef of Minot's Ledge in the offing, guarded by the leading beacon of the New England waters, about four miles from the shore. The original lighthouse was washed away in a terrific storm in April, 1851. The catastrophe occurred in the night, when those on shore heard a violent tolling of the lighthouse bell, and in the morning the tower was gone, with all the light keepers, the only relic being a chair washed ashore, which was recognized as one that had been in the watch-room of the tower. Scituate was the birthplace of Samuel Woodworth, author of the Old Oaken Bucket. These shores are all lined with villas and attractive coast resorts, and the noted Jerusalem Road is the chief highway of Cohasset, following the coast-line around to the westward. Here projects the narrow and strange peninsula of Nantasket Beach, five miles out into the sea to Point Allerton, then hooking around and terminating in the town of Hull, and making one of the most popular seaside resorts of Bostonians. Farther to the westward, behind it, is Hingham Harbor, the quaint old village of Hingham on its shores, settled in 1635, having the oldest occupied church in New England, dating from 1681. This most ancient church of Yankeedom is a square building of the colonial style, its steep roof sloping up on all four sides to a platform at the top surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted by a little pointed belfry. Still farther westward, and within the entrance to Boston Harbor, projects the bold bluff of Squantum, thrust out into the bay, it having been named in memory of the old sachem who ruled all the country round about when Boston was first colonized, his home being on an adjacent hill. Sturdy old Squantum was a firm friend of the colonists, and when he was dying he besought Governor Bradford to pray for him, "that he might go to the Englishman's God in Heaven."

THE CITY OF BOSTON.

The approach to the New England metropolis, especially by way of the harbor, is fine. The city rises gradually ridge above ridge, until the centre culminates in Beacon Hill, surmounted by the bright gilded dome and lantern-top of the Massachusetts State House. From all sides the land, with its varied surfaces of hill and vale, slopes down towards the water courses, leading into the deep indentation of Boston Harbor. The pear-shaped peninsula, forming the original town, was the Indian Shawmut, or the "sweet waters," a name reproduced in many ways in the modern city. William Blackstone, the recluse Anglican clergyman of London who could not get on there with the "Lords Bishops" and emigrated, was the first white inhabitant of Shawmut, coming in 1623. Governor John Winthrop, of the Massachusetts colony, who came out in 1630 to Salem, removed to Shawmut the same year with Thomas Dudley and a number of Puritans, crossing over from Charlestown in a search for good water, which led them to select this place, which, from its three hills, they called the Tri-mountain, since shortened into Tremont. Blackstone, having lived there in solitude for several years, soon tired of having such near neighbors, and in 1634 he sold out the whole town site to them for about $150, and being disgusted with these "Lords Brethren," as he had previously been with the "Lords Bishops," avoided controversy by going farther into the wilderness. Winthrop and Dudley had come originally from Boston in England, and making this the capital of the Massachusetts colony, they gave it that name. The English Boston in Lincolnshire grew around the monastery of the Saxon St. Botolph, established in the seventh century, and hence its name of Botolph's Town, which has been condensed into Boston. Some years ago the English Bostonians presented a Gothic window from the ruins of old St. Botolph's to Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston. When this Massachusetts colony was originally established, one of Winthrop's depressed companions, writing home, described Shawmut as "a hideous wilderness possessed by barbarous Indians, very cold, sickly, rocky, barren, unfit for culture, and like to keep the people miserable." Yet the settlement grew, and, as an early historian says, "Philadelphia was a forest and New York was an insignificant village long after its rival, Boston, had become a great commercial town." In 1663 an English visitor, describing the place, wrote that "the buildings are handsome, joining one to the other, as in London, with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble-stones. In the high street toward the Common there are faire houses, some of stone." The young colony encouraged commerce and became possessed of many ships, the earliest built at Boston being the bark "Blessing of the Bay" of thirty tons, a noted vessel belonging to Governor Winthrop, and considered a wonder in her time. The first solid wharf was built in 1673. It was Governor Winthrop who put into one of his official messages this chunk of wisdom: "The best part of a community is always the least, and of that part the wiser are still less." Anterior to the Revolution, Boston was the largest and most important American city, then having twenty-five thousand inhabitants.

Boston Harbor covers about seventy-five square miles, having various arms, such as South Boston Bay and Dorchester Bay, and the estuaries of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers, which enlarge the landing-spaces. The outer harbor has great natural beauty, increased by the improvements and adornments of buildings, the water surface gradually narrowing towards the city, and dotted with craggy, undulating islands, having long stretches of bordering beaches, interspersed with jutting cliffs, broad and bold promontories, and both low and lofty shores. The adjacent coasts are lined with villages that gradually merge into the suburbs of the great city. In this spacious harbor there are at least fifty large and small islands, and most of these, which were bare in Winthrop's day, are now crowned with forts, lighthouses, almshouses, hospitals and other civic institutions, several being most striking edifices, giving a pleasing variety to the scene. The splendid guiding beacon for the harbor entrance stands upon Little Brewster or Lighthouse Island, at the northern edge of Nantasket Roads. This is Boston Light, elevated about one hundred feet, a revolving light visible sixteen miles. George's Island, near the entrance and commanding the approach from the sea, has upon it the chief defensive work of the harbor, Fort Warren, about two miles west of Boston Light. Farther in, and near the city, off South Boston, is Castle Island, with Fort Independence, the successor of the earliest Boston fort, the "Castle," built by Winthrop in 1634. Opposite and about one mile northward is Governor's Island, containing Fort Winthrop. This island was originally the "Governor's garden," and Winthrop paid a yearly rent of two bushels of apples for it. These forts are nearly all constructed of Quincy granite, but none has seen actual warfare. Long Island spreads its high crags across the harbor, outside of the inner forts, and has a lighthouse on its northern end, while to the eastward is a low, rocky islet, bearing as a warning to the mariner a curious stone monument, known as Nix's Mate. It was here the colonists used to hang the pirates caught on the New England coasts. Upon Deer and Rainsford Islands are hospitals and reformatories, and upon Thompson's Island, which is fantastically shaped like an unfledged chicken, is an asylum and farm-school for indigent boys. Spectacle, Half Moon and Apple Islands received their names from their shapes.

At the inward, western extremity of the harbor is the pear-shaped Shawmut peninsula of Boston, having water ways almost all around it. Upon the one side is South Boston and upon the other Charlestown, the comparatively narrow intervening water courses of Fort Point Channel and Charles River being in parts nearly roofed over with bridges, that grudgingly open their draws to let through the vessels laden with lumber and coal. To the northeast, upon another peninsula, which formerly was an island, is East Boston, having Chelsea beyond to the northward. Towards the west, across the broadened estuary of Charles River, is Cambridge, this part of the estuary known as the Back Bay having been largely encroached upon to create more land for the crowded and spreading city. To the southward are Roxbury and Dorchester, and to the westward Brookline, Brighton and Somerville. Upon the Shawmut peninsula, the original city of Boston covered only seven hundred and eighty-three acres, but by the reclamations this has been more than doubled. It absorbed Dorchester Neck to enlarge South Boston; took in Noddle's Island for East Boston; and annexed about all the other suburbs, so that the city now covers forty-three square miles. The hills have been partly levelled and the whole face of the ancient town altered, these improvements and the great changes wrought by fires obliterating the older narrow and crooked streets, having thus wrought a complete transformation. The alignments of the colonial maps can now hardly be recognized, and scarcely a vestige, beyond the three old burying-grounds and a few buildings, remains of primitive Boston. When the first settlers coming from Charlestown saw Shawmut or the Tri-mountain, it seemed to chiefly consist of the three high hills which they called Copp's, Beacon and Fort Hills, the highest of these, the Beacon, being itself a sort of tri-mountain, having three well-developed surmounting little peaks. These, however, were afterwards cut down, although the massive elevation of Beacon Hill, whereon the colonists burnt their signal-fires, remains the crowning glory of the peninsula.

BOSTON COMMON.

The city of Boston has a population of six hundred thousand, and the centre around which it clusters is the well-known Boston Common, set apart in 1634, and always jealously reserved for public uses, the surface rising upon its northern verge towards Beacon Hill. No matter by what route approached, the city has the appearance of a broad cone with a wide-spreading base, ascending gradually to the bulb-like apex of the gilded State House dome. Occasionally a tall building looms above the mass, or it is surmounted by church-spires and the fanciful towers of modern construction, or by a high chimney pouring out black smoke; but it is a symmetrical scene in the general view, though in many parts the surface of the actual city is very uneven. The Common rises towards the State House from the south and west by a graceful plane interspersed with hillocks. It is crossed by many pleasant walks, and has broad open spaces used for sports and military displays. It is rich in noble old trees, and covers nearly fifty acres, while to the westward is an additional level park of half the size, known as the Public Garden, separated by a wide street accommodating the cross-town traffic. This noted Boston Common was the ancient Puritan pasture-ground, and it is rich in traditions. In the colonial wars, the captured hostile Indians were put to death here, their grinning heads impaled on stakes for a public warning. Murderers were gibbeted, witches burnt and duels fought here. The impassioned George Whitefield, in the middle of the eighteenth century, preached here to a congregation of twenty thousand. An English traveller in the late seventeenth century described the place as "a small but pleasant Common where the gallants, a little before sunset, walk with their marmalet-madams till the bell at nine o'clock rings them home." Sometimes it was a fortified camp, and it was always a pleasure-ground, while during the great fire of 1872, which destroyed the chief business section with property valued at $70,000,000, enormous piles of hastily saved goods filled the eastern portions next to Tremont Street, bounding it on that side. Beacon Street is the northern border and Boylston Street the southern, there being rows of stately elms upon the walks along these streets and the pathways leading across the Common in various directions.

Flagstaff Hill, the most prominent eminence, near the centre of the Common, is surmounted by the Soldiers' Monument, rising ninety feet, with a colossal statue of America on the apex, overlooking the city. It was designed by Milmore, and is one of the most imposing memorials of the Civil War in the country. Nearby stood the "Old Elm," which was much older than the city, and was blown down in 1876. The adjacent sheet of water is the noted "Frog Pond" of colonial memory, and dear to the hearts of all old Bostonians. Near the northeastern boundary the Brewer Fountain, famous for its magnificent bronzes, the munificent gift of a prominent citizen, pours out its limpid waters. A colossal equestrian statue of Washington adorns the Public Garden. These attractive grounds are additionally embellished by tasteful little lakes, statues and lovely floral displays. On the southern side of the Common is the old Central Burying-Ground, which contains the grave of Gilbert Stuart, the portrait painter, who died in 1828. Beneath the edge of the Common on the southern and eastern sides is the great Subway, which crosses Boston, giving needed relief to the congested traffic, and was completed in 1898 at a cost of nearly $5,000,000, a most commodious, airy and well-lighted tunnel, accommodating many lines of electric cars, and providing speedy transit across the crowded city.

THE STATE HOUSE.

The famous Boston State House, fronting on Beacon Street at the summit of the hill, stands upon ground which, in the eighteenth century, was John Hancock's cow-pasture, his residence, for many years alongside, having been replaced by the ornamental "swell-fronts" of the Somerset Club. This rounded construction, known as the swell-front, is a distinctive feature of the old-time Boston residential architecture, and in many buildings the effect is heightened by the luxuriant overrunning vines of the Boston ivy, which is especially fine in the autumn. A Corinthian portico fronts the State House, which was built about the beginning of the nineteenth century, but has since been repeatedly enlarged, the latest extension being completed in 1898, so that the whole building is now four hundred by two hundred and twelve feet, the lantern on the dome rising one hundred and fifty feet. Upon the terrace in front are statues of Daniel Webster and Horace Mann. The eastern side of the last extension has a small park, and here, on top of Beacon Hill, has been erected a reproduction, practically on the original site, of the Beacon Monument, which was put there in 1790 to commemorate the success of the Revolution, but was removed in 1812. Within the State House is the Memorial Hall, containing the battle-flags of Massachusetts regiments and other historical relics. Portraits, busts and statues of the great men of Massachusetts adorn the interior rooms. From the lantern surmounting the dome is the finest view of Boston, with the mass of estuaries penetrating the land on all sides, the harbor and islands, and over the neighboring country for many miles. In the Representatives' Chamber hangs, high on the wall, one of the precious relics of the Old Bay State, the noted carved codfish, typifying a great industry. In the original State House preceding this one, down on Washington Street, in the heart of the older town, on March 17, 1785, Representative Rowe—who is also said to have been the suggester of throwing the tea overboard in Boston harbor—according to the minutes moved, "That leave might be given to hang up the representation of a codfish in the room where the House sit, as a memorial of the importance of the cod-fishery to the welfare of the Commonwealth, as had been usual formerly." Leave was accordingly given, and this emblem was brought in time to the present State House and hung on the wall, and it has always been an object of interest to visitors, not only as emblematic of sundry fishery problems that perplex the statesmen, but also as recalling a question always of lively interest in New England and elsewhere, "Does the codfish salt the ocean, or the ocean salt the codfish?" Another great treasure is held by the State Library, which has a hundred thousand volumes; and the chief of its possessions, exhibited under glass, is the "History of the Plimouth Plantation," popularly known as the "Log of the 'Mayflower,'" written by Governor William Bradford. This manuscript, discovered in London in 1846, was presented to Massachusetts in 1898.

NOTABLE BOSTON ATTRACTIONS.

A ramble through the older parts of Boston discloses many objects of interest. Near the northern edge of the Common, at the corner of Park and Tremont Streets, is the old "Brimstone Corner," where stands the citadel of orthodoxy, the Puritan meeting-house, Park Street Church. Adjoining is an ancient graveyard, the "Old Granary Burying-Ground," where lie the remains of some of the most famous men of Boston, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, James Otis, Peter Faneuil, many of the colonial Governors, and also the parents of Benjamin Franklin, a prominent monument marking the graves of the latter. The rows of ancient, dark-looking and half-effaced gravestones in this quiet burial-place, in one of the busiest parts of the city, are an antique novelty. Many noted buildings are near it—Tremont Temple, the Horticultural and Music Halls, the AthenÆum, and not far away, fronting Pemberton Square, the massive County Court-house of granite in Renaissance style, four hundred and fifty feet long, having in its imposing central hall a statue of Rufus Choate. On Tremont Street was established the first Episcopal Church in Boston, the King's Chapel, the present building replacing the original one in 1754. Adjacent is the oldest burying-place of the colony, where lie the remains of Governor John Winthrop and his sons, with other early settlers. Most of the old gravestones in this yard have been taken away from the graves and reset in strange fashion as edge-stones along the paths. One of these odd old stones of a greenish hue marked the grave of William Paddy, dying in 1658. In an unique poetical effusion it records these quaint words:

"Hear sleaps that blessed one

Whoes lief God help us all

To live that so when tiem shall be

That we this world must liue,

We ever may be happy

With blessed William Paddy."