4G2 VISIT TO PLYMOUTH. 



Britain. Time, the great leveller, will smooth down 

 these differences too. 



March 18. Plymouth, the landing-place, and the site 

 of the first settlement of the pilgrim forefathers of New 

 England, is a spot which every New Englander wishes 

 to visit at least once in his life. So many eloquent 

 addresses have been made by leading men in the States 

 at the annual commemorations of the day of landing, that 

 even an old Englander feels a curiosity to visit the spot, 

 if it were only to enable him more clearly to distinguish 

 between the romance and the reality in what is said and 

 written regarding it. 



By the Old-Colony railroad, as it is called, the traveller 

 is, or ought to be, transported in a couple of hours to 

 the Plymouth Kock, the distance being only 37 miles. 

 The time I was compelled to spend by the way to-day 

 was nearly twice as long. 



The morning was cold and overcast ; and when I 

 arrived at Plymouth, at half-past ten A.M., snow had 

 already begun to fall, and, with a keen north-east wind, 

 continued to drift along during nearly the whole day. 

 It was not propitious weather, therefore, for an inspection 

 of the town and neighbourhood, though it recalled more 

 correctly the appearance of the place, and of the inclement 

 season which the early pilgrims had to encounter in 

 erecting their first huts and houses in this new world. 



The soil is very poor and sandy over nearly the whole 

 of this and the adjoining township, fitted only for the 

 growth of rye and poor Indian corn. Large tracts of it 

 can only be profitably covered with wood, and remains 

 now very much in the state in which the first emigrants 

 found it. It was but an inhospitable country for the 

 pilgrims to force their food from, and they had often to 

 eke out their winter s stores sometimes to depend 

 altogether on the fish and clams of the bay and river 

 for their support. 



