OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



CHAPTER I 



OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



*'The breaking waves dashed high 

 On a stern and rock-bound coast 

 And the woods against a stormy sky 

 Their giant branches tossed." 



So sang Felicia D. Hemans in the early years 

 of the last century and she has been much derided 

 by the thoughtless and irreverent who have said 

 that the landing of the Pilgrims was not on a 

 stern and rock-bound coast. Such scoffers evi- 

 dently never sailed in by White Horse beach and 

 "Hither Manomet" when a winter northeaster 

 was shouldering the deep sea tides up against the 

 cliff and a surly gale snatched the foam from 

 high-crested waves and sent it singing and sting- 

 ing inland. Could they have done this it would 

 have been easy to understand that the coast here 

 is stern and rock-bound in very truth. The rocks 

 are not those of solid granite ledges, continuous 



