90 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



and strain out of the streams all sediment. The 

 ponds are liquid crystals in narrow settings of 

 pale gold. 



Someone told me it was only eight miles across 

 the Cape from East Sandwich to Cotuit. Per- 

 haps it is as the crow flies, but I could not clear 

 the scrub as they do and I found the roads 

 adapted to delightful leisure. No wonder the 

 Cape folk do not hurry. How could they? The 

 narrow, gray ribbon of road strolled with me 

 through what seemed eight miles of forest be- 

 fore we reached Wakeby.- 



Somewhere along there the holly stood green 

 and statuesque in occasional clumps. And thus 

 we fared on to Mashpee. The Mashpees, very 

 mild and genial descendants of the "Chawums," 

 if descendants they are, live cjuietly in little yel- 

 low houses that do not look prosperous, though 

 the children are fat and the elders contented. 

 Modern civilization has reached them in phono- 

 graphs, bicycles and folding baby-carriages, if 

 the shingles are vanishing from the roof. In 

 1620 Mashpee was their chief and they lived in 

 wigwams. But the last pure blood died in 1804. 



Nauhaut, one of the deacons of the Cape In- 

 dian church, which seems to have thrived a cen- 



