CHAP. VII.] DECOY POND. 99 



contain all the heavy articles which freighted the Mayflower in 

 her first voyage, although she was a vessel of only 180 tons. I 

 immediately recollected a large heavy table, which I had seen in 

 1842, in the rooms of the Historical Society at Boston, which 

 they told me had come over in the Mayflower, and my attention 

 had been called to the marks of the staples which fixed it to the 

 cabin floor. I accordingly returned to that Museum, and found 

 there the sword of Elder Brewster, as well as that with which 

 Colonel Church cut off King Philip s ear, and the gun with which 

 that formidable Indian warrior was shot. The heavy table, too, 

 was there, measuring two feet six inches in height, six feet in 

 length, and five feet in breadth, and I asked Mr. Savage, the 

 President of the Society, how they obtained it. It had certainly 

 belonged, he said, to Governor Carver, but reasonable doubts 

 were entertained whether it had ever been brought to New En 

 gland in the Mayflower, especially in the month of December, 

 1620; &quot;for you are aware,&quot; he added, &quot;that the Mayflower 

 made several voyages, and at each trip imported many valuables 

 of this kind.&quot; In an instant, more than half my romance about 

 the Pilgrim relics was dispelled. They lost half the charms with 

 which my implicit faith had invested them, for I began to con 

 sider how many of the chairs and tables I had gazed upon with 

 so much interest, might have been &quot;made to order,&quot; by cabinet 

 makers in the old country, and sent out to the new colonists. 

 Byron has said 



^r There s not a joy this world can give like that it takes away ;&quot; 



and some may think the same of certain lines of historical re 

 search. I must, however, declare my firm belief that some of 

 the articles shown me at Plymouth are true and genuine relics 

 of the olden time treasures which really accompanied the heroic 

 band who first landed on the beach of Plymouth Bay, and which 

 deserve to be handed down with reverential care to posterity. 



On our way back from Plymouth to Boston, we passed near 

 the village of East Weymouth, by a decoy pond, where eight 

 wild geese, called Canada geese, had been shot since the morn 

 ing. Swimming in the middle of a sheet of water was a tame 



