236 
CAPE COD. 
do not believe that the trees were large or the soil was 
deep here. Their account may be true particularly, bin; 
it is generally false. They saw literally, as well as 
figuratively, but one side of the Cape. They naturally 
exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness of the land, 
for they were glad to get to any land at all after that 
anxious voyage. Everything appeared to them of the 
color of the rose, and had the scent of juniper and sassa¬ 
fras. Very different is the general and off-hand account 
given by Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six 
years earlier, and speaks like an old traveller, voyager, 
and soldier, who had seen too much of the world to 
exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it. In 
his “Description of New England,” printed in 1616, 
after speaking of Accomack, since called Plymouth, he 
says: “ Cape Cod is the next presents itself, which is 
only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with 
shrubby pines, hurts [i. e. whorts, or whortleberries], 
and such trash, but an excellent harbor for all weath¬ 
ers. This Cape is made by the main sea on the one 
side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle.” 
Champlain had already written, “ Which we named Cap 
Blanc (Cape White), because they were sands and downs 
(sables et dunes) which appeared thus.” 
When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter 
says again, “ The land for the crust of the earth is a 
spit’s depth,” •— that would seem to be their recipe for an 
earth’s crust,—■“ excellent black mould and fat in some 
places.” However, according to Bradford himself, whom 
some consider the author of part of “ Mourt’s Relation,” 
they who came over in the Fortune the next year were 
somewhat daunted when “ they came into the harbor of 
Cape Cod, and there saw nothing but a naked and barren 
