PROVINCETOWN. 
237 
place,” They £ioon found out their mistake with re¬ 
spect to the goodness of Plymouth soil. Yet when at 
length, some years later, w^hen they were fully satisfied 
of the poorness of the place which they had chosen, 
‘Hhe greater part,” says Bradford, ‘^consented to a re¬ 
moval to a place called Nausett,” they agreed to remove 
all together to Nauset, now Eastham, which was jump¬ 
ing out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of 
the most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did 
actually remove thither accordingly. 
It must be confessed that the Pilgrims possessed but 
few of the qualities of the modern pioneer. They were 
not the ancestors of the American backwoodsmen. They 
did not go at once into the woods with their axes. They 
were a family and church, and were more anxious to 
keep together, though it were on the sand, than to ex¬ 
plore and colonize a New World. When the above- 
mentioned company removed to Eastham, the church at 
Plymouth was left, to use Bradford’s expression, “ like 
an ancient mother grown old, and forsaken of her chil¬ 
dren.” Though they landed on Clark’s Island in Ply¬ 
mouth harbor, the 9th “of December (O. S.), and the 
16th all hands came to Plymouth, and the 18th they 
rambled about the mainland, and the 19th decided to 
settle there, it was the 8th of January before Francis 
Billington went with one of the master’s mates to look 
at the magnificent pond or lake now called “ Billington 
Sea,” about two miles distant, which he had discovered 
from the top of a tree, and mistook for a great sea. And 
the 7th of March “Master Carver with five others went 
to the great ponds which seem to be excellent fishing,” 
both which points are within the compass of an ordinary 
afternoon’s ramble, — however wild the country. It is 
