At
length they settled upon a spot.
On Captain John Smith's map it was already marked Plymouth, and
so the Pilgrims decided to call the town Plymouth because of this,
and also because Plymouth was the last town in England at which they
had touched. So here they all went ashore, choosing as a landing
place a flat rock which may be seen to this day, and which is now
known as the Plymouth Rock.
"Which had been to their feet as a doorstep, Into a world unknown-the
corner-stone of a nation!"
The Pilgrim Fathers had now safely passed the perils of the sea.
But many more troubles and miseries were in store for them. For
hundreds of miles the country lay barren and untilled, inhabited
only by wild Redmen, the nearest British settlement being five
hundred miles away. There was no one upon the shore to greet them,
no friendly lights, no smoke arising from cheerful cottage fires,
no sign of habitation far or near. It was a silent frost-bound
coast upon which they had set foot.
The weather was bitterly cold and the frost so keen that even
their clothes were frozen stiff. And ere these Pilgrims could find
a shelter from the winter blasts, trees had to be felled and hewn
for the building of their houses. It was enough to make the stoutest
heart quake. Yet not one among this little band of Pilgrims flinched
or thought of turning back.
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