Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/115

 VI

ON THE FIRST TRAIL OF THE PILGRIMS

Present-Day Aspects of the Route of Myles Standish and his Scouts along the Tip of Cape Cod

Cape Cod reaches like a vast fishhook into the sea, the tip of the hook Race Point, Long Point the barb. It is as if the children of giants had come down to the coast to play and had modeled a hook in sand that Providence ordained should remain for all time, a sign for the nations. For here if anywhere has been notable fishing. On a November day in 1620 this hook caught and held for Massachusetts the expedition of the Pilgrims that had planned to sail for the mouth of Hudson River. Hence the epic which is William Bradford's account of the adventures of these argonauts is a New England epic. Had not the Cape caught and held them, who knows if there had been any story?