Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 10.djvu/157

 The First Excursion. 149

��PIS CAT AQUA RIVER.

[Arrived at the mouth of the Piscataqua, June, 1603, barks Speedwell and Discoverer, Capt. Martin Pring commander, on an exploring expedi- tion, in quest of adventure and sassafras, the latter, at that day, being held a panacea for all the ills that flesh is heir to. The vessels were from Bristol, England, and were the first, so far as known, to touch the shores of New Hampshire or enter the waters of the Piscataqua. Pring explored the river to its fullest extent, or to where it entered Great Bay, and doubtless found plenty of the pungent root he sought, for it is native to the shore everywhere. In Vaughau street, Portsmouth, beside the house once occu- pied by Daniel Webster, there was, within a few years (and may be there now), a large sassafras tree, supposed to have belonged to a remote genera- tion of such trees, coeval perhaps with Pring's visit, which the ^vvriter remembers in his early school days, seemingly no larger when he last saw it than it was fifty years before.]

THE FIRST EXCURSION.

BY B. P. SHILLABER.

A weary sail on an uncertain sea!

And, skirting now a wild and rocky coast,

The surf there thundering on the rugged shore,

The Speedwell and Discoverer are fain

To seek a haven from the waves apart.

And find it where the ocean, open-armed.

Receives the fair Piscataqua in embrace.

"Within the river's mouth — bedight with smiles

And dimples mau}' — do the vessels rest.

Their anchors dropt, the ships securely swing,

In gay abandon, at their moorings fast.

Coquetting with the spirits of the tide.

The ever-present deities, whose sway

Has held control since Nature's cunning hand

Prepared the channel and let on the flood.

It was a goodly scene. Fair islands lay. In virgin beauty, greening to tiieir marge, Enfolded in the atmosphere of June. The birds sang welcome to the stranger ships, And from their coverts timid deer looked out To shyly scan the unfamiliar sight.

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