The Pilgrims and their monument . t a contrast between our surroundings hereto-day and the scenes and sounds which greeted thePilgrims two hundred and ninety years ago in thisCape Cod Harbor—welcome refuge from the perilsand miseries of the vast and furious ocean on whichthey had three times set out from England for north-ern Virginia, first from Southampton on August15th, then from Dartmouth about September 2d, andfinally from Plymouth on September 16th! Then,they looked anxiously on a hideous and desolatewilderness full of wild beasts and wild men, and whatmultitude there might be of them th
The Pilgrims and their monument . t a contrast between our surroundings hereto-day and the scenes and sounds which greeted thePilgrims two hundred and ninety years ago in thisCape Cod Harbor—welcome refuge from the perilsand miseries of the vast and furious ocean on whichthey had three times set out from England for north-ern Virginia, first from Southampton on August15th, then from Dartmouth about September 2d, andfinally from Plymouth on September 16th! Then,they looked anxiously on a hideous and desolatewilderness full of wild beasts and wild men, and whatmultitude there might be of them they knew not, astheir annalist, William Bradford, says. No friendwas there to greet them; no shelters on the wintry landwere ready for them; they could count on no humansuccour; they heard no sounds except the cries of sea-birds, the breaking of the waves, the sighing or rush-ing of the wind, or some yelp or scream from thethickets on the shore—was it of savage beast or sav-age man? A great solitude encompassed them; their 176. CHARLES W. ELIOT, , PRESIDENT ExMERITUS OFHARVARD UNIVERSITY. THE DEDICATION OF THE MONUMENT little vessel—the Mayflower measured only one hun-dred and eighty tons—floated on a lonely sea withouta sail; and westward stretched to unknown distances amysterious wilderness. Now, countless human habi-tations meet our view; a happy and prosperous popu-lation occupies the smiling land and confidently usesthe tamed ocean, with its ports, islands, and inlets, forits business and its j^leasures. Where the Mayflowerrested alone from November 21st to December 26th,1620, we see a throng of vessels, some for pleasure,some for fishing, and some for trade, and with themnumerous representatives of a strong naval forcemaintained by the eighty million free people who innine generations from the Pilgrims have explored,subdued, and occupied that mysterious wilderness, soformidable to the imagination of the early Europeansettlers on the Atlantic coast of the Ameri
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