A Book of American ExplorersHigginson, Thomas Wentworth
History
A Book of American Explorers
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth
America -- Discovery and exploration; United States -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775
Thirdly, our passage was also healthful to our passengers, being freed
from the great contagion of the scurvy and other maledictions,[443]
which in other passages to other places had taken away the lives of
many. And yet we were, in all reason, in wonderful danger all the
way, our ship being greatly crowded with passengers; but, through
God’s great goodness, we had none that died of the pox, but that
wicked fellow that scorned at fasting and prayer. There were, indeed,
two little children,――one of my own, and another beside: but I do
not impute it merely to the passage; for they were both very sickly
children, and not likely to have lived long if they had not gone to
sea. And take this for a rule, if children be healthful when they come
to sea, the younger they are, the better they will endure the sea,
and are not troubled with sea-sickness as older people are, as we had
experience in many children that went this voyage. My wife, indeed,
in tossing weather, was something ill; ... but in calm weather she
recovered again, and is now much better for the sea-sickness. And for
my own part, whereas I have for divers years past been very sickly,
... and was very sick at London and Gravesend, yet from the time I came
on shipboard to this day I have been strangely healthful; and now I
can digest our ship diet very well, which I could not when I was at
land.... Also divers children were sick of the smallpox, but are safely
recovered again; and two or three passengers, towards the latter end of
the voyage, fell sick of the scurvy, but, coming to land, recovered in
a short time.
Fourthly, our passage was both pleasurable and profitable; for we
received instruction and delight in beholding the wonders of the Lord
in the deep waters, and sometimes seeing the sea round us appearing
with a terrible countenance, and, as it were, full of high hills and
deep valleys; and sometimes it appeared as a most plain and even meadow.
And ever and anon we saw divers kinds of fishes sporting in the great
waters, great grampuses and huge whales going by companies, and puffing
up water-streams. Those that love their own chimney-corner, and dare
not go far beyond their own town’s end, shall never have the honor to
see these wonderful works of Almighty God.
II.――THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COLONISTS IN SALEM HARBOR.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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