Thus begins Mrs. Hemans' beautiful hymn on the landing of the Pilgrims. Unfortunately for the poetry, however, sand is everywhere about, and scarcely a rock or boulder can be seen for miles, excepting the very little one on which they landed. Down near the water-side is this sacred stone, worshipped by all the Pilgrim descendants, the retrocession of the sea having left it some distance back. It is a gray syenite boulder, oval-shaped, and about six feet long. It was some time ago unfortunately split, and the parts have been cemented together. At the time of the landing this boulder lay on the sandy beach, partly embedded, being almost solitary on these sands, for unlike the verge of Manomet to the southward, and the coast north of Boston, this sandy shore is almost without rocks of any kind. Dropped here in the glacial period, and lying partly in the water, the rock made a boat-landing naturally attractive to the water-weary Pilgrims when they coasted along in their shallop from Clark's Island, so they stepped out upon it to get ashore dry-shod. The rock is in its original location, but has been elevated several feet to a higher level, is surmounted by an imposing granite canopy, and is railed in for protection from the relic-hunter. The numerals "1620" are rudely carved upon its side, and a sort of fissure in its face seems like the impress of a foot. Surmounting the canopy is a scallop shell, the distinctive emblem of the pilgrim. The scallop has been called the "Butterfly of the Sea," and in the time of the Crusades, a scallop shell fastened in the cap denoted that the wearer had made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Thus it is said in the _Hermit_: "He quits his cell, the pilgrim staff he bore, And fixed his scallop in his hat before."