All accounts agree in affirming that this part of the Cape was _comparatively_ well wooded a century ago. But notwithstanding the great changes which have taken place in these respects, I cannot but think that we must make some allowance for the greenness of the Pilgrims in these matters, which caused them to see green. We do not believe that the trees were large or the soil was deep here. Their account may be true particularly, but it is generally false. They saw literally, as well as figuratively, but one side of the Cape. They naturally exaggerated the fairness and attractiveness of the land, for they were glad to get to any land at all after that anxious voyage. Everything appeared to them of the color of the rose, and had the scent of juniper and sassafras. Very different is the general and off-hand account given by Captain John Smith, who was on this coast six years earlier, and speaks like an old traveller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too much of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long, on a part of it. In his “Description of New England,” printed in 1616, after speaking of Accomack, since called Plymouth, he says: “Cape Cod is the next presents itself, which is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with shrubby pines, _hurts_ [i.e. whorts, or whortleberries], and such trash, but an excellent harbor for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle.” Champlain had already written, “Which we named _Cap Blanc_ (Cape White), because they were sands and downs (_sables et dunes_) which appeared thus.” When the Pilgrims get to Plymouth their reporter says again, “The land for the crust of the earth is a spit’s depth,”—that would seem to be their recipe for an earth’s crust,—“excellent black mould and fat in some places.” However, according to Bradford himself, whom some consider the author of part of “Mourt’s Relation,” they who came over in the _Fortune_ the next year were somewhat daunted when “they came into the harbor of Cape Cod, and there saw nothing but a naked and barren place.” They soon found out their mistake with respect to the goodness of Plymouth soil. Yet when at length, some years later, when they were fully satisfied of the poorness of the place which they had chosen, “the greater part,” says Bradford, “consented to a removal to a place called Nausett,” they agreed to remove all together to Nauset, now Eastham, which was jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire; and some of the most respectable of the inhabitants of Plymouth did actually remove thither accordingly.