[54] “It is almost incredible”, says Roger Williams, “what burthens the poor women carry of corn, of fish, of beans, of mats, and a child besides.” Gookin says, “In their removals from place to place, for their fishing and hunting, the women carry the greatest burthen.” And Wood says, “In the summer they trudge home two or three miles with a hundred weight of lobsters at their backs; in winter they are their husbands’ porters to lug home their venison.” See Mass. Hist. Coll. i. 149, iii. 212, and Wood’s New England’s Prospect, part ii. ch. 20. [55] This is called Manomet or Buzzard’s bay, though Winslow seems to mistake it for Narragansett bay, which is near twenty leagues to the westward. Prince, p. 208. [56] “This creek runs out easterly into Cape Cod bay at Scussett harbour; and this river runs out westerly into Manomet bay. The distance overland from bay to bay is but six miles. The creek and river nearly meet in a low ground; and this is the place, through which there has been a talk of making a canal, this forty years; which would be a vast advantage to all these countries, by saving the long and dangerous navigation round the Cape, and through the shoals adjoining.” Prince, p. 208, (A.D. 1736.) Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 122. [57] Oysters are still found in great excellence and plenty in Sandwich, on the shores of Buzzard’s bay. See Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 122. [58] The common clam, (_mya arenaria_,) or perhaps the quahaug, (_venus mercenaria_). The English call the former the sand-gaper, the word _clam_ not being in use among them, and not to be found in their dictionaries. And yet it is mentioned by Captain Smith, in his Description of New England, printed in 1616. Johnson, whose Wonderworking Providence was published in 1654, speaks of “_clambanks_, a fish as big as horse-muscles.” Morton too, in his New English Canaan, (1637) mentions them, and Josselyn, (1672) in his Rarities, p. 96, speaks of “clam, or clamp, a kind of shell-fish, a white muscle.” Wood says, ch. ix. “clams or clamps is a shellfish not much unlike a cockle; it lieth under the sand. These fishes be in great plenty. In some places of the country there be clams as big as a penny white-loaf.” See Mass. Hist. Col. iii. 224, viii. 193, xiii. 125, xxvi. 121, and Dr. Gould’s Report on the Mollusca of Mass. pp. 40-42, and 85,86. [59] The razor-shell, (_solen_,) which very much resembles a bean pod, or the haft of a razor, both in size and shape. See Mass. Hist. Coll. viii. 192. Josselyn calls them “_sheath fish_, which are very plentiful, a delicate fish, as good as a prawn, covered with a thin shell like the sheath of a knife, and of the color of a muscle.” And Morton says, “_razor fishes_ there are.” “The animal is cylindrical, and is often used as an article of food under the name of long-clam, razor-fish, knife-handle, &c.” See Dr. Gould’s Report on the Mollusca of Massachusetts, p. 29.