The Pilgrims came crowding to the deck, fathers, mothers, children, men, and maid-servants. They looked eagerly toward the west. They saw the coast of the New World, as the ship rushed nearer, low with a white line of surf beating against its wooded shore. It was a very new, strange, savage world awaiting them, full of unknown horrors and Indians. Yet the Pilgrims were not fearful. Had they not committed themselves to God’s will? And was not this to be their home, the land to which He was bringing them? So they fell on their knees, and blessed Him who had guided them safely through storm and stress. The wide bay where they first anchored--Cape Cod Bay--was wooded to the water’s edge, with pines and oaks, with sassafras and juniper, with birch and holly, ash and walnut. Whales swam spouting around the ship, while flocks of wild fowl flew screaming overhead. And when at last the Pilgrims went ashore in that uninhabited spot, how briskly the mothers and sisters rubbed and scrubbed, as they washed the Pilgrims’ clothes. For it had been a frightful two months’ voyage, with so many storms and so much sickness aboard, that little washing had been done. And the first thing the Pilgrim Mothers did, was to hold a great wash day. And while the women washed, the carpenter repaired the ship’s shallop; for William Bradford and some of the others wished to explore the coast, in order to find a safe and pleasant spot for their settlement. While the shallop was being got ready, the Pilgrims decided to send out a party by land, to see what the country was like. And many thrilling adventures, the Pilgrim Fathers had before they discovered a site, and built Plymouth Town. On their first adventure, they saw Indians in the distance. They walked through fields of corn-stubble which belonged to Indians. They found a white man’s kettle and the ruins of a cabin. They dug up a fine, great, new basket filled with corn, red, yellow, and blue. They took the corn with them, intending to search out the owner, and pay him well. On the second adventure, they found empty Indian wigwams, more corn, and the grave of a man with yellow hair. On the third adventure, they left their shallop, at night, to camp on shore. In the gray dusk of morning, a band of fierce Nauset Indians attacked them. A flight of brass-headed or claw-tipped arrows came flying across the Pilgrims’ barricade. The Pilgrims fired their guns, and the Nausets, whooping loudly, bounded away into the dusk. The Pilgrims pursued them for a short distance. Though many arrows had fallen around them, none of the Pilgrims were hurt. They gave thanks to God for their deliverance; and, after naming the spot The _Place of the First Encounter_, they sailed away in their shallop to explore the coast near by.