Friday and Saturday passed away without any event of importance occurring, while all hands were diligently at work. Another Sabbath of rest, the 7th of January, dawned upon these toil-worn men and women. The sun, of Monday, the 8th, rose in a cloudless sky. All bent themselves eagerly to work. By some unaccountable oversight no small fishhooks had been brought with them. Thus, though the harbor and the brook apparently abounded with fishes, they could not be taken. The shallop, however, was sent out to explore the coast, ascertain where fishes could be found, and supplied with apparatus for taking seals, which were seen in large numbers. In the evening the boat returned, a gale having in the mean time arisen which greatly endangered its safety. The crew had taken three large seals, and in some way, perhaps by spearing, had got an excellent codfish. One of their number, Francis Billington, had, a few days before, climbed a tree upon the top of a hill, whence he saw, about two miles southwest from the town, a large body of water, which was either a lake or an arm of the sea, he could not tell which. He started to-day, with a companion, to visit it, and found two large lakes of crystal water, nearly connected together. One was about six miles in circuit, embellished with a small, luxuriantly wooded island. The other they estimated to be about three miles in circumference. They both abounded with fish and water fowl, and apparently an unfailing stream of water, which is now called Town Brook, issued from one of the lakes and emptied into the harbor a little south of the rock upon which the Pilgrims landed. Several Indian houses, but all uninhabited, were found upon the margin of these sheets of water, which were essentially one lake. “This beautiful pond, so accurately described, bears the appropriate name of Billington Sea. In the first century it was called Fresh Lake. It is about two miles southwest from the town, and in it are two small islands. It is now, as at first, embosomed in a wilderness of woods. The eagle still sails over it, and builds in the branches of the surrounding forest. Here the loon cries, and leaves her eggs on the shore of the smaller island. Here too, the beautiful wood-duck finds a sequestered retreat; and the fallow deer, mindful of their ancient haunts, still resort to it to drink and to browse on its margin.”[8]