Much to the annoyance of the two Pilgrims appointed upon this mission a party of ten or twelve lazy Indians, men, women and children, uninvited, persistently tagged after them, often very vexatiously intrusive, and ever clamorous to share their food. The first day they travelled about fifteen miles, to an Indian village called Namasket. It was situated upon a branch of what is now called the Taunton River, within the limits of the present town of Middleborough. “Thither we came,” writes Mr. Winslow, “about three o’clock after noon; the inhabitants entertaining us with joy, in the best manner they could, giving us a kind of bread called by them _maizium_,[12] and the spawn of shads, which they then got in abundance, insomuch that they gave us spoons to eat them. With these they boiled musty acorns; but of the shads we ate heartily.” These Indians had probably all heard of the wonderful power of the muskets of the white men, though, perhaps, none of them had ever seen the effects accomplished by powder and ball. The crows troubled their corn fields, and it was almost impossible for the Indians to get near enough to these wary animals to hit them with the arrow. They begged their guests to show them the power of their guns by shooting some of these crows. There was one upon a tree at the distance of about two hundred and forty feet. With intense interest the Indians watched as they saw one of the Pilgrims take deliberate aim at the bird, and when they heard the report, and saw the bird fall dead, struck by an invisible shaft, their astonishment passed all bounds. Several crows were thus shot, exciting the admiration and awe of all the savage beholders. As Squantum told the Pilgrims that it was more than a day’s journey from Namasket to Pokanoket, or Mount Hope, where Massasoit resided, and that there was a good place to pass the night about eight miles further on their way, they decided to resume their journey. About sunset they reached a small group of Indians at a place now called Titicut, on Taunton River, in the northwest part of Middleborough, adjoining Bridgewater.