Plymouth harbor proper is formed by a long sand-spit parallel with the shore, that serves as a breakwater for the shallow roadstead. It is anchored where it is, for the winds would blow it away else, by wooden cribs on which the drifting sands are mounded; and it is also tethered by beach-grass rooted in the hillocks or downs that fringe the harbor-side. Now and then extensive repairs are necessary to make good the ravages of a winter's sea-lashings, as many as six hundred tons of stone having been added to the breakwater at the Point at one time. Brush is placed in the jetties, and thousands of roots of beach-grass are planted to catch and stay the shifting sands. The harbor is lighted at evening by twin lights on the Gurnet, and by a single one off Plymouth Beach. The latter is a caisson of iron rooted to the rock by a filling of concrete, and is washed on all sides by the waters of the harbor. Sand is everywhere; the "stern and rock-bound coast" of Mrs. Hemans nowhere. Except one little cluster by the northern shore of the harbor, the Forefathers' is the only rock on which those pious men could have landed with dry feet. A few boulders, noticeably infrequent, are scattered along the beach as you approach from Kingston. The hills on which the town is built appear lean and emaciated, as if the light yellow earth with which they are furnished were a compromise between sand and soil. The gardens and house-plots, nevertheless, thrive if they have moisture enough. Few vessels were lying in the harbor, for Plymouth has at present little or no commerce; yet of these, two small colliers were larger than the little _Mayflower_ that carried a greater than Cæsar and his fortunes.[176] The Pilgrims brought the name of their settlement along with them, though Captain John Smith gives it first the Indian name of Accomack, changed by Prince Charles to Plimouth, as it appears on the map accompanying "Advertisements for the Unexperienced." The port was, however, earlier known to both French and English. Samoset told the Pilgrims, at his first interview with them, the Indian name was Patuxet.[177] Prince, indeed, assigns a date (December 31st) for the formal assumption of the English name.[178] Plymouth, England, from which the Pilgrims finally set sail on the 6th of September, 1619, is situated at the extreme north-west corner of Devonshire, and is divided from Cornwall only by the river Tamar. The name has no other significance than the mouth of the river _Plym_. Exmouth and Dartmouth have the like derivation. Plymouth was long the residence of Sir Francis Drake, and was the birthplace of Sir John Hawkins; also of the painters Northcote, Prout, and B. Haydon. Captain John Davis, the intrepid navigator, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, Queen Elizabeth said, was a "man of noe good happ by sea," were also of Devonshire. It is of the two rivers upon which the "Three Towns" stand that old Michael Drayton writes: