In a few hours, the tide being so low as to prevent the whites from landing, the natives again appeared on the shore. They threw down the cross, disinterred the bodies of the slain Frenchmen, and stripped them before the eyes of their exasperated comrades. Several shots were fired at them from the bronze gun on board, the natives at every discharge throwing themselves flat on their faces. As soon as the French could land, they again set up the cross, and reinterred the dead. The natives, for the second time, fled to a distance.[219] [Illustration: WASHING FISH.] Provincetown was originally part of Truro. Its etymology explains that its territory belonged to the province of Massachusetts. The earliest inhabitants had no other title than possession, and their conveyance is by quit-claim. For many years the place experienced the alternations of thrift and decay, being at times well-nigh deserted. In 1749, says Douglass, in his "Summary," the town consisted of only two or three settled families, two or three cows, and six to ten sheep. The houses formerly stood in one range, without regularity, along the beach, with the drying-flakes around them. Fishing vessels were run upon the soft sand, and their cargoes thrown into the water, where, after being washed free from salt, the fish were taken up and carried to the flakes in hand-barrows. Cape Cod Harbor, by which name it is also familiar to the readers of Pilgrim chronicles, was the earliest name of Provincetown. The place has now lost the peculiar character it owed to the windmills on the sandy heights above the town and the salt-works on the beach before it. The streets, described by former writers as impassable, by reason of the deep sand, I found no difficulty in traversing. What with an admixture of clay, and a top-dressing of oyster-shells and pebble, brought from a distance, they have managed to make their principal thoroughfares solid enough. Step aside from these, if you would know what Provincetown was like in the past.