“till the shoals of codfish be seen swimming on the highest hills.” “This Cape,” wrote Smith, “is made by the maine Sea on the one side, and a great Bay on the other in forme of a Sickell.” “A headland of high hills, over growne with shrubby Pines, hurts [huckleberries] and such trash, but an excellent harbour for all weathers.” And while Smith was engaged in his scientific expedition, Captain Thomas Hunt, whom he had placed in command of the larger boat, after lading her with fish and furs, put his time to profit by capturing twenty-four savages, Nauset and Patuxet Indians among them; and setting sail for Malaga, he sold the cargo for his masters and the savages at twenty pounds the head for the advantage of his own pocket. “This vilde act,” wrote Smith, “kept him ever after from any more employment in these parts.” But such commerce was not unknown: in 1611, Harlow, sailing for the Earl of Southampton, with “five Salvages returned for England,” and one of these men “went a Souldier to the Warres of Bohemia.” The Cape Cod Indians seem to have been a gentle, even a forgiving race, but they had a long memory for such perfidy, which was to prove a bad business for all later visitors to the region. Yet more often than not whites and natives fought, however friendly the first overtures might have been; and Smith reports, as a matter of course, of the Indians about Plymouth: “After much kindnesse wee fought also with them, though some were hurt, some slaine, yet within an houre after they became friends.” But kidnapping seems to have been the unforgivable offence. Only the summer before the Pilgrims arrived came Thomas Dermer, sailing for Fernando Gorges, Governor of Old Plymouth, and returned the Indian Tasquantum or Squanto, captured by Hunt and survivor of many vicissitudes, to the end that he might serve as interpreter and find out the truth about tales of treasure in the country. Dermer thought favorably of Plymouth for a settlement, and rescued a Frenchman who had been wrecked three years before on Cape Cod and was living with the Indians. He brought back, with Squanto, Epenow, one of Harlow’s victims, who, however, succeeded in escaping at Martha’s Vineyard. Epenow, during his exile, had been something of a personage: “being of so great stature he was shewed up and downe London for money as a wonder, and it seemes of no lesse courage and authoritie, than of wit, strength and proportion.”