All work was laid aside, and the people of New Castle and the country round about gathered down at the shore to watch the approach of the vessel. Captain Markham himself was there, gorgeous in his English uniform, having come down to New Castle to meet his cousin. Nearer and nearer came the ship, looming up bigger and bigger, stately and slow, its sails spread wide, and the English colors fluttering at its masthead. Then it came about, and the great anchor dropped into the water with a splash. Boats were lowered, and the people of the vessel clambered down into them and were rowed toward the shore. In the very first boat came William Penn himself. He was a tall, noble looking man, with large, dark, kindly eyes, and hair that fell in loose locks to his shoulders. He was very simply dressed, as were all the men with him. The only way in which his dress differed from theirs was that he wore a light blue silken sash around his waist. He was worn and thin, and some of his companions looked even ill. This was not to be wondered at, for he told his cousin that soon after they had set sail from England, smallpox had broken out on board the _Welcome_. Of the one hundred men who had started with him, almost one-third had died on the voyage. The colonists heard afterward of the goodness of William Penn to the sick. He himself had never had smallpox, but everyday during the voyage he went down to the bedsides of the sufferers. He gave them medicines, talked with them and cheered them, and ministered to the dying. It had indeed been a terrible voyage. Fortunately, the ship had been well stocked with provisions of every kind, and many luxuries.[13] Still, these could ease but little the sufferings of the sick, shut up for two months in that rolling, tossing vessel. A blessed sight the shores and wooded hills of Delaware must have been to those sick and weary voyagers. As Penn landed, Captain Markham came forward eagerly to greet him. It was a strange and varied crowd that had gathered there to meet their governor—Swedes, Dutch, Germans and Welsh, many of them dressed in their national costumes, and back of them the tall, red skinned Indian, Sachem Taminent, with his party of Leni Lenapes in their paint and feathers. Penn was escorted by his cousin and the principal men of the village, to the house that had been made ready for him, there to eat and rest after his long journey. The next day, October 28, 1682, the new governor went to the Courthouse to speak to the people. The room was thronged with those who crowded in to hear him. Before he began, however, two gentlemen, John Moll and Ephraim Herman, performed what is called “livery of seisin;” that is, they gave to Penn earth, water, a piece of turf, and a twig, in token that he was ruler there of land and water and of the fruits of tree and field.