Pushed to renewed exertion by these considerations, the dauntless Pilgrims once more launched their shallop, and quitting their loved ones in the ship, again essayed to find some proper site for a settlement. This time Carver, Bradford, Winslow, and Standish, accompanied by eight sailors, made the coasting voyage.[145] Infinite were the hardships which this little band, sailing in December, in an open boat, were compelled to undergo. “Some of them were like to have swooned with cold.” “The water, dashing in spray upon their clothes, froze, and made them like coats of iron.” For fifteen leagues they held on their cheerless course upon the winter sea. They had quitted the “Mayflower” on the 6th of December; two days later they landed. “Whereupon,” says the old chronicler, “we espied some Indians, very busy about some black thing; what it was we could not tell, till, afterwards, they saw us, and ran to and fro as if they had been carrying away something.” “It was the body of a grampus. Ere long a great cry was heard, and one of the company came running in, shouting ‘Indians! Indians!’ This was followed by a flight of arrows; but Captain Standish was ready, and quickly discharged his musket; and then another, and another, so that the Indians retreated, and, except for the fright, no harm was done.” “The cry of our enemies,” remarks the narrator, “was frightful. Their note was after this manner: ‘_Woath wach haha hach woach_,’ sounds which we may now utter with safety—if we can.”[146] This spot was afterwards known as “First Encounter.”[147]