During their absence and while the Mayflower lay in the Harbor of Provincetown, a son was born to Susanna White, wife of William White. He was named Peregrine. THE SHALLOP ARRIVES AT PLYMOUTH The Landing [Sidenote: Wed. Dec. 16] On the sixteenth of December another party set out in the shallop “upon further discovery intending to circulate that deep bay of Cape Cod.” This party consisted of Myles Standish, John Carver, William Bradford, Edward Winslow, John Tilley, Edward Tilley, John Howland, Richard Warren, Stephen Hopkins, Edward Dotey, John Allerton, Thomas English, the ship’s mates, Mr. Clark and Mr. Coppin, and the master gunner and three sailors. “The weather was very cold and it froze so hard as the spray of the sea lighting on their coats, they were as if they had been glazed.” Proceeding as far as Wellfleet they discovered a party of “ten or twelve Indians very busy about a black thing,—what it was we could not tell,—until afterwards they saw us, and ran to and fro, as if they had been carrying something away. We landed a league or two from them where we made us a barricade and got firewood and set out sentinels and betook us to our lodging, such as it was.” This landing was at Eastham ten miles distant. [Sidenote: Thurs. Dec. 17] When morning came the company was divided, eight cruising along shore in the shallop while the remainder explored the land bordering thereon. They came to the spot “where they saw the Indians the night before and found they had been cutting up a great fish like a grampus.” (small whale or blackfish). Nothing of importance having been discovered this day, they returned to the shallop which had come ashore at their calling. “So being weary and faint,—for we had eaten nothing all day,—we fell to make our rendezvous and get firewood and we fed upon such victuals as we had, and betook us to our rest, and we had set out our watch.” [Sidenote: Fri. Dec. 18] In the early morning of the 18th, they had their first encounter with the Indians “some thirty or forty of them, though some thought that they were many more.” Many arrows were shot but “none of them either hit or hurt us, though many came close by us and on every side of us and some coats which hung up in our barricade were shot through and through.” But after several shots were fired at them, they all left with apparently no casualties. This was the first actual encounter with the Indians.