[17] “There is a remarkable coincidence in the form of this challenge with that of the challenge given by the Scythian prince to Darius. Five arrows made a part of the present sent by his herald to the Persian king. The manner of declaring war by the Aracaunian Indians of South America, was by sending from town to town an arrow clenched in a dead man’s hand.” Holmes, Annals, i. 177. See Rollin, Anc. Hist. b. vi. s. 4; and Mass. Hist. Coll. xv. 69.
[18] Bradford adds, “Which are locked every night; a watch and ward kept in the day.” Prince, p. 200.
[19] This was the first general muster in New England, and the embryo of our present militia system.
[20] This indicates that the writer himself, Winslow, was one of the party.
[21] So early was the name of Gurnet given to this remarkable feature of Plymouth harbour. It is a peninsula or promontory, connected with Marshfield by a beach about six miles long, called Salthouse beach. It contains about twenty-seven acres of excellent soil. On its southern extremity, or nose, are two light-houses. It probably received its name from some headland known to the Pilgrims in the mother country. The late Samuel Davis, of Plymouth, the accurate topographer, and faithful chronicler of the Old Colony, says, “Gurnet is the name of several places on the coast of England; in the Channel we believe there are at least two.” Connected with the Gurnet by a narrow neck, and contiguous to Clark’s island, is another headland, called Saquish, containing ten or fourteen acres. See note 2 on page 164, Mass. Hist. Coll. xiii. 182, 204, and Thatcher’s Plymouth, p. 330.
[22] The sachem of the Wampanoags.
[23] The same as Coubatant or Corbitant.
[24] What is now called a brave.
[25] We should like to have known more about this second voyage to Boston harbour.
[26] On the part of.