"In the name of God, amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our direct sovereign lord King James, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith, etc., having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God and of one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and expedient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof, we have hereunder inscribed our names at Cape Cod, the 11th day of November (old style), in the year of the reign of our sovereign lord King James, of England, France and Ireland, the 18th, and of Scotland, the 54th, Anno Domini, 1620."

Provincetown was a long time afterwards started, and began with a few fishermen's huts, which grew in the eighteenth century to a small village with extensive fish-drying flakes. The people top-dressed the soft sands with clay, shells and pebble, thus making the streets. There are relics of wrecks all about the extremity of the Cape, and it has had a sad history, though now, being better lighted and having life-saving stations, these terrible disasters are rare. The town has become an attractive summer resort, and has quite a development of pleasant homes. The visitor mounts High Pole Hill to get the view, and all around it is over the sea, for, gaze whither one may as the winds blow freshly across the Cape, the scene is of dazzling white sand or deeply blue water.

APPROACHING MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

From Plymouth Harbor northward to Massachusetts Bay is but a short distance. Inland from the coast-line the land rises into the noted "Blue Hills of Milton," their highest dome-like summit elevated six hundred and fifty feet and surmounted by an Observatory. These are granite hills, having the picturesque town of Quincy stretching down to the sea, with a broad fringe of salt marshes in front. Thus are named the "Quincy granites," famous for building, and it was to get these huge stones out that the earliest rude railway in New England was constructed in 1826, a line three miles long to Neponset River, the cars being drawn by horses. It is said by the geologists that these hills of Milton are an older formation than the Alps, and their earliest English name, designated by King Charles I., was the Cheviot Hills. Among the salt marshes just north of Duxbury is Marshfield, the home of Daniel Webster, whose remains lie in an ancient graveyard on an ocean-viewing hill not far away. Beside him are the graves of his sons—Edward, killed in the Mexican War, and Fletcher, killed at Bull Run in the Civil War. An ornamental villa has replaced his old house, which was burnt, and the homestead has gone to strangers. Close by Webster's is the grave of the early Pilgrim Governor Winslow, whose quaint old dwelling is near. Quincy is famous as the home of the greatest families of the original colony of Massachusetts Bay—Quincy and Adams. The antique church of Quincy, known as the Adams Temple, has in the yard the graves of the two Presidents Adams, father and son. John Hancock, whose bold signature leads the Congress in the Declaration of Independence, was a native of Quincy. It was among the earliest Massachusetts settlements, having been colonized by a number of Episcopalians at Merry Mount, who were such jovial people that the strict Puritans of Plymouth were aghast at their goings on, and sent Miles Standish with the whole army against them, and capturing the leaders shipped them prisoners back to England. This severe treatment was administered a second time before they were subdued. Thomas Morton, who was among those twice banished, wrote the New England Canaan, giving this curious account of the aborigines: "The Indians may be rather accompted as living richly, wanting nothing that is needful, and to be commended for leading a contented life, the younger being ruled by the elder and the elder ruled by the Powahs, and the Powahs are ruled by the Devill; and then you may imagine what good rule is like to be amongst them." This theory was generally prevalent among the early colonists, for Cotton Mather was convinced that "the Indians are under the special protection of the Devill."

The coast, as Massachusetts Bay is approached, rises into the rocky shores of Scituate and Cohasset. Here is the dangerous reef of Minot's Ledge in the offing, guarded by the leading beacon of the New England waters, about four miles from the shore. The original lighthouse was washed away in a terrific storm in April, 1851. The catastrophe occurred in the night, when those on shore heard a violent tolling of the lighthouse bell, and in the morning the tower was gone, with all the light keepers, the only relic being a chair washed ashore, which was recognized as one that had been in the watch-room of the tower. Scituate was the birthplace of Samuel Woodworth, author of the Old Oaken Bucket. These shores are all lined with villas and attractive coast resorts, and the noted Jerusalem Road is the chief highway of Cohasset, following the coast-line around to the westward. Here projects the narrow and strange peninsula of Nantasket Beach, five miles out into the sea to Point Allerton, then hooking around and terminating in the town of Hull, and making one of the most popular seaside resorts of Bostonians. Farther to the westward, behind it, is Hingham Harbor, the quaint old village of Hingham on its shores, settled in 1635, having the oldest occupied church in New England, dating from 1681. This most ancient church of Yankeedom is a square building of the colonial style, its steep roof sloping up on all four sides to a platform at the top surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted by a little pointed belfry. Still farther westward, and within the entrance to Boston Harbor, projects the bold bluff of Squantum, thrust out into the bay, it having been named in memory of the old sachem who ruled all the country round about when Boston was first colonized, his home being on an adjacent hill. Sturdy old Squantum was a firm friend of the colonists, and when he was dying he besought Governor Bradford to pray for him, "that he might go to the Englishman's God in Heaven."

THE CITY OF BOSTON.

The approach to the New England metropolis, especially by way of the harbor, is fine. The city rises gradually ridge above ridge, until the centre culminates in Beacon Hill, surmounted by the bright gilded dome and lantern-top of the Massachusetts State House. From all sides the land, with its varied surfaces of hill and vale, slopes down towards the water courses, leading into the deep indentation of Boston Harbor. The pear-shaped peninsula, forming the original town, was the Indian Shawmut, or the "sweet waters," a name reproduced in many ways in the modern city. William Blackstone, the recluse Anglican clergyman of London who could not get on there with the "Lords Bishops" and emigrated, was the first white inhabitant of Shawmut, coming in 1623. Governor John Winthrop, of the Massachusetts colony, who came out in 1630 to Salem, removed to Shawmut the same year with Thomas Dudley and a number of Puritans, crossing over from Charlestown in a search for good water, which led them to select this place, which, from its three hills, they called the Tri-mountain, since shortened into Tremont. Blackstone, having lived there in solitude for several years, soon tired of having such near neighbors, and in 1634 he sold out the whole town site to them for about $150, and being disgusted with these "Lords Brethren," as he had previously been with the "Lords Bishops," avoided controversy by going farther into the wilderness. Winthrop and Dudley had come originally from Boston in England, and making this the capital of the Massachusetts colony, they gave it that name. The English Boston in Lincolnshire grew around the monastery of the Saxon St. Botolph, established in the seventh century, and hence its name of Botolph's Town, which has been condensed into Boston. Some years ago the English Bostonians presented a Gothic window from the ruins of old St. Botolph's to Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston. When this Massachusetts colony was originally established, one of Winthrop's depressed companions, writing home, described Shawmut as "a hideous wilderness possessed by barbarous Indians, very cold, sickly, rocky, barren, unfit for culture, and like to keep the people miserable." Yet the settlement grew, and, as an early historian says, "Philadelphia was a forest and New York was an insignificant village long after its rival, Boston, had become a great commercial town." In 1663 an English visitor, describing the place, wrote that "the buildings are handsome, joining one to the other, as in London, with many large streets, most of them paved with pebble-stones. In the high street toward the Common there are faire houses, some of stone." The young colony encouraged commerce and became possessed of many ships, the earliest built at Boston being the bark "Blessing of the Bay" of thirty tons, a noted vessel belonging to Governor Winthrop, and considered a wonder in her time. The first solid wharf was built in 1673. It was Governor Winthrop who put into one of his official messages this chunk of wisdom: "The best part of a community is always the least, and of that part the wiser are still less." Anterior to the Revolution, Boston was the largest and most important American city, then having twenty-five thousand inhabitants.

Boston Harbor covers about seventy-five square miles, having various arms, such as South Boston Bay and Dorchester Bay, and the estuaries of the Charles, Mystic and Neponset Rivers, which enlarge the landing-spaces. The outer harbor has great natural beauty, increased by the improvements and adornments of buildings, the water surface gradually narrowing towards the city, and dotted with craggy, undulating islands, having long stretches of bordering beaches, interspersed with jutting cliffs, broad and bold promontories, and both low and lofty shores. The adjacent coasts are lined with villages that gradually merge into the suburbs of the great city. In this spacious harbor there are at least fifty large and small islands, and most of these, which were bare in Winthrop's day, are now crowned with forts, lighthouses, almshouses, hospitals and other civic institutions, several being most striking edifices, giving a pleasing variety to the scene. The splendid guiding beacon for the harbor entrance stands upon Little Brewster or Lighthouse Island, at the northern edge of Nantasket Roads. This is Boston Light, elevated about one hundred feet, a revolving light visible sixteen miles. George's Island, near the entrance and commanding the approach from the sea, has upon it the chief defensive work of the harbor, Fort Warren, about two miles west of Boston Light. Farther in, and near the city, off South Boston, is Castle Island, with Fort Independence, the successor of the earliest Boston fort, the "Castle," built by Winthrop in 1634. Opposite and about one mile northward is Governor's Island, containing Fort Winthrop. This island was originally the "Governor's garden," and Winthrop paid a yearly rent of two bushels of apples for it. These forts are nearly all constructed of Quincy granite, but none has seen actual warfare. Long Island spreads its high crags across the harbor, outside of the inner forts, and has a lighthouse on its northern end, while to the eastward is a low, rocky islet, bearing as a warning to the mariner a curious stone monument, known as Nix's Mate. It was here the colonists used to hang the pirates caught on the New England coasts. Upon Deer and Rainsford Islands are hospitals and reformatories, and upon Thompson's Island, which is fantastically shaped like an unfledged chicken, is an asylum and farm-school for indigent boys. Spectacle, Half Moon and Apple Islands received their names from their shapes.

At the inward, western extremity of the harbor is the pear-shaped Shawmut peninsula of Boston, having water ways almost all around it. Upon the one side is South Boston and upon the other Charlestown, the comparatively narrow intervening water courses of Fort Point Channel and Charles River being in parts nearly roofed over with bridges, that grudgingly open their draws to let through the vessels laden with lumber and coal. To the northeast, upon another peninsula, which formerly was an island, is East Boston, having Chelsea beyond to the northward. Towards the west, across the broadened estuary of Charles River, is Cambridge, this part of the estuary known as the Back Bay having been largely encroached upon to create more land for the crowded and spreading city. To the southward are Roxbury and Dorchester, and to the westward Brookline, Brighton and Somerville. Upon the Shawmut peninsula, the original city of Boston covered only seven hundred and eighty-three acres, but by the reclamations this has been more than doubled. It absorbed Dorchester Neck to enlarge South Boston; took in Noddle's Island for East Boston; and annexed about all the other suburbs, so that the city now covers forty-three square miles. The hills have been partly levelled and the whole face of the ancient town altered, these improvements and the great changes wrought by fires obliterating the older narrow and crooked streets, having thus wrought a complete transformation. The alignments of the colonial maps can now hardly be recognized, and scarcely a vestige, beyond the three old burying-grounds and a few buildings, remains of primitive Boston. When the first settlers coming from Charlestown saw Shawmut or the Tri-mountain, it seemed to chiefly consist of the three high hills which they called Copp's, Beacon and Fort Hills, the highest of these, the Beacon, being itself a sort of tri-mountain, having three well-developed surmounting little peaks. These, however, were afterwards cut down, although the massive elevation of Beacon Hill, whereon the colonists burnt their signal-fires, remains the crowning glory of the peninsula.

BOSTON COMMON.