Carew.
Nine weeks the “Arbella” tossed on the Atlantic; then the lookout descried the New England coast-line, and shouted, “Land ho!” “About four in the morning,” was Winthrop’s entry in his diary under date of June 12th, “we neared our port, and shot off two pieces of ordnance.”[685] A little later, Endicott entered a shallop and was rowed out to the incoming ship.[686] Greeting the new governor cordially, he at once conducted him to Salem, where all “supped on a good venison pastry.”
Winthrop found disease stalking among the settlers, and provisions nearly spent; but all were hopeful, though the winter had been hard.[687] The stores he brought were not unwelcome, but these were not more heartily received than were those who brought them; for pioneer life brings out hospitality and good fellowship; and besides, these men had common hopes and fears, and were united in faith and practice.
The governor seems not to have been quite satisfied with Salem as a definitive settlement; for, pausing there but a week to recruit after the tedious voyage, he pushed on in search of another place to “sit down.”[688] Sailing up a bay “made by a great number of islands, whose high cliffs shoulder out the sea,” the explorers finally decided upon a spot on the banks of Charles river, and a settlement was commenced where Cambridge now stands.[689]
Busy days followed. Land was allotted, hunting parties were sent out; Indians were chatted with; and thanksgivings for the past and prayers for the future were offered.[690] But, enfeebled by fevers and enervated by the scurvy, while the deceitful river and the marshy ground in its vicinity bred contagious and miasmal vapors to enshroud them nightly, the emigrants made little progress in their most important work, the erection of a town.
Daily the sickness increased, and it haunted Salem as well as infant Cambridge. In August there was a large mortality; but September was the most dreary month. Francis Higginson, who had been for some time slowly wasting away with a hectic fever, died in this sad autumn;[691] but “in the hour of his death the future prosperity of New England and the coming glories of its many churches floated in cheerful visions before his eyes.”[692] Then death struck another shining mark. The Lady Arbella Johnson’s fragile frame, coming “from a paradise of plenty and pleasure into a wilderness of wants,”[693] succumbed shortly to the dread epidemic,[694] to the infinite sorrow of her loving friends. Her death broke the heart of her devoted husband. His sorrow was too full for utterance; or he might have hymned it in that verse of Dr. Watts, so pregnant with tenderness and pathos:
“I was all love, and she was all delight;
Let me run back to seasons past;
Ah! flowery days when first she charmed my sight,—