The Mayflower - December 7th, 1620

Cape Cod at Low Tide

When morning was come they divided their company, some to coast along the shore in the boat, and the rest marched through the woods to see the land, if any fit place might be for their dwelling.  They came also to the place where they saw the Indians the night before, and found they had been cutting up a great fish like a grampus [a dolphin or a whale] being some 2 inches thick of fat like a hog some pieces whereof they had left by the way; and the shallop found 2 more of these fishes dead on the sands, a thing usual after storms in that place by reason of the great flats of sand that lie of.  So they ranged up and down all that day, but found no people, nor any place they liked.  When the sun grew low, they hasted out of the woods to meet with their shallop to whom they made signs to come to them into a creek hard by, the which they did at high water; of which they were very glad, for they had not seen each other all that day, since the morning.  So they them a barricade (as usually they did every night) with logs, stakes and thick pine boughs the height of a man, leaving it open to leeward, partly to shelter them from them from the cold and wind (making their fire in the middle and lying round about it), and partly to defend them from any sudden assaults of the savages, if they should surround them.  So being very weary, they betook them to rest.