This,
Being Their Usual Meeting-Place, Would Naturally Be The Place Of
Rendezvous On The Morning Of Departure.
From thence it was but a stone's
throw to the boats, and quickly after starting they would enter the
Vliet, as the section of the canal between Leyden and Delft is named, and
which for a little distance runs within the city bounds, its quays
forming the streets.
In those days the point where the canal leaves the
city was guarded by a water-gate, which has long since been removed, as
have also the town walls, the only remaining portions of which are the
Morsch-gate and the Zylgate. So, gliding along the quiet waters of the
Vliet, past the Water-gate, and looking up at the frowning turrets of the
Cow-gate, 'they left that goodly and pleasant city which had been their
resting-place near twelve years.' . . . Nine miles from Leyden a
branch canal connects the Vliet with the Hague, and immediately beyond
their junction a sharp turn is made to the left, as the canal passes
beneath the Hoom-bridge; from this point, for the remaining five miles,
the high road from the Hague to Delft, lined with noble trees, runs side
by side with the canal. In our time the canal-boats make a circuit of
the town to the right, but in those days the traffic went by canal
through the heart of the city . . . . Passing out of the gates of
Delft and leaving the town behind, they had still a good ten miles of
canal journey before them ere they reached their vessel and came to the
final parting, for, as Mr. Van Pelt has clearly shown, it is a mistake to
confound Delft with Delfshaven, as the point of embarkation in the
SPEEDWELL. Below Delft the canal, which from Leyden thither is the
Vliet, then becomes the Schie, and at the village of Overschie the
travellers entered the Delfshaven Canal, which between perfectly straight
dykes flows at a considerable height above the surrounding pastures.
Then finally passing through one set of sluice gates after another, the
Pilgrims were lifted from the canal into a broad receptacle for vessels,
then into the outer haven, and so to the side of the SPEEDWELL as she lay
at the quay awaiting their arrival."
Dr. Holmes has prettily pictured the "Departure" in his "Robinson of
Leyden," even if not altogether correctly, geographically.
"He spake; with lingering, long embrace,
With tears of love and partings fond,
They floated down the creeping Maas,
Along the isle of Ysselmond.
"They passed the frowning towers of Briel,
The 'Hook of Holland's' shelf of sand,
And grated soon with lifting keel
The sullen shores of Fatherland.
"No home for these! too well they knew
The mitred king behind the throne;
The sails were set, the pennons flew,
And westward ho! for worlds unknown."
Winslow informs us that they of the Leyden congregation who volunteered
for the American enterprise were rather the smaller fraction of the whole
body, though he adds, as noted "that the difference was not great."
A careful analysis of the approximate list of the Leyden colonists,
- including, of course, Carver, and Cushman and his family, - whose total
number seems to have been seventy-two, indicates that of this number,
forty-two, or considerably more than half (the rest being children,
seamen, or servants), were probably members of the Leyden church.
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