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.
