No true
whales were found, however, and by the time the ships reached the
fishing grounds the cod season was nearly past. Mullet and sturgeon were
plentiful in summer, and while the sailors fished, Smith took a few men
in a small boat and ranged the coast, trading for furs. Within a
distance of fifty or sixty miles they got in exchange for such trifles
as were prized by the Indians, more than a thousand beaver skins, a
hundred or more martens and as many otter-pelts. On a rocky island four
leagues from shore, in latitude 431/2, he made a garden in May which gave
them all salad vegetables through June and July. Not a man of the
twenty-five was ill even for a day. Cod, they learned, were abundant
from March to the middle of June, and again from September to November,
for cor-fish--salt fish or Poor John. The Indians said that the herring
were more than the hairs of the head. Sturgeon, mullet, salmon, halibut
and other fish were plentiful. Smith had a vision of comfortable
independent mariners settled on farms all along the coast, sending their
fish to market the year round, and sleeping every night at home. It
seemed to him that here, in a hardy thrifty province which gold-seekers
and gentlemen adventurers might scorn, he could contentedly end his
days.
There was a pleasant inlet on the coast of a bold headland, north of
Cape Cod, which he thought would be his choice for his plantation.
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