d Rock-bound Coast which greeted the Pilgrims]

That night, as on the night that the Pilgrims came, the wind
changed to the westward and blew the storm to sea. Yet all night
from Cole's Hill I saw the dark clouds to seaward, lingering there
and refusing to be driven completely away, and in the gray of dawn
the morning star rose out of them, overmatching with its clear
light that of the Gurnet which shone from the murk of their depths
below. The frozen ground rang beneath the heel and the cold had
bitten deep. Out of the northwest a few flakes of snow came and it
was long before the sun shone through the clouds and touched the
top of Manomet Hill. Yet when it did it came with a burst of
golden glory and filled the sky with such rosy and benign colors
that one half expected to see a flight of Raphael's cherubs
through it to earth. And all the land beneath was softened with a
blue haze from east to south, making of it a country of romance
through which pricked towers of Aladdin palaces and in which one
knew at sight that he might find all his dearest dreams coming
true: Thus the Pilgrims saw it that first morning from Clark's
Island and the sight must have warmed the hearts of them and dried
the tears out as it dried the garments wet with salt spray and
cold rain.

The wind from the west was keen for the next few days, but it blew
all the forebodings out of the sky and to find the south side of a
hill or even a thicket was to find perfect comfort. The sea off
Manomet was no longer chaotic and menacing, but was stippled with
dancing light on a soft, rich blue that was as soothing to the
sense as the other had been disquieting. Along the south of White
Horse Beach the lapidary surf had strewn quartz pebbles that
gleamed in the clear sun like precious stones. It took little
effort of the imagination to find pocketfuls of rubies, pearls,
sapphires, and amethysts among these, and had it indeed been
"bright jewels of the mine" which the voyagers sought they might
have been pardoned for thinking they had found them there. And all
ashore under this alluring blue haze lay a country that was
superlatively lovely even under frozen skies and on the shortest
day of the year. Southerly toward it the shallop sailed in 1620,
under flocks of whirling white gulls, through flocks of black and
white Labrador ducks that then wintered in numbers along our
shores, from Clark's Island to the mouth of Town Brook.

Factories and dwellings line