They have great powers of ridicule, and are excellent
mimics, many of them discovering and imitating the peculiarities
of our own people before we had observed them ourselves.
These were the people with whom I was to spend a few months, and
who, with the exception of the officer, Nicholas, the Frenchman,
and the boy, made the whole population of the beach. I ought,
perhaps, to except the dogs, for they were an important part of
our settlement. Some of the first vessels brought dogs out with
them, who, for convenience, were left ashore, and there
multiplied, until they came to be a great people. While I was on
the beach, the average number was about forty, and probably an
equal, or greater, number are drowned, or killed in some other
way, every year. They are very useful in guarding the beach, the
Indians being afraid to come down at night; for it was impossible
for any one to get within half a mile of the hide-houses without a
general alarm. The father of the colony, old Sachem, so called
from the ship in which he was brought out, died while I was there,
full of years, and was honorably buried. Hogs and a few chickens
were the rest of the animal tribe, and formed, like the dogs, a
common company, though they were all known, and usually fed at the
houses to which they belonged.
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