imagination, while, like some strange roving craft, we flitted
past what seemed the dwellings of noble home-staying men, seemingly
as conspicuous as if on an eminence, or floating upon a tide
which came up to those villagers' breasts. At a third of a mile
over the water we heard distinctly some children repeating their
catechism in a cottage near the shore, while in the broad
shallows between, a herd of cows stood lashing their sides, and
waging war with the flies.

Two hundred years ago other catechizing than this was going on
here; for here came the Sachem Wannalancet, and his people, and
sometimes Tahatawan, our Concord Sachem, who afterwards had a
church at home, to catch fish at the falls; and here also came
John Eliot, with the Bible and Catechism, and Baxter's Call to
the Unconverted, and other tracts, done into the Massachusetts
tongue, and taught them Christianity meanwhile. "This place,"
says Gookin, referring to Wamesit,

"being an ancient and capital seat of Indians, they come to
fish; and this good man takes this opportunity to spread the
net of the gospel, to fish for their souls."--"May 5th, 1674,"
he continues, "according to our usual custom, Mr. Eliot and
myself took our journey to Wamesit, or Pawtuckett; and arriving
there that evening, Mr. Eliot preached to as many of them as
could be got together, out of Matt. xxii. 1-14, the parable
of the marriage of the king's son. We met at the wigwam of one
called Wannalancet, about two miles from the town, near
Pawtuckett falls, and bordering upon Merrimak river. This
person, Wannalancet, is the eldest son of old Pasaconaway, the
chiefest sachem of Pawtuckett. He is a sober and grave person,