"Certain Useful Directions
for Such as Intend a Voyage into Those Parts"
By Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow |
as published in
Mourt's Relation : A
relation or journal of the beginning and proceedings of the English Plantation
settled at
Plimoth in New England, London, 1622 |
"Now because I expect your
coming unto us, with other of our friends, whose company we much
desire, I thought good to advertise you of a few things needful.
"Be careful to have a very
good bread-room to put your biscuits in. Let your cask for beer and water be iron-bound,
for the first tier, if not more. Let not your meat be dry-salted; none can better do it
than the sailors. Let your meal be so hard trod in your cask that you shall need an adz or
hatchet to work it out with. Trust not too much on us for corn at this time, for by reason
of this last company that came, depending wholly upon us, we shall have little enough till
harvest. Be careful to come by some of your meal to spend by the way; it will much refresh
you. Build your cabins as open as you can, and bring good store of clothes and bedding
with you. Bring every man a musket or fowling-piece. Let your piece be long in the barrel,
and fear not the weight of it, for most of our shooting is from stands. Bring juice of
lemons, and take it fasting; it is of good use. For hot water, aniseed water is the best,
but use it sparingly. If you bring anything for comfort in the country, butter or
salad
oil, or both, is very good. Our Indian corn, even the coarsest, maketh as pleasant meat as
rice; therefore spare that, unless to spend by the way. Bring paper and linseed oil for
your windows, with cotton yarn for your lamps. Let your shot be most for big fowls, and
bring store of powder and shot. I forbear further to write for the present, hoping to see
you by the next return. So I take my leave, commending you to the Lord for a safe conduct
unto us." |