In the entrance of the river, and for two or three miles up, there is good anchoring in four and five fathom water, and places very convenient for laying a vessel on shore, where the tide rises and falls seven feet at the full and change of the moon.  We could not determine whether any considerable stream of fresh water came into this river out of the country; but we saw a number of small rivulets issue from the adjacent hills.  Near the mouth of this river, on the east side, we found a little Indian village, consisting of small temporary sheds, where we landed, and were received by the people with the utmost kindness and hospitality:  They treated us with a flat shell-fish of a most delicious taste, somewhat like a cockle, which we eat hot from the coals.  Near this place is a high point or peninsula, projecting into the river, and upon it are the remains of a fort, which they call eppah, or heppah.  The best engineer in Europe could not have chosen a situation better adapted to enable a small number to defend themselves against a greater.  The steepness of the cliffs renders it wholly inaccessible from the water which incloses it on three sides; and, to the land, it is fortified by a ditch, and a bank raised on the inside:  From the top of the bank to the bottom of the ditch, is two-and-twenty feet; the ditch on the outside is fourteen feet deep, and its breadth is in proportion.  The whole seemed to have been executed with great judgment; and there had been a row of pickets or pallisadoes, both on the top of the bank and along the brink of the ditch on the outside; those on the outside had been driven very deep into the ground, and were inclined towards the ditch, so as to project over it; but of these the thickest posts only were left, and upon them there were evident marks of fire, so that the place had probably been taken and destroyed by an enemy.  If any occasion should make it necessary for a ship to winter here, or stay any time, tents might be built in this place, which is sufficiently spacious, with great convenience, and might easily be made impregnable to the whole country.

On the 11th, there was so much wind and rain that no canoe came off; but the long-boat was sent to fetch oysters from one of the beds which had been discovered the day before:  The boat soon returned, deeply laden, and the oysters, which were as good as ever came from Colchester, and about the same size, were laid down under the booms, and the ship’s company did nothing but eat them from the time they came on board till night, when, as may reasonably be supposed, great part of them were expended; this, however, gave us no concern, as we knew that not the boat only, but the ship, might have been loaded, almost in one tide, as the beds are dry at half-ebb.