to the right, but in those days the traffic went by canal through the heart of the city . . . .  Passing out of the gates of Delft and leaving the town behind, they had still a good ten miles of canal journey before them ere they reached their vessel and came to the final parting, for, as Mr. Van Pelt has clearly shown, it is a mistake to confound Delft with Delfshaven, as the point of embarkation in the Speedwell.  Below Delft the canal, which from Leyden thither is the Vliet, then becomes the Schie, and at the village of Overschie the travellers entered the Delfshaven Canal, which between perfectly straight dykes flows at a considerable height above the surrounding pastures.  Then finally passing through one set of sluice gates after another, the Pilgrims were lifted from the canal into a broad receptacle for vessels, then into the outer haven, and so to the side of the Speedwell as she lay at the quay awaiting their arrival.”

Dr. Holmes has prettily pictured the “Departure” in his “Robinson of Leyden,” even if not altogether correctly, geographically.

“He spake; with lingering, long embrace,
With tears of love and partings fond,
They floated down the creeping Maas,
Along the isle of Ysselmond.

“They passed the frowning towers of Briel,
The ‘Hook of Holland’s’ shelf of sand,
And grated soon with lifting keel
The sullen shores of Fatherland.

“No home for these! too well they knew
The mitred king behind the throne;
The sails were set, the pennons flew,
And westward ho! for worlds unknown.”

Winslow informs us that they of the Leyden congregation who volunteered for the American enterprise were rather the smaller fraction of the whole body, though he adds, as noted “that the difference was not great.”  A careful analysis of the approximate list of the Leyden colonists, —­including, of course, Carver, and Cushman and his family,—­whose total number seems to have been seventy-two, indicates that of this number, forty-two, or considerably more than half (the rest being children, seamen, or servants), were probably members of the Leyden church.  Of these, thirty, probably, were males and twelve females.  The exact proportion this number bore to the numerical strength of Robinson’s church at that time cannot be determined, because while something less than half as we know, gave their votes for the American undertaking, it cannot be known whether or not the women of church had a vote in the matter.  Presumably they did not, the primitive church gave good heed to the words of Paul (i Corinthians xiv. 34), “Let your women keep silence in the churches.”  Neither can it be known—­if they had a voice—­whether the wives and daughters of some of the embarking Pilgrims, who did not go themselves at this time, voted with their husbands and fathers for the removal.  The total number, seventy-two, coincides very nearly