It is an extract from William Bradford's “History of Plymouth Plantation”. It covers the years (1650-1651). William Bradford, a fervent puritan, was one of the pilgrims who sailed to America on the Mayflower. He was one of the persecuted people and contributed to found the Plymouth colony. The extract is from his journal.

The first impression the reader gets is one of privation and solitude, which is conveyed by a negative syntax “had no friends” “nor inns” “no houses”.

Absolute negation also communicates the idea among the pilgrims that they had to be selfreliant. Also the text makes the reader understand that there might have been a deep sense of values that helped the pilgrims' autonomy.

In addition, semantic choices like “succor” make it clear that they knew the dangers they were going to fall. The alliteration at line 2 “beaten bodies” highlights the precarious body conditions of the pilgrims.

The idea of strong convictions is clearly expressed in the second section of the text, where the Pilgrim Father resorts to the Scriptures of the Apostles to underline the idea that they didn't expect to be helped. The lines are particularly interesting since they make the reader understand the kind of prejudice on the basis of which they derived their knowledge of the world. The text makes use of language like “the barbarians”, “these savage barbarians” or “were readier to fill their sides of arrows”.

In addition, the pilgrims were aware of the hardships they had to come to terms with during the winter, season during which they took their voyage.

Their awareness is underlined by a list of adjectives like “sharp and violent”, “cruel and fierce”, “dangerous” and “unknown” and in the coming lines “hideous and desolate wilderness”.

It sounds as if “wilderness” is their final destination “wild men”, the idea of unexpected is, once again, present in the syntax of the following lines “neither could they”.Also reinforced by the emphasis edit by word order deviation.