Champlain tried to communicate with them, and with signs and sketches he began to have success. He took a piece of charcoal and drew a sketch of the Long Bay and Cape Ann. With gestures he asked the Indians “to show me how the coast trended.” They took the same piece of charcoal and sketched “another bay which they represented as very large. Here they placed six pebbles at equal intervals giving me to understand each marked a chief and a people,” all of the Massachusetts nation. The Indians drew a large stream and small inlet, which are today’s Charles River and Boston’s Back Bay.