NORTH CAROLINA 125 



from the mountains, is a mile wide here, and flows 

 into Pemticoe Sound at Bath-town. The entrance to 

 Pemticoe Sound is below Cape Hatteras through 

 Occacock Inlet, and therefore the same as that ships 

 must take bound for Albemarle Sound or into Neus- 

 River. The generally difficult and dangerous passage 

 into the rivers and bays of North Carolina, occasioned 

 by shoal-water, sand-banks, low islands and bars, is a 

 great hindrance to the trade of this province which on 

 that account was long neglected. The trade of Wash- 

 ington is as yet trifling; the chief occupation is the 

 building of small ships and vessels, which are put to- 

 gether entirely of pine timber and sold very cheap, but 

 they do not last long, this timber quickly rotting under 

 water, but lasting well above ground. Here, as well 

 as in most of the small towns of North and South 

 Carolina and Georgia, which are unable to carry on a 

 large trade of their own, the greater part of their 

 produce is taken out by the New Englanders who, 

 (like the Hollanders in Europe), have begun to be the 

 middlemen and freight-carriers of America. They 

 generally come to these southern parts in the autumn, 

 in small schooners and shalops, spend the winter either 

 at one place or at several, bring with them cyder, 

 cheese, apples, gingerbread, rum, sugar, iron-ware, 

 and trinkets which they exchange in small trade for 

 pelts, pitch, tar, and the like, returning in the spring. 



The New Englanders are in general active and in- 

 dustrious seamen, full of enterprise. The whale- 

 in and sold there 7-8000 Pd. of English goods ; not all paid 

 for at this time. 



On the banks of the river as far as Martinsburg &c. there 

 are found various shell-banks, full of oyster and other shells. 



