120 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



fishery in which they are engaged, especially the in- 

 habitants of Nantucket, brings it about that they visit 

 the most distant seas and parts of America. They 

 follow their gainful pursuits, now on the coast of 

 Labrador, now among the West Indian islands and 

 they have often cruised even to the Falkland islands. 

 But their somewhat more vigorous traffick, as it ap- 

 pears, with the inhabitants of North Carolina, besides 

 being due to the profits and advantages on both sides, 

 may be explicable further because of very many New 

 England emigrants having settled in North Carolina. 



The nearer, so-called post-road to the South, for- 

 merly ran from Duckenfield, on the south side of 

 Albemarle Sound, straight to Bath-town, on the north 

 side of Pemticoe Sound (a distance of 45 miles) but 

 the ferriage over the latter, 8-9 miles across, being 

 often long delayed by wind and weather or other hin- 

 drances, and Bath-town, a place of hardly a dozen 

 houses, affording scant accommodations for travellers, 

 they preferred turning off to Washington and consid- 

 ered that by avoiding such obstacles they were repaid 

 for going the long road. 



The space between the Albemarle and the Pemticoe 

 Sound is mainly filled by a swamp of great length and 

 compass. This also, from the unwholesomeness of its 

 neighborhood, is called Dismal Swamp. It bears be- 

 sides the name of Alligator or Crocodile Swamp, those 

 animals frequenting the region rather plentifully. It 

 is commonly said that the Alligator or American croco- 

 dile is found no farther north than the Neuse river, 

 but it is nothing rare to see them much to the north of 

 that, i. e., about Cape Henry in Virginia. 



On the road from Edenton to Washington not a soul 



