20 LAWSON'S HISTORY 



ships over the bar. The harbour where the ves- 

 sels generally ride, is against the town 011 Coop- 

 er's river; lying within a point which parts that 

 and Ashley river, they being land-locked almost 

 on all sides. 



At four in the afternoon, (at half flood) we pass- 

 ed with our canoe, over the breach, leaving Sulli- 

 vans island on our starboard. The first place we 

 designed for was Santee river, on which there is 

 a colony of French protestants, allowed and en- 

 couraged by the lords proprietors. At night we 

 got to Bell's island, a poor spot of land, being about 

 ten miles round, where lived, (at that time) a Ber- 

 mudian, being employed here with a boy, to look 

 after a stock of cattle and hogs, by the owner of 

 this island. One side of the roof of his house was 

 thatched with palmetto leaves, the other open to 

 the heavens, thousands of musketoes, and other 

 troublesome insects, tormenting both man and 

 beast inhabiting these islands. The palmetto trees, 

 whose leaves growing only on the top of the tree, 

 in the shape of a fan, and in a cluster like a cab- 

 bage ; this tree in Carolina, when at its utmost 

 growth, is about forty or fifty feet in heigh th, and 

 two feet through. It is worth mentioning, that 

 the growth of the tree is not perceivable in the 

 age of any man, the experiment having been 

 often tried in Bermudas and elsewhere, which 

 shows the slow growth of this vegetable, the wood 

 of it being poms and stringy, like some canes; 

 the leave* thereof, the Bermudiaiis make womons* 



