OP NORTH CAROLINA. 287 



sic of their own making I ever saw amongst them. 

 To these two instruments they sing, which carries 

 no air with it, but is a sort of unsavory jargon; 

 yet their cadences and raising of their voices are 

 formed with that equality and exactness that, to 

 us Europeans, it seems admirable how they should 

 continue these songs without once missing to agree, 

 each with the others note and tune. 



As for their dancing, were there masters of that 

 profession amongst them as there are with us, they 

 would dearly earn their money ; for these crea- 

 tures take the most pains at it that men are able 

 to endure. I have seen thirty odd together a dan- 

 cing, and every one dropped down with sweat, as 

 if water had been poured down their backs. They 

 use those hard labors to make them able to endure 

 fatigue and improve their wind, which indeed is 

 very long and durable, it being a hard matter in 

 any exercise to dispossess them of it. 



At these feasts, they meet from all the towns 

 within'fifty or sixty milesround, where they buy 

 and sell several commodities, as we do at fairs and 

 markets. Besides they game very much, and of- 

 ten strip one another of all they have in the world ; 

 and what is more, I have known several of them 

 play themselves away, so that they have remained 

 the winners servants, till their relations or them- 

 selves could pay the money to redeem them ; and 

 when this happens, the loser is never dejected or 

 melancholy at the loss, but laughs and seems no 

 less contented than if he had won. They never 



