296 LAWSON'S HISTORY 



the meetings of several Indian nations, and they 

 agreed, in relating the same circumstances as to 

 time, very exactly ; as for example, they say there 

 was so hard a winter in Carolina -one hundred and 

 five years ago, that the great sound was frozen 

 over, and the wild geese came into the woods to 

 eat acorns, and that they were so tame, I suppose 

 through want, that they killed abundance in the 

 woods by knocking them on the head with sticks. 

 But to return to the dead man. When this long 

 tale is ended, by him that spoke first ; perhaps 

 a second begins another long story ; so a third, 

 and fourth, if there be so many, doctors present ; 

 which all tell one and the same thing. At last 

 the corps is brought away from that hurdle to the 

 grave by four young men, attended by the rela- 

 tions, the king, old men, and all the nation. "When 

 they come to the sepulcre, which is about six feet 

 deep and eight feet long, having at each end, that 

 is, at the head and feet, a lightwood or pitch pine 

 fork driven close down the sides of the grave firm- 

 ly into the ground ; these two forks are to contain 

 a ridge pole, as you shall understand presently, 

 before they lay the corps into the grave, they cov- 

 er the bottom two or three times over with bark 

 of trees, then they let down the corps with two 

 belts, that the Indians carry their burdens withal, 

 very leisurely upon the said bark ; then they lay 

 over a pole of the same wood in the two forks, and 

 having a great many pieces of pitch pine logs, 

 about two feet and a half long, they stick them in 



