OF NORTH CAROLINA. 331 



ever see one of them left handed. Before the 

 Christians came amongst them, not knowing the 

 use of steel and flints, they got their fire with 

 sticks, which by vehement collision or rubbing 

 together, take fire. This method they will some- 

 times practice now, when it has happened through 

 rainy weather, or some other accident, that they 

 have wet their spunk, which is a sort of soft, corky 

 substance, generally of a cinnamon color, and 

 grows in the concave part of an oak, hickor}% and 

 several other woods, being dug out with an axe 

 and always kept by the Indians, instead of tinder 

 or touchwood, both which it exceeds. You are 

 to understand that the two sticks they use to strike 

 fire withal are never of one sort of wood, but al- 

 ways differ from each other. 



They are expert travelers, and though they have 

 not the use of our artificial compass, yet they un- 

 derstand the north point exactly, let them be in 

 never so great a wilderness. One guide is a short 

 moss, that grows upon some trees, exactly on the 

 north side thereof. 



Besides, they have names for eight of the thirty- 

 two points, and call the winds by their several 

 names, as we do ; but indeed more properly : for 

 the north west wind is called the cold wind; the 

 north east, the wet wind ; the south, the warm 

 wind, and so agreeable of the rest. Sometimes it 

 happens that they nave a large river or lake to 

 pass over, and the weather is very foggy, as it 

 often happens in the spring and fall of the leaf; 



