332 



so that they cannot see which course to steer; in 

 such : a case, they being on one side of the river 

 or lake, they know well enough what course such 

 a place, which they intend for, bears from them. 

 Therefore, they get a great many sticks and chunks 

 of wood in their canoe and then set off directly 

 for their port, and now and then throw over a 

 piece of wood, which directs them, by seeing how 

 the stick bears from the canoe stern, which they 

 always observe to keep right aft; and this is the 

 Indian compass, by which they will go over a 

 broad water of ten or twenty leagues wide. They 

 will find the head of any river, though it is five, 

 six, or seven hundred miles off, and they never 

 were there in their lives before, as is often proved 

 by their appointing to meet on the head of such a 

 river, where, perhaps, none of them ever was 

 before, but where they shall rendezvous exactly at 

 the prefixed time ; and if they meet with any ob- 

 struction, they leave certain marks in the way 

 where they that come after, will understand how 

 many have passed by already, and which way they 

 are gone. 



Besides, in their war expeditious, tliey have 

 very certain hieroglyphics, whereby each party in- 

 forms the other of the success or losses they have 

 met withal ; all which is so exactly performed by 

 their sylvan marks and characters, that they are 

 never at a loss to understand one another. Yet 

 there was never found any letters amongst the sav- 

 of Carolina: nor I believe, amon<r anv other 



