13 THE HISTORY OF 



veiy serviceable in transporting us over the many waters in that dirty and 

 difficult part of our business. Our landlord had a tolerable good house and 

 clean furniture, and yet we could not be tempted to lodge in it. We chose 

 rather to lie in the open field, for fear of growing too tender. A clear sky, 

 spangled with stars, was our canopy, which being the last thing we saw be- 

 fore we fell asleep, gave us magnificent dreams. The truth of it is, we took 

 so much pleasure in that natural kind of lodging, that I think at the foot of 

 the account mankind are great losers by the luxury of feather beds and 

 warm apartments. 



The curiosity of beholding so new and withal so sweet a method of en- 

 camping, brought one of the senators of North Carolina to make us a mid- 

 night visit. But he was so very clamorous in his coumiendations of it, that 

 the sentinel, not seeing his quality, either through his habit or behaviour, had 

 like to have treated Mm roughly. After excusing the unseasonableness of 

 his visit, and letting us know he was a parliament man, he swore he was so 

 taken with our lodging, that he would set fire to his house as soon as he got 

 home, and teach his wife and children to lie, like us, in the open field. 



13th. Early this morning our chaplain repaired to us with the men we had 

 left at Mr. Wilson's. Vv^e had sent for them the evening before to relieve 

 those who had the labour-oar from Coratuck inlet. But to our great surprise, 

 they, petitioned not to be relieved, hoping to gain immortal reputation by be- 

 ing the first of mankind that ventured through the great Dismal. But the 

 rest being equally ambitious of the same honour, it was but fair to decide 

 their pretensions by lot. After fortune had declared herself, those which she 

 had excluded offered money to the happy persons to go in their stead. But 

 Hercules would have as soon sold the glory of cleansing the Augean stables, 

 which was pretty near the same sort of work. No sooner was the contro- 

 versy at an end, but we sent those unfortunate fellows back to their quarters, 

 whom chance had condemned to remain upon firm land and sleep in a whole 

 skin. In the mean while the surveyors carried the line three miles, which 

 was no contemptible day's work, considering how cruelly they were entan- 

 gled with briers and gall bushes. The leaf of this last shrub bespeaks it to 

 be of the alaternus family. 



Our work ended within a quarter of a mile of the Dismal a'oove-mentioned, 

 where the ground began to be already full of sunken holes and slashes, which 

 had, here and there, some few reeds growing in them. It is hardly credible 

 hc)W little the bordering inhabitants were acquainted with this mighty swamp, 

 notwithstanding they had lived their whole lives within smell of it. Yet, as 

 great strangers as they weie to it, they pretended to be very exact in their 

 account of its dimensions, and were positive it could not be above seven or 

 eight miles wide, but knew no more of the matter than star-gazers know of 

 the distance of the fixed stars. At the same time, they were simple enough 

 to amuse our men with idle stories of the lions, panthers and alligators, they 

 were like to encounter in that dreadful place. In short, we saw plainly there 

 was no intelligence of this terra incognita to be got, but from our own ex- 

 perience. For that reason it was resolved to make the requisite dispositions 

 to enter it next morning. We allotted every one of the surveyors for this 

 painful enterprise, with twelve men to attend them. Fewer than that could 

 not be employed in clearing the way, carrying the chain, marking the trees, 

 and bearing the necessary bedding and provisions. Nor would the commis- 

 sioners themselves have spared their persons on this occasion, but for fear of 

 adding to the poor men's burthen, while they were certain they could add 

 nothing to their resolution. 



We quartered with our friend and fellow traveller, William Wilkins, who 

 had been our faithful pilot to Coratuck, and lived about a mile from the place 



