THE DIVIDING LINE. 21 



with tlieir wool for Ihcir outer garments; thougli, for want of fulling, tliat 

 kind of nianufaetnre is open and sleazy. Flax likewise thrives there ex- 

 tremely, being perhaps as tine as any in the world, and I question not might, 

 with a little care, be brought to rival that of Egypt; and yet the men are 

 here so intolerably lazy, they seldom take the trouble to propagate it. 



IGth. The line was this day carried one mile and a half and sixteen poles. 

 The soil continued soft and miry, but fuller of trees, especially white cedars. 

 Many of these too were thrown down and i)iled in heaps, high enough for a 

 good Muscovite fortification. The worst of it was, the poor fellows began 

 now to be troubled with fluxes, occasioned by bad water and moist lodging: 

 but chewing of rhubarb kept that malady within bounds. 



In the mean time the commissioners decamped early in the morning, and 

 made a march of twenty-five miles, as far as Mr. Andrew Mead's, who lives upon 

 Nansemond river. They were no sooner got under the shelter of that hos- 

 pitable roof, but it began to rain hard, and continued so to do great part of 

 the night. This gave them much pain for their filends in the Dismal, whose 

 sufferings spoiled their taste for the good cheer, wherewith they were enter- 

 tained themselves. However, late that evening, these poor men had the for- 

 tune to come upon another terra firma, which was the luckier for them, be- 

 cause the lower ground, by the rain that foil, Avas made a fitter lodging for 

 tadpoles than men. In our journey we remarked that the north side of this 

 great swamp lies higher than either the east or the west, nor were the ap- 

 proaches to it so full of sunken grounds. We passed by no less than two 

 quaker meeting houses, one of which had an awkward ornament on the west 

 end of it, that seemed to ape a steeple. I must own I expected no such piece 

 of foppery from a sect of so much outside simplicity. That persuasion pre- 

 vails much in the lower end of Nansemond county, for want of ministers to 

 pilot the people a decenter way to heaven. The ill reputation of tobacco 

 planted in those lower parishes makes the clergy unwilling to accept of them, 

 unless it be such whose abilities are as mean as their pay. Thus, whether 

 the churches be quite void or but indifferently filled, the quakers will have an 

 opportunity of gaining proselytes. It is a wonder no popish missionaries are 

 sent from Maryland to labour in this neglected vineyard, who we know have 

 zeal enough to traverse sea and land on the meritorious errand of making 

 converts. Nor is it less strange that some wolf in sheep's clothing arrives 

 not from New England to lead astray a flock that has no shepherd. People 

 uninstructed in any religion are ready to embrace the first that offers. It is 

 natural for helpless man to adore his Maker in some form or other, and were 

 there any exception to this rule, I should suspect it to be among the Hotten- 

 tots of the cape of Good Hope and of North Carolina. 



There fell a great deal of rain in the night, accompanied with a strong 

 wind. The fellow-feeling we had for the poor Dismalites, on account of this 

 unkind weather, rendered the down we laid upon uneasy. We fancied them 

 half-drowned in their wet lodging, with the trees blowing down about their 

 ears. These were the gloomy images our fears suggested ; though it was 

 so much uneasiness clear gain. They happened to come off much better, by 

 being luckily encamped on the dry piece of ground afore-mentioned. 



1 7th. They were, however, forced to keep the sabbath in spite of their 

 teeth, contrary to the dispensation our good chaplain had given them. In- 

 deed, their short allowance of provision would have justified their making 

 ihe best of their way, without distinction of days. It was certainly a work 

 both of necessity and self-preservation, to save themselves from starving. 

 Nevertheless, the hard rain had made every thing so thoroughly wet, that it 

 was quite impossible to do any business. They therefore made a virtue of 

 what they could not help, and contentedly rested in their dry situation. 



4 



