22 ' THE HISTORY OF 



Since the surveyors had entered the Dismal, tliey had laid eyes on no living 

 creature : neither bird nor beast, insect nor reptile came in view. Doubtless, 

 the eternal shade that broods over this mighty bog, and hinders the sun- 

 beams from blessing the ground, makes it an uncomfortable habitation for 

 any thing that has life. Not so much as a Zealand frog could endure so 

 aguish a situation. It had one beauty, however, that delighted the eye, 

 though at the expense of all the other senses: the moisture of the soil pre- 

 serves a continual verdure, and makes every plant an evergreen, but at the 

 same time the foul damps ascend without ceasing, corrupt the air, and ren- 

 der it unfit for respiration. Not even a turkey buzzard will venture to fly 

 over it, no more than the Italian vultures will over the filthy lake Avernus, or 

 the birds in the Holy Land, over the Salt sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah 

 formerly stood. 



In these sad circumstances, the kindest thing we could do for our suffering 

 friends was to give them a place in the Litany. Our chaplain, for his part, 

 did his office, and rubbed us up with a seasonable sermon. This was quite 

 a new thing to our brethren of North Carolina, who live in a climate where 

 no clergyman can breathe, any more than spiders in Ireland. 



For want of men in holy orders, both the members of the council and 

 justices of the peace are empowered by the laws of that country to marry 

 all those who will not take one another's word; but for the ceremony of 

 christening their children, they trust that to chance. If a parson come in 

 their way, they will crave a cast of his office, as they call it, else they are 

 content their offspring should remain as arrant pagans as themselves. They 

 account it among their greatest advantages that they are not priest-ridden, 

 not remembering that the clergy is rarely guilty of bestriding such as have 

 the misfortune to be poor. One thing may be said for the inhabitants of that 

 province, that they are not troubled with any religious fumes, and have the 

 least superstition of any people living. They do not know Sunday from any 

 other day, any more than Robinson Crusoe did, which would give them a 

 great advantage were they given to be industrious. But they keep so many 

 sabbaths every week, that their disregard of the seventh day has no manner 

 of cruelty in it, either to servants or cattle. It was with some difficulty we 

 could make our people quit the good cheer they met with at this house, so it 

 was late before we took our departure ; but to make us amends, our landlord 

 was so good as to conduct us ten miles on our way, as far as the Cypress 

 swamp, which drains itself into the Dismal. Eight miles beyond that we 

 forded the waters of the Coropeak, which tend the same way as do many 

 others on that side. In six miles more we reached the plantation of Mr. 

 Thomas Spight, a grandee of North Carolina. We found the good man upon 

 his crutches, being crippled with the gout in both his knees. Here we flat- 

 tered ourselves we should by this time meet with good tidings of the survey- 

 ors, but had reckoned, alas ! without our host : on the contrary, we were told 

 the Dismal was at least thirty miles wide in that place. However, as nobody 

 could say this on his own knowledge, we ordered guns to be fired and a drum 

 to be beaten, but received no answer, unless it was from that prating nymph 

 Echo, who, like a loquacious wife, will always have the last word, and some- 

 times return three for one. It was indeed no wonder our signal was not 

 heard at that time, by the people in the Dismal, because, in truth, they had 

 not then penetrated one third of their way. They had that morning fallen 

 to work with great vigour ; and, finding the ground better than ordinary, 

 drove on the line two miles and thirty-eight poles. This was reckoned an 

 Herculean day's work, and yet they would not have stopped there, had not 

 an impenetrable cedar thicket checked their industry. Our landlord had 

 seated himself on the borders of this Dismal, for the advantage of the green 



