THE DIVIDING LIJNE 



41 



About four o'clock in the afternoon we took up our quarters upon Caban 

 branch, which also discharges itself into Fountain creek. On our way we 

 observed several meadows clothed with very rank grass, and branches full of 

 tall reeds, in which cattle keep themselves fat good part of the winter. But 

 .hogs are as injurious to both as goats are said to be to vines, and for that rea- 

 son it was not lawful to sacrifice them to Bacchus. We halted by the way 

 to christen two children at a spring, where iheir mothers waylaid us for 

 that good purpose. 



27th. It was ten o'clock befoi^e the surveyors got to work, because some of 

 the horses had straggled a ^ great distance from the camp. Nevertheless, 

 meeting with practicable woods, they advanced the line nine miles and a hun- 

 dred and four poles. We crossed over Pea creek about four miles from our 

 quarters, and, three miles farther, Lizard creek, both which empty their wa- 

 ters into Roanoke river. Between these two creeks a poor man waited for 

 us with five children to be baptized, and we halted till the ceremony was 

 ended. The land seemed to be very good, by the largeness of tlie trees, 

 though very stony. We proceeded as far as Pigeon-roost creek, which also 

 runs into Roanoke, and there quartered. We had not the pleasure of the 

 company of any of the Carolina commissioners in this day's march, except 

 Mr. Moseley's, the rest tarrying behind to wait the coming up of their baggage 

 cart, which they had now not seen nor heard (though the wheels made a dis- 

 mal noise) for several days past. Indeed it was a very difficult undertaking to 

 conduct a cart through such pathless and perplexed woods, and no wonder 

 if its motion was a little planetary. We would have paid them the compli- 

 ment of waiting for them, could we have done it at any other expense but 

 that of the public. 



In the stony grounds we rode over we found great quantity of the true ipo- 

 coacanna, which in this part of the world is called Indian physic. This has se- 

 veral stalks growing up from the same root about a foot high, bearing a leaf 

 resembling that of a strawberry. It is not so strong as that from Brazil, but 

 has the same happy effects, if taken in somewhat a larger dose. It is an ex- 

 cellent vomit, and generally cures intermitting fevers and bloody fluxes at 

 once or twice taking. There is abundunce of it in the upper part of the 

 country, where it delights most in a stony soil intermixed with black mould. 



28th. Our surveyors got early to work, yet could forward the line but six 

 miles and a hundred and twenty-one poles, because of the uneven grounds 

 in the neighbourhood of Roanoke, which they crossed in this day's work. 

 In that place the river is forty-nine poles wide, and rolls down a crystal 

 stream of very sweet water, insomuch that when there comes to be a 

 great monarch in this part of tlie world, he will cause all the water for his 

 own table to be brought from Roanoke, as the great kings of Persia did 

 theirs from the Nile, and Choaspis, because the waters of those rivers were 

 light, and not apt to corrupt.* 



The great falls of Roanoke lie about twenty miles lower, to which a sloop 

 of moderate burthen may come up. There are, besides these, many smaller 

 falls above, though none that entirely intercept the passage of the river, as 

 the great ones do, by a chain of rocks for eight miles together. The river 

 forks about thirty-six miles higher, and both branches are pretty equal in 

 breadth where they divide, though the southern, now called the Dan, runs up 

 the farthest. That to the north runs away near north-west, and is called the 

 {Staunton, and heads not far from the source of Appomattox river, while the 



* The same humour prevails at this day in the kings of Denmark, who oider all the 

 East India ships of that nation to call at the cape of Good Hope, and take in a but of wa- 

 ter fiom a spring on the Table Hill, and bring it to Copenhagen, for their majesties' own 

 drinking. 



