598 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



No. 10 



pitable swanip, and consequently we had reason 

 to believe their provisions were quite spent. 



We knew they worked hard, and iherelbre would 

 eat heartily, so long as they had wherewithal to 

 recruit their spirits, not iniaginino; the swamp so 

 wide as they tbund it. Had we been able to guess 

 where the line would come out, we would have 

 sent men to meet them with a liesh supply. Eut 

 as we could know nothing of that, and as we had 

 neither compass nor surveyor to guide a messen- 

 ger on such an errand, we were unwilling to ex- 

 pose him to no purpose ; therelbre, all we were 

 able to do l()r them in so great an extremity, was 

 to recommend them to a merciful Providence. 



However long we might think the time, yet we 

 were cautious ot" shewing our uneasiness, for fear 

 of mortilying our landlord. He had done his best 

 for us, and thereibre we were unwilling he should 

 think us dissatisfied with our entertainment. In 

 the nfidst of our concern, we were most agreeably 

 surprised just alter dinner, with the news that the 

 Dismalites were all sale. These blessed tidings 

 was brought us by Mr. Swan, the Carolina sur- 

 veyor, who came to us in a very tattered condilion. 



Afier very short salutations, we got about him 

 as il' he had been a Hottentot, and began to in- 

 quire into his adventures. He gave us a detail of 

 their uncomfortable voyage through the Dismal, 

 and told us, particularly, they had pursued their 

 journey early that morning, encouraged by the 

 good omen of seeing the crows fly over their 

 heads ; that after an hour's tiiarch over very rotten 

 ground, they on a sudden began to find them- 

 selves among tall pines that grew in the water, 

 which, in many places, was knee-deep. This 

 pine swamj), into which that of Coropeak drained 

 itself extended near a mile in breadth, and though 

 it was exceednigly wet, yet was much harder at 

 the bottom than the rest of the swamj) : that 

 about ten in the morning they recovered firm land, 

 which they embraced with as much pleasure, as 

 shipwrecked wretches do the shore. 



After these honest adventurers had congratu- 

 lated each others' deliverance, their first inquiry 

 was for a good house, where they miijht satisfy 

 the importunity of their stomachs. Their good 

 genius directed them to Mr. Brinkley's, who 

 dwells a little to the southward of the line. This 

 man began immediately to be ver}^ inquisitive, but 

 they declared they had no spirits to answer ques- 

 tions till after dinner. 



"But pray gentlemen," said he, "answer' me 

 one (juestion at least: what will you have lor 

 your dinner ?" To which they replied, " No mat- 

 ter what, provided it be but enough." He kindly 

 supplied their wants as soon as possible, and by 

 the strength of that refreshment, they made a 

 shift to come to us in the evening, to tell their own 

 story. They all looked very thin, and as ragged 

 as the Gibeonite ambassadors did in the days of 

 yore. Our surveyors told us they had measured 

 ten miles in the Dismal, and conipuied the dis- 

 tance they had marched since, to amount to about 

 five more : so they made the whole breadth to be 

 15 miles in all. 



23rd. — It was very reasonable that t4ie sur- 

 veyors, and the men who had been sharers in their 

 fatigue, should now have a little rest. They were 

 all, exce|)t one, in good health and good heart, bles- 

 sed be God, notwithstanding the dreadful hardships 

 they had gone through. It was really a pleasure 



to see the cheerfulness wherewith they received 

 the order to prepare to re-en'er the Dismal on the 

 Monday following, in order to continue the line 

 from the i)lace where they had left off measuring, 

 that so we might have the exact breadth of liiat 

 dirty place. There were no more than two of 

 them that could be persuaded to be relieved on 

 this occasion, or suffer the other men to share the 

 credit of that boKI undertaking. Neither would 

 these have sutlered it, had not one of them been 

 very lame, and the other nmch indisposed. 



By the description the surveyors gave of the 

 Dismal, we were convinced that nothing but the 

 exceeding dry season we had been blessed with, 

 could have made the passing of it [)racticable. it 

 is the source of no less than five several rivers, 

 which 'discharge themselves southward into Al- 

 bemarle Sound, and of two that run northerly into 

 Virginia. From thence, it is easy to imagine 

 that the soil must be thoroughly soaked with wa- 

 ter, or else there must be plentiful stores of it .under 

 ground, to suppl}' so many rivers — especially since 

 there is no lake, or any considerable body of that 

 eleme.it to be seen on the surface. < The rivers 

 that head in it from Virginia, are the South Bninch 

 of Nan^imond, and the West Branch of Eliza- 

 beth — and those (i'om Carolina, are North- West 

 River, North River, Pasquotank, Little River, 

 and Perquimons. 



There is orie remarkable part of the Dismal 

 lying to the south of the line, that has few or no 

 trees growing on it, but contains a large tract of 

 tail reeds; these being green all the year round, 

 and waving with every wind, have procured it 

 the name of the "Green Sea." i 



We are not yet acquainted with the precise ex- 

 tent of the Dismal, the whole having never been 

 surveyed: but it may be computed at a medium 

 to be about 30 mi^es long, and 10 miles broad, 

 though where the line crossed it, it was complete- 

 ly 15 miles wide. But it seems to grow narrow- 

 er towards the north, or at least' does so in many 

 places. t The exhalations, that continually rise 

 liom this vast body of mire. and nastiness, infect 

 the air ibr many miles round, and render it very 

 unwholesome for the bordering inhabitants. It 

 makes them liable to agues, pleurisies, and many 

 other distempers that kill abundance of people, 

 and make the rest look no better than ghosts. It 

 would require a great sum of money to drain it ; 

 but the public treasure could not be better bestow- 

 ed than to preserve the lives of his majesty's liege 

 people, and at the same time render so great a 

 tract of' swanip very profitable, besides the advan- 

 tage of making a channel to transport, by water 

 carriage, goods from Albemarle Sound into Nan- 

 simond and Elizabeth rivers in Virginia. 

 # * * * # 



2Sth.— Our time passed heavily in our quar- 

 ters, where we were quite cloyed with the Ca- 

 rolina fijlicity of having nothing to do. It was 

 really more insupportable than the greatest fatigue, 

 and made us even envy the drudgery of our 

 friends in the Dismal: besides, though the men 



f This supposition of the breadth of the swamp was 

 greatly short of the truth. According to the latest 

 map, it is more narrow where the lino crossed than at 

 any more northefn part, until the termination is nearly 

 reached. — Ed. 



