24 OP NORTH CAROLINA. 



caip.e to a deserted Indian residence, called Aven- 

 liaugliboiigli, where we rested that night. 



The next day we entered Santee river's month, 

 where is fresh water, occasioned by the extraor- 

 dinary current that comes down continually. — 

 With hard rowing, we got two leagues up the 

 river, lying all night in a swampy piece of ground, 

 the weather being so cold all that time, we were 

 almost frozen ere morning, leaving the impression 

 of our bodies on the wet ground. We set forward 

 very early in the morning to seek some better 

 quarters. As we rowed up the river we found 

 the land towards the mouth, and for about six- 

 teen miles up it, scarce any thing but swamp po- 

 cosin, affording vast cypress trees, of which the 

 French make canoes that will carry fifty or sixty 

 barrels. After the tree is moulded and dug they 

 saw them in two pieces, and so put a plank be- 

 twixt and a small keel to preserve them from the 

 oyster banks, which are innumerable in the creeks 

 and bays between the French settlement and 

 Charlestown. They carry two masts and bermudas 

 sails, which makes them very handy and fit for 

 their purpose ; for although their river fetches its 

 first rise from the mountains and continues a cur- 

 rent some hundreds of miles ere it disgorges it- 

 self, having no sound, bay or sand banks betwixt 

 the mouth thereof and the ocean. ;N"otwithstand- 

 ing all this, with the vast stream it aftbrds at all 

 seasons, and the repeated freshes it so often alarms 

 the inhabitants with, by laying iinder water great 



