832 ' LAWSON S HISTORY 



SO that they cannot see which course to steer ; in 

 such a case, they being on one side of the river 

 or lake, they know well enough what course such 

 a place, which they intend for, bears from them. 

 Therefore, they get a great many sticks and chunks 

 of wood in their canoe and then set off directly 

 for their port, and now and then throw over a 

 piece of wood, vvhich directs them, by seeing how 

 the stick bears from the canoe stern, which they 

 always observe to keep right aft ; and this is the 

 Indian compass^ by which they will go over a 

 broad water of ten or twenty leagues wide. They 

 ivill find the head of any river, though it is -^Ye, 

 six, or seven hundred miles o-&] and they never 

 were there in their lives before, as is often proved 

 hj their appointing to meet on the head of such a 

 river, where, perhaps, none of them ever was 

 before, but where they shall rendezvous exactly at 

 the prefixed time ; and if they meet with any ob- 

 struction, they leave certain marks in the way 

 where they that come after, will understand how 

 many have passed by already, and which way they 

 ar% gone. 



Besides, in their war expeditions, they have 

 very certain hierogl^^Dhics, whereby each party in- 

 forms the other of the success or losses they have 

 met withal ; all which, is so exactly performed by 

 their sylvan marks and characters, that they are 

 never at a loss to understand one another. Yet 

 there was never found any letters amongst the sav- 

 ages of Carolina ; nor I believe, among any other 



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