st6 
TRAVELS IN' 
chanting fpot, nor even any road or pathway to it 3 
yet they fay that they frequently meet with certain 
figns of its being inhabited* as the building of ca- 
noes* footfteps of men* &c. They tell another 
ftory concerning the inhabitants of this fequeftered 
country, which fee ms probable enough, which is, 
that they are the pofterity of a fugitive remnant of 
the ancient Y amafes, who efcaped maffacre after a 
bloody and dec! five conflidb between them and the 
Creek nation (who, it is certain, conquered, and 
nearly exterminated, that once powerful people), 
and here found an afylum, remote and fecure from 
the fury of their proud conquerors. It is, however, 
certain that there is a vaft lake, or drowned fwamp, 
well known, and often vifited both by white and In- 
dian hunters, and on its environs the moft valuable 
hunting grounds in Florida, well worth contending 
for, by thole powers whofe territories border upon 
it. From this great fource of rivers St. Mary 
arifes, and meanders through a vail plain and pine 
foreft, near an hundred and fifty miles to the ocean, 
with which it communicates, between the points of 
Amelia and Talbert Hands ; the waters flow deep 
and gently down from its fource to the fea. 
Having made my obfervations on the vegetable 
productions of this part of the country, and ob- 
tained fpecimens and feeds of feme curious trees 
and fhrubs (which were the principal objedt of this 
excurfion) I returned by the fame road to the Ala- 
tamaha, and arrived fafe again at the feat of my 
good friend, L. MTntofh, Efq. where I tarried a 
few days to reft and refrefn rnyielf, and to wait for 
* Source of rivers. It is faid, that St. Ille, St. Mary, and the beautiful 
river, Little St. J.uan, which difeharges its waters into the bay of Apalachi, 
at St. Mark’s, take their rife from this |wamp. 
