TRAVELS IN' 
3 ® 
which the inhabitants call white marie ; and this U 
the heart or ftrength o f thefe fwamps : they never 
wear cut or become poor, but, on the contrary, 
are more fertile by tillage ; for when they turn up 
this white marie, the air and winter frofts caufing it 
to fall like quicklime, it manures the furface : but 
it h.s one difadvantage, that ft, in great droughts, 
when they cannot have water fufficient in their re- 
fervoirs to lay the furface of the ground under wa- 
ter, it binds, and be' omes fo tough as to burn 
and kill the crops, efpecially the old cleared lands ; 
as, while it was frtfh and new, the great quantity 
of rotten wood, roots, leaves, &c. kept the fur- 
face loofe e nd open. Severe droughts fcldom hap- 
pen near the lea coaft. 
We now rife a bank of confiderable height which 
runs nearly parallel to the coaft, through Carolina * 
and Georgia : the afeent is gradual by feveral 
flights or fteps for eight or ten miles, the perpen- 
dicular height whereof, above the level of the 
ocean, may be two or three hundred feet (and thefe 
are called the fand-hisls), when we hnd ourfelves on 
the entrance of a vaft plain, generally level, vrhich 
extends weft fixty or feventy miles, rifing gently as 
the former, but more perceptib.y. This plain is inoft- 
ly a foreft of the great long-leaved pine (P. paluftris 
Linn.) the earth covered with grafs, interfperfed 
with an infinite variety of herbaceous plants, and 
embellifhed with extenfive fivannas, always green, 
fparkling with ponds of water, and ornamented 
with clumps of evergreen, and other trees and 
fbrubs, as Magnolia grandiftora, Magnolia glauca, 
Gordonia, Illex aquifolium, Quercus, various fpe- 
cies, Laurus Borbonia, Chionanthus, Plopea tindro- 
ria, Cyrilla, Kalmia anguftifolia, Andromeda, va- 
rieties. 
