THE DIVIDENTG LINE. 
29 
without any nails at all, and indeed more securely than those that are nailed. 
There are three rails mortised into the posts, the lowest of which serves as 
a sill with a groove in the middle, big enough to receive the end of the pales : 
the middle part of the pale rests against the inside of the next rail, and the 
top of it is brought forward to the outside of the uppermost. Such wreath- 
ing of the pales in and out makes them stand firm, and much harder to unfix 
than when nailed in the ordinary way. 
Within three or four miles of Edenton, the soil appears to be a little more 
fertile, though it is much cut with slashes, which seem all to have a tendency 
towards the Dismal. This town is situated on the north side of Albemarle 
sound, which is there about five miles over. A dirty slash runs all along the 
back of it, which in the summer is a foul annoyance, and furnishes abundance 
of that Carolina plague, mosquitoes. There may be forty or fifty houses, 
most of them small, and built without expense. A citizen here is counted 
extravagant, if he has ambition enough to aspire to a brick chimney. Justice 
herself is but indifferently lodged, the court-house having much the air of a 
common tobacco-house. I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian 
or Mahometan world, where there is neither church, chapel, mosqub, syna- 
gogue, or any other place of public worship of any sect or religion whatso- 
ever. 'What little devotion there may happen to be is much more private 
than their vices. The people seem easy without a minister, as long as they 
are exempted from paying him. Sometimes the Society for propagating the 
Gospel has had the charity to send over missionaries to this country ; but 
unfortunately the priest has been too lewd for the people, or, which oftener 
happens, they too lewd for the priest. For these reasons these reverend 
gentlemen have always left their flocks as arrant heathen as they found 
them. Thus much however may be said for the inhabitants of Edenton, that 
not a soul has the least taint of hyprocrisy, or superstition, acting very frank- 
ly and above-board in all their excesses. 
Provisions here are extremely cheap, and extremely good, so that people 
may live plentifully at a trifling expense. Nothing is dear but law, physic, 
and strong drink, which are all bad in their kind, and the last they get with 
so much difficulty, that they are never guilty of the sin of suffering it to sour 
upon their hands. Their vanity generally lies not so much in having a hand- 
some dining-room, as a handsome house of office : in this kind of structure 
they are really extravagant. They are rarely guilty of flattering or making 
any court to their governors, but treat them with all the excesses of freedom 
and familiarity. They are of opinion their rulers would be apt to grow inso- 
lent, if they grew rich, and for that reason take care to keep them poorer, 
and more dependent, if possible, than the saints in New England used to 
do their governors. They have very little corn, so they are forced to carry 
on their home traffic with paper money. This is the only cash that will tarry 
in the country, and for that reason the discount goes on increasing between 
that and real money, and will do so to the end of the chaptey. 
28th. Our time passed heavily in our quarters, where we Were quite cloyed 
with the Carolina felicity of having nothing to do. It was really more insup- 
portable than the greatest fatigue, and made us even envy the drudgery of 
our friends in the Dismal. Besides, though the men we had with us were 
kept in exact discipline, and behaved without reproacn, yet our lantllord 
began to be tired of them, fearing they would breed a famine in his family. 
Indeed, so many keen stomachs made great havoc amongst the beef and 
bacon which he had laid in for his summer provision, nor could he easily 
purchase more, at that time of the year, with the money we paid him, be- 
cause people having no certain market seldom provide any more of these 
commodities than will barely supply their own occasions. Besides the 
E 
