30 
THE HISTORY OF 
weather was now grown too warm to lay in a fresh stock so late in the spring. 
These considerations abated somewhat of that cheerfulness with which he bade 
us welcome in the beginning, and made him think the time quite as long as we 
did until the surveyors returned.. While we were thus all hands uneasy, we 
were comforted with the news that this afternoon the line was finished 
through the Dismal. The messenger told us it had been the hard work of 
three days to npeasure the length of only five miles, and mark the trees a¥ 
they passed along, and by the most exact survey they found the breadth of the 
Dismal in this place to be completely fifteen miles. How wide it may be in 
other parts, we can give no account, but believe it grows narrower towards 
the north ; possibly towards Albemarle sound it may be something broader, 
where so many rivers issue out of it. All we know for certain is, that from ‘ 
the place where the line entered the Dismal, to where it came out, we found 
the road round that portion of it which belonged to Virginia to be about 
sixty-five miles. How great the distance may be from each of those points,^ 
round that part that falls within the bounds of Carolina, we had no certain 
information : though it is conjectured it cannot be so little as thirty miles. 
At which rate the whole circuit must be about a hundred. What a mass of 
mud and dirt is treasured up within this filthy circumference, and what a 
quantity of water must perpetually drain into it from the rising ground that 
surrounds it on every side 1 Without taking the exact level of the Dismal, 
we may be sure that it declines towards the places where the several rivers 
take their rise, in order to carrying off the constant supplies of water. Were 
it not for such discharges, the whole swamp would long since have been 
converted into a lake. On the other side this declension must be very gentle, 
else it would be laid perfectly dry by so many continual drains ; whereas, on the 
contrary, the ground seems every where to be thoroughly drenched even in 
the driest season of the year. The surveyors concluded this day’s work 
with running twenty-five chains up into the firm land, where they waited 
further orders from the commissioners. 
29th. This day the surveyors proceeded with the line no more than one 
mile and fifteen chains, being interrupted by a mill swamp, through which 
they made no difficulty of wading, in order to make their work more exact. 
Thus, like Norway mice, these worthy gentlemen went right forward, with- 
out suffering themselves to be turned out of the way by any obstacle whatever. 
We are told by some travellers, that those mice march in mighty armies, 
destroying all the fruits of the earth as they go along. But something 
peculiar to those obstinate little animals is, that nothing stops them in their 
career, and if a house happen to stand in their way, disdaining to go an inch 
about, they crawl up one side of it, and down the other : or if they meet 
with any river, or other body of water, they are so determined, that they 
-swim directly over it, without varying one point from their course for the 
sake of any safety or convenience. The surveyors were also hindered 
some time by setting up posts in the great road, to show the bounds between 
the two colonies.. 
Our chaplain returned to us in the evening from Edenton, in company 
with the Carolina commissioners. He had preached there in the court-house, 
for want of a consecrated place, and made no less than nineteen of father 
Hennepin’s Christians. 
By the permission of the Carolina commissioners, Mr. Swan was allowed 
to go home, as soon as the survey of the Dismal was finished ; he met with 
this indulgence for a reason that might very well have excused his Coming 
at all ; namely, that he was lately married. What remained of the drudgery 
for this season was left to Mr. Mosely, who had hitherto acted onlj^ in the 
capacity of a commissioner. They offered to employ Mr. Joseph Mayo as 
