THE DIVIDING LINE. 
49 
two knots, or two miles, an hour, when the water was at the lowest. The 
bottom was covered with a coarse gravel, spangled very thick with a 
shining substance, that almost dazzled the eye, and the sand upon either shore 
sparkled with the same splendid particles. At first sight, the sunbeams 
giving a yellow cast to these spangles made us fancy them to be gold dust, 
and consequently that all our fortunes were made. Such hopes as these 
were the less extravagant, because several rivers lying mudi about the same 
latitude with this have formerly abounded with fragments of that tempting 
metal. Witness the Tagus in Portugal, the Heber in Thrace, and the JPactolus 
in Lesser Asia ; not to mention the rivers on the Gold Coast in Africa, which 
lie in a more southern climate. But we soon found ourselves mistaken, and 
our gold dust dwindled into small flakes of isinglass. How'ever, though 
this did not make the river so rich as we could wish, yet it made it exceed- 
ingly beautiful. We marched about two miles and a half beyond this river, 
as far as Cane creek, so called from a prodigious quantity of tall canes that 
fringed the banks of it. On the w^est side of this creek we marked out our 
quarters, and were glad to find our horses fond of the canes, though they 
scoured them smartly at first, and discoloured their dung. This beautiful ve- 
getable grows commonly from twelve to sixteen feet high, and some of them 
as thick as a man’s wnist. Though these appeared large to us, yet they are 
no more than spires of grass, if compared to those which some curious tra- 
vellers tell us grow in the East Indies, one joint of which will make a brace 
of canoes, if saw^ed in two in the middle. Ours continue green through all 
the seasons during the space of six years, and the seventh shed their seed, 
wither away and die. The spring following they begin to shoot again, and 
reach their former stature the second or third year after. They grow so thick, 
and their roots lace together so firmly, that they are the best guard that can 
be of the river bank, which would otherwise be washed away by the frequent 
inundations that happen in this part of the world. They would also serve 
excellently well to plant on the borders of fish-ponds and canals, to secure 
their sides from falling in; though I fear they would not grow kindly in 
a cold country, being seldom seen here so northerly as thirty-eight degrees of 
latitude. 
11th. At the distance of four miles and sixty poles from the place where we 
encamped,, we came upon the river Dan a second time ; though it was not so 
wide in this .place as where we crossed it first, being not above a hundred and 
fifty yards over. The west shore continued to be covered with the canes 
above mentioned, but not to so great a breadth as before, and it is remarkable 
that these canes are much more frequent on the west side of the river than on 
the east, where they grow generally very scattering. It was still a beautiful 
stream, rolling down its limpid and murmuring waters among the rocks, 
which lay scattered here and there, to make up the variety of the prospect. 
It was about two miles from this river to the end of our day’s work, which 
led us mostly over broken grounds and troublesome underwoods. Hereabout, 
from one of the highest hills, we made the first discovery of the mountains, on 
the north-west of our course. They seemed to lie off at a vast distance, and 
looked like ranges of blue clouds rising one above another. We encamped 
about two miles beyond the river, where we made good cheer upon a very 
fat buck, that luckily fell in our way. The Indian likewise shot a wild 
turkey, but confessed he would not bring it us, lest we should continue to 
provoke the guardian of the forest, by cooking the beasts of the field and the 
birds of the air together in one vessel. This instance of Indian superstition, 
I confess, is countenanced in some measure by the Levitical law, which for- 
bade the mixing things of a different nature together in the same field, or in 
the same garment, and why not then in the same kettle 1 But, after all, if the 
