THE DIVIDING LINE. 
53 
The few good husbands amongst us took some thought of their backs as 
well as their bellies, and made use of this opportunity to put their habiliments 
in repair, which had suffered wofully by the bushes. The horses got some 
rest, by reason of the bad weather, but very little food, the chief of their 
forage being a little wild rosemary, which resembles the garden rosemary 
pretty much in figure, but not at all in taste or smell. This plant grows in 
small tufts here and there on the barren land in these upper parts, and the 
horses liked it well, but the misfortune was, they could not get enough of it 
to fill their bellies. 
15th. After the clouds broke away in the morning, the people dried their 
blankets with all diligence. Nevertheless, it was noon before we were in con- 
dition to move forward, and then were so puzzled with passing the river 
twice in a small distance, that we could advance the line in all no further than 
one single mile and three hundred poles. The first time we passed the Dan 
this day was two hundred and forty poles from the place where we lay, and 
the second time was one mile and seven poles beyond that. This was now 
the fourth time we forded that fine river, which still tended westerly, with 
many short and returning reaches. 
The surveyors had much difficulty in getting over the river, finding it 
deeper than formerly. The breadth of it here did not exceed fifty yards. 
The banks were about twenty feet high from the water, and beautifully beset 
with canes. Our baggage horses crossed not the river here at all, but, fetch- 
ing a compass, went round the bend of it. On our way we forded Sable 
creek, so called from the dark colour of the water, which happened, I sup- 
pose, by its being shaded on both sides with canes. 
In the evening we quartered in a charming situation near the angle of the 
river, from whence our eyes were carried down both reaches, which kept a 
straight course for a great way together. This prospect was so beautiful, 
that we were perpetually climbing up to a neighbouring eminence, that we 
might enjoy it in more perfection. 
Now the weather grew cool, the wild geese began to direct their flight this 
way from Hudson’s bay, and the lakes that lay north-west of us. They are 
very lean at their first coming, but fatten soon upon a sort of grass that 
grows on the shores and rocks of this river. The Indians call this fowl 
cohunks, from the hoarse note it has, and begin the year from the coming of 
the cohunks, which happens in the beginning of October. These wild geese 
are guarded from cold by a down, that is exquisitely soft and fine, which 
makes them much more valuable for their feathers than for their flesh, which 
is dark and coarse. 
The men chased a bear into the river that got safe over, notwithstanding 
the continual fire from the shore upon him. He seemed to swim but heavily, 
considering it was for his life. Where the water is shallow, it is no uncom- 
mon thing to see a bear sitting, in the summer time, on a heap of gravel in 
the middle of the river, not only to cool himself, but likewise for the advan- 
tage of fishing, particularly for a small shell-fish, that is brought down with the 
stream. In the upper part of James river I have observed this seyeral times, 
and wondered very much, at first, how so many heaps of small stones came to 
be piled up in the water, till at last we spied a bear sitting upon one of them, 
looking with great attention on the stream, and raking up something with his 
paw, which I take to be the shell-fish above mentioned. 
16th. It was ten o’clock this morning before the horses could be found, 
having hidden themselves among the canes, whereof there was great plenty 
just at hand. Not far from our camp we went over a brook, whose banks 
were edged on both sides with these canes. But three miles further we 
H 
