THE DIVIDING LINE, 
21 
with their wool for their outer garments ; though, for want of fulling, that 
kind of manufacture is open and sleazy. Flax likewise thrives there ex- 
tremely, being perhaps as fine as any in the world, and I question not might, 
with a little care, be brought to rival that of Egypt ; and yet the men are 
here so intolerably lazy, they seldom take the trouble to propagate it. 
16th. The line was this day carried one mile and a half and sixteen poles. 
The soil continued soft and miry, but fuller of trees, especially white cedars. 
Many of these too were thrown down and piled in heaps, high enough for a 
good Muscovite fortification. The worst of it was, the poor fellows began 
now to be troubled with fluxes, occasioned by bad water and moist lodging : 
but chewing of rhubarb kept that malady within bounds. 
In the mean time the commissioners decamped early in the morning, and 
made a march of twenty-five miles, as far as Mr. Andrew Mead’s, who lives upon 
Nansemond river. They were no sooner got under the shelter of that hos- 
pitable roof, but it began to rain hard, and continued so to do great part of 
the night. This gave them much pain for their friends- in the Dismal, whose 
sufferings spoiled their taste for the good cheer, wherewith they were enter- 
tained themselves. However, late that evening, these poof men had the for- 
tune to come upon another terra firma, which was the luckier for them, be- 
cause the lower ground, by the rain that fell, was made a fitter lodging for 
tadpoles than men. In our journey we remarked that the north side of this 
great swamp lies higher than either the east or the west, nor were the ap- 
proaches to it so full of sunken grounds. We passed by no less than two 
quaker meeting houses, one of which had an awkward ornament on the west 
end of it, that seemed to ape a steeple. I must own I expected no such piece 
of foppery from a sect of so much outside simplicity. That persuasion pre- 
vails much in the lower end of Nansemond county, for want of ministers to 
pilot the people a decenter way to heaven. The ill reputation of tobacco 
planted in those lower parishes makes the clergy unwilling to accept of them, 
unless it be such whose abilities are qs mean as their pay. Thus, whether 
the churches be quite void or but indifferently filled, the quakers will have an 
opportunity of gaining proselytes. It is a wonder no popish missionaries are 
sent from Maryland to labour in this neglected vineyard, who we know have 
zeal enough to traverse sea and land on the meritorious errand of making 
converts. Nor is it less strange that some wolf in sheep’s clothing arrives 
not from New England to lead astray a flock that has no shepherd. People 
uninstructed in any religion are ready to embrace the first that offers. It is 
natural for helpless man to adore his Maker in some form or other, and were 
there any exception to this rule, I should suspect it to be among the Hotten- 
tots of the cape of Good Hope and of North Carolina. 
There fell a great deal of rain in the night, accompanied with a strong 
wind. The fellow-feeling we had for the poor Dismalites, on account of this 
unkind weather, rendered the down we laid upon uneasy. We fancied them 
half-drov/ned in their wet lodging, with the trees blowing down about their 
ears. These were the gloomy images our fears suggested ; though it was 
so much uneasiness clear gain. They happened to come off much better, by 
being luckily encamped on the dry piece of ground afore-mentioned. 
17th. They were, however, forced to keep the sabbath in spite of their 
teeth, contrary to the dispensation our good chaplain had given them. In- 
deed, their short allowance of provision would have justified their making 
the best of their way, without distinction of days. It was certainly a work 
both of necessity and self-preservation, to save themselves from starving. 
Nevertheless, the hard rain had made every thing so thoroughly wet, that it 
was quite impossible to do any business. They therefore made a virtue of 
what they could not help, and contentedly rested in their dry situation. 
D 
