country; because it has been so misrepresented to the common people of England, as to make them believe that the servants in Virginia are made to draw in cart and plow, as horses and oxen do in England, and that the country turns all people black, who go to live there, with other such prodigious phantasms. Accordingly before I left London, I gave him a short history of the country, from the first settlement, with an account of its then state; but I would not let him mingle it with Oldmixon's other account of the plantations, because I took them to be all of a piece with those I had seen of Virginia and Carolina, but desired mine to be printed by itself. And this I take to be the only reason of that gentleman's so severely reflecting upon me in his book, for I never saw him in my life that I know of. THE PASTIMES OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA [FROM THE SAME, BOOK IV, PART II.] FOR their recreation, the plantations, orchards, and gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other rarities of nature to discover and observe. They have hunting, fishing, and fowling, with which they entertain themselves an hundred ways. There is the most good-nature and hospitality practised in the world, both toward friends and strangers; but the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and then with a little too much intemperance. The neighborhood is at much the same distance as in the country in England; but the goodness of the roads and the fairness of the weather bring people often together. The Indians, as I have already observed, had in their hunting a way of concealing themselves, and coming up to the deer, under the blind of a stalking-head, in imitation of which many people have taught their horses to stalk it, that is, to walk gently by the huntsman's side, to cover him from the sight of the deer. Others cut down trees for the deer to browse upon, and lie in wait behind THE PASTIMES OF COLONIAL VIRGINIA 17 them. Others again set stakes at a certain distance within their fences, where the deer had been used to leap over into a field of peas, which they love extremely; these stakes they so place, as to run into the body of the deer, when he pitches, by which means they impale him; and, for a temptation to the leap, take down the top part of the fence. They hunt their hares (which are very numerous) a-foot, with mongrels or swift dogs, which either catch them quickly, or force them to hole in a hollow tree, whither all their hares generally tend, when they are closely pursued. As soon as they are thus holed, and have crawled up into the body of the tree, the business is to kindle a fire and smother them with smoke till they let go their hold and fall to the bottom stifled; from whence they take them. If they have a mind to spare their lives, upon turning them loose they will be as fit as ever to hunt at another time: for the mischief done them by the smoke immediately wears off again. They have another sort of hunting, which is very diverting, and that they call vermin-hunting; it is performed a-foot, with small dogs in the night, by the light of the moon or stars. Thus in summer time they find abundance of raccoons, opossums, and foxes in the corn-fields, and about their plantations; but at other times they must go into the woods for them. The method is to go out with three or four dogs, and, as soon as they come to the place, they bid the dogs seek out, and all the company follow immediately. Wherever a dog barks, you may depend upon finding the game; and this alarm draws both men and dogs that way. If this sport be in the woods, the game by that time you come near it is perhaps mounted to the top of an high tree, and then they detach a nimble fellow up after it, who must have a scuffle with the beast, before he can throw it down to the dogs; and then the sport increases, to see the vermin encounter those little curs. In this sort of hunting they also carry their great dogs out with them, because wolves, bears, panthers, wild-cats, and all other beasts of prey are abroad in the night. For wolves they make traps, and set guns baited in the woods, so that, when he offers to seize the bait, he pulls the trigger, and C the gun discharges upon him. What Ælian1 and Pliny2 write of the horses being benumbed in their legs, if they tread in the track of a wolf, does not hold good here; for I myself, and many others, have rid full speed after wolves in the woods, and have seen live ones taken out of a trap, and dragged at a horse's tail; and yet those that followed on horse-back have not perceived any of their horses to falter in their pace. . . . The inhabitants are very courteous to travellers, who need no other recommendation, but the being human creatures. A stranger has no more to do, but to inquire upon the road where any gentleman or good housekeeper lives, and there he may depend upon being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general among their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their principal servant to entertain all visitors with everything the plantation affords. And the poor planters, who have but one bed, will very often sit up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to make room for a weary traveller to repose himself after his journey. If there happen to be a churl, that either out of covetousness, or ill-nature, won't comply with this generous custom, he has a mark of infamy set upon him, and is abhorred by all. COLONEL WILLIAM BYRD [WILLIAM BYRD, one of the most prominent members of the Virginia aristocracy, was born in that colony March 28, 1674, and died there August 26, 1744. The son of a noted colonial official of the same name, he was educated in England, travelled in Europe, and later spent some years in Great Britain as agent of his colony. He was a member of the King's Council in Virginia for more than a generation, and finally its president. He added to his inherited wealth, lived in lordly state, and gathered the most valuable library in the colonies. He did much to encourage immigration and was in other ways a publicspirited citizen. "The Westover Manuscripts" first printed at Petersburg, 1 A Roman of the third century A.D., who wrote, in Greek, on the nature of animals. 2 The elder Pliny (23-79 A.D.) was a naturalist. 3 It numbered nearly four thousand volumes, the titles of which may be read in an appendix to Bassett's edition of Byrd's writings. NORTH CAROLINA HUSBANDRY 19 Virginia, in 1841, contain an account of his experiences as commissioner of his colony in determining the border line between Virginia and North Carolina in 1728, also of a journey undertaken with a friend to survey a grant of land on which he expected to exploit iron mines, and of another frontier journey to mines already in operation. All these tracts, the titles of which are given in connection with the citations made from them, are remarkable for their vigorous style, their shrewd humor, and their valuable observations of an economic nature. Byrd was one of the most cultivated Americans of the eighteenth century, and he would have been an ornament to any society. He was at his best perhaps as a student of economics and affairs, but he had also in him the makings of a great writer. As an easy and charming author, he is unsurpassed by any other early American, save Benjamin Franklin. Although far from the centres of culture, he was a patron of art and science and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Great Britain. A new edition of his writings, superintended by Professor J. S. Bassett, and provided with the best account of his life, was published in 1901, and many of his letters appeared shortly after in the “ Virginia Magazine of History and Biography.”] NORTH CAROLINA HUSBANDRY [FROM "THE History of the DIVIDING LINE." 1] [MARCH] 10th [1728]. The Sabbath happened very opportunely to give some ease to our jaded people, who rested religiously from every work, but that of cooking the kettle. We observed very few cornfields in our walks, and those very small, which seemed the stranger to us, because we could see no other tokens of husbandry or improvement. But, upon further inquiry, we were given to understand people only made corn for themselves and not for their stocks, which know very well how to get their own living. Both cattle and hogs ramble in the neighboring marshes and swamps, where they maintain themselves the whole winter long, and are not fetched home till the spring. Thus these indolent wretches, during one half of the year, lose the advantage of the milk of their cattle as well as their dung, and many of the poor creatures perish in the mire, into the bargain, by this ill-management. Some who pique themselves more upon industry than their neighbors, will, now and then, in compliment to their cattle, cut 1 The text follows in the main the edition of 1841; the variations of the new edition are not important to our purposes. down a tree whose limbs are loaded with the moss afore-mentioned. The trouble would be too great to climb the tree in order to gather this provender, but the shortest way (which in this country is always counted the best) is to fell it, just like the lazy Indians, who do the same by such trees as bear fruit, and so make one harvest for all. RUNNING THE BOUNDARY LINE THROUGH THE DISMAL SWAMP [FROM THE SAME.] [MARCH] 14th [1728]. Before nine of the clock this morning, the provisions, bedding and other necessaries, were made up into packs for the men to carry on their shoulders into the Dismal. They were victualled for eight days at full allowance, nobody doubting but that would be abundantly sufficient to carry them through that inhospitable place; nor indeed was it possible for the poor fellows to stagger under more. As it was, their loads weighed from 60 to 70 pounds, in just proportion to the strength of those who were to bear them. It would have been unconscionable to have saddled them with burdens heavier than that, when they were to lug them through a filthy bog which was hardly practable with no burdens at all. Besides this luggage at their backs, they were obliged to measure the distance, mark the trees, and clear the way for the surveyors every step they went. It was really 4 pleasure to see with how much cheerfulness they undertook, and with how much spirit they went through all this drudgery. . Although there was no need of example to inflame persons already heerful, yet to enter the people with better grace, the author I two more of the commissioners accompanied them half le into the Dismal. The skirts of it were thinly planted dwarf reeds and gall bushes, but when we got into the Dismal , we found the reeds grew there much taller and closer, and mend the matter were so interlaced with bamboo-briers, that acle was no scuffling through them without the help of pioneers. the same time, we found the ground moist and trembling under feet like a quagmire, insomuch that it was an easy matter to |