s also defended from the rage of the sea by a
range of islands. Those islands are divided from the main by canals
of salt water, navigable for the largest boats, and even for small
sloops. The lofty woods growing on each side of the canals, make very
pleasant landscapes. The land, at about seven or eight miles from the
sea, is tolerably high; and the further you go westward, the more it
rises, till at about one hundred and fifty miles distance from the
sea, to the west, the Cherokee or Appallachean mountains begin, which
are so high that the snow lies upon them all the year.

This ridge of mountains runs in a line from north to south, on the
back of the English colonies of Carolina and Virginia; beginning
at the great lakes of Canada, and extending south, it ends in the
province of Georgia at about two hundred miles from the bay of
Appallachee, which is part of the Gulf of Mexico. There is a plain
country from the foot of these mountains to that sea.

The face of the country is mostly covered with woods. The banks of the
rivers are in some places low, and form a kind of natural meadows,
where the floods prevent trees from growing. In other places, in the
hollows, between the hillocks, the brooks and streams, being stopt by
falls of trees, or other obstructions, the water is penned back. These
places are often covered with canes and thickets and are called, in
the corrupted American dialect, swamps. The sides of the hills are
generally covered with oaks and hickory, or wild walnuts, cedar,
sassafras, and the famous laurel tulip, which is esteemed one of the
most beautiful trees in the world. The flat tops of the hillocks are
all covered with groves of pine trees, with plenty of grass growing
under them, and so free from underwood that you may gallop a horse for
forty or fifty miles an end. In the low grounds and islands in the
river there are cypress, bay-trees, poplar, plane, frankincense or
gum-trees, and aquatic shrubs. All part of the province are well
watered; and, in digging a moderate depth, you never miss of a fine
spring.

What we call the Atlantic ocean, washes the east and southeast coast
of these provinces. The gulf stream of Florida sets in with a tide in
the ocean to the east of the province; and it is very remarkable that
the banks and soundings of the coast extend twenty or twenty-five
miles to the east of the coast.

The tides upon this coast flow generally seven feet. The soundings are
sand or ooze