The quadruped, which Dr. Linnæus in [[97]]the memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, has described by the name of Ursus cauda elongata, and which he calls Ursus Lotor, in his Systema Naturæ, is here called Raccoon. It is found very frequently, and destroys many chickens. It is hunted by dogs, and when it runs upon a tree to save itself, a man climbs upon the tree after it, and shakes it down to the ground, where the dogs kill it. The flesh is eaten, and is reputed to taste well. The bone of its male parts is made use of for a tobacco-stopper. The hatters purchase their skins, and make hats out of the hair, which are next in goodness to beavers. The tail is worn round the neck in winter, and therefore is likewise valuable. The Raccoon is frequently the food of snakes.
Some Englishmen asserted that near the river Potomack in Virginia, a great quantity of oyster shells were to be met with, and that they themselves had seen whole mountains of them. The place where they are found is said to be about two English miles distant from the sea-shore. The proprietor of that ground burns lime out of them. This stratum of oyster-shells is two fathom and more deep. Such quantities of shells have likewise been found in other places, especially in New York, on digging in the [[98]]ground; and in one place, at the distance of some English miles from the sea, avast quantity of oyster-shells, and of other shells was found. Some people conjectured that the natives had formerly lived in that place, and had left the shells of the oysters which they had consumed, in such great heaps. But others could not conceive how it happened that they were thrown in such immense quantities all into one place.
Every one is of opinion that the American savages were a very good-natured people, if they were not attacked. No body is so strict in keeping his word as a savage. If any one of their allies come to visit them, they shew him more kindness, and greater endeavours to serve him, than he could have expected from his own countrymen. Mr. Cock gave me the following relation, as a proof of their integrity. About two years ago, an English merchant travelling amongst the savages, in order to sell them necessaries, and to buy other goods, was secretly killed, without the murderer’s being found out. But about a year after, the savages found out the guilty person amongst themselves. They immediately took him up, bound his hands on his back, and thus sent him with a guard to the governor at Philadelphia, and sent him word, that they could [[99]]no longer acknowledge this wretch (who had been so wicked towards an Englishman) as their countryman, and therefore would have nothing more to do with him, and that they delivered him up to the governor, to be punished for his villainy as the laws of England direct. This Indian was afterwards hanged at Philadelphia.
Their good natural parts are proved by the following account, which many people have given me as a true one. When they send their ambassadors to the English colonies, in order to settle things of consequence with the governor, they sit down on the ground, as soon as they come to his audience, and hear with great attention the governor’s demands which they are to make an answer to. His demands are sometimes many. Yet they have only a stick in their hand, and make their marks on it with a knife, without writing any thing else down. But when they return the next day to give in their resolutions, they answer all the governor’s articles in the same order, in which he delivered them, without leaving one out, or changing the order, and give such accurate answers, as if they had an account of them at full length in writing.
Mr. Sleidorn related another story, which gave me great pleasure. He said he had [[100]]been at New York, and had found a venerable old American savage amongst several others in an inn. This old man began to talk with Sleidorn as soon as the liquor was getting the better of his head, and boasted that he could write and read in English. Sleidorn therefore desired leave to ask a question, which the old man readily granted. Sleidorn then asked him, whether he knew who was first circumcised? and the old man immediately answered, Father Abraham; but at the same time asked leave to propose a question in his turn, which Sleidorn granted; the old man then said, who was the first quaker? Sleidorn said it was uncertain, that some took one person for it, and some another; but the cunning old fellow told him, you are mistaken, sir; Mordecai was the first quaker, for he would not take off his hat to Haman. Many of the savages, who are yet heathens, are said to have some obscure notion of the deluge. But I am convinced from my own experience, that they are not at all acquainted with it.
I met with people here who maintained that giants had formerly lived in these parts, and the following particulars confirmed them in this opinion. A few years ago some people digging in the ground, met with a grave which contained human bones of an [[101]]astonishing size. The Tibia is said to have been fourteen feet long, and the os femoris to have measured as much. The teeth are likewise said to have been of a size proportioned to the rest, But more bones of this kind have not yet been found. Persons skilled in anatomy, who have seen these bones, have declared that they were human bones. One of the teeth has been sent to Hamburgh, to a person who collected natural curiosities. Among the savages, in the neighbourhood of the place where the bones were found, there is an account handed down through many generations from fathers to children, that in this neighbourhood, on the banks of a river, there lived a very tall and strong man, in ancient times, who carried the people over the river on his back, and waded in the water, though it was very deep. Every body to whom he did this service gave him some maize, some skins of animals, or the like. In fine he got his livelyhood by this means, and was as it were the ferryman of those who wanted to pass the river.
The soil here consists for the greatest part of sand, which is more or less mixed with clay. Both the sand and the clay, are of the colour of pale bricks. To judge by [[102]]appearance the ground was none of the best; and this conjecture was verified by the inhabitants of the country. When a corn-field has been obliged to bear the same kind of corn for three years together, it does not after that produce any thing at all if it be not well manured, or fallowed for some years. Manure is very difficult to be got, and therefore people rather leave the field uncultivated. In that interval it is covered with all sorts of plants and trees; and the countryman in the mean while, cultivates a piece of ground which has till then been fallow, or he chuses a part of the ground which has never been ploughed before, and he can in both cases be pretty sure of a plentiful crop. This method can here be used with great convenience. For the soil is loose, so that it can easily be ploughed, and every countryman has commonly a great deal of land for his property. The cattle here are neither housed in winter, nor tended in the fields, and for this reason they cannot gather a sufficient quantity of dung.
All the cattle has been originally brought over from Europe. The natives have never had any, and at present few of them care to get any. But the cattle degenerates [[103]]by degrees here, and becomes smaller. For the cows, horses, sheep, and hogs, are all larger in England, though those which are brought over are of that breed. But the first generation decreases a little, and the third and fourth is of the same size with the cattle already common here. The climate, the soil, and the food, altogether contribute their share towards producing this change.
It is remarkable that the inhabitants of the country, commonly sooner acquire understanding, but likewise grow sooner old than the people in Europe. It is nothing uncommon to see little children, giving sprightly and ready answers to questions that are proposed to them, so that they seem to have as much understanding as old men. But they do not attain to such an age as the Europeans, and it is almost an unheard of thing, that a person born in this country, should live to be eighty or ninety years of age. But I only speak of the Europeans that settled here. For the savages, or first inhabitants, frequently attained a great age, though at present such examples are uncommon, which is chiefly attributed to the great use of brandy, which the savages have learnt of the Europeans. Those who are born in Europe attain a greater age here, [[104]]than those who are born here, of European parents. In the last war, it plainly appeared that these new Americans were by far less hardy than the Europeans in expeditions, sieges, and long sea voyages, and died in numbers. It is very difficult for them to use themselves to a climate different from their own. The women cease bearing children sooner than in Europe. They seldom or never have children, after they are forty or forty-five years old, and some leave off in the thirtieth year of their age. I enquired into the causes of this, but no one could give me a good one. Some said it was owing to the affluence in which the people live here. Some ascribed it to the inconstancy and changeableness of the weather, and believed that there hardly was a country on earth in which the weather changes so often in a day, as it does here. For if it were ever so hot, one could not be certain whether in twenty-four hours there would not be a piercing cold. Nay, sometimes the weather will change five or six times a day.
The trees in this country have the same qualities as its inhabitants. For the ships which are built of American wood, are by no means equal in point of strength, to those which are built in Europe. This is [[105]]what nobody attempts to contradict. When a ship which is built here, has served eight or twelve years it is worth little; and if one is to be met with, which has been in use longer and is yet serviceable, it is reckoned very astonishing. It is difficult to find out the causes from whence this happens. Some lay the fault to the badness of the wood: others condemn the method of building the ships, which is to make them of trees which are yet green, and have had no time to dry. I believe both causes are joined. For I found oak, which at the utmost had been cut down about twelve years, and was covered by a hard bark. But upon taking off this bark, the wood below it was almost entirely rotten, and like flour, so that I could rub it into powder between my fingers. How much longer will not our European oak stand before it moulders?