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[Illustration: WILLIAM BYRD]
COLONEL WILLIAM BYRD (1674-1744), a wealthy Virginian, wrote a _History of
the Dividing Line run in the Year 1728_. He was commissioned by the
Virginian colony to run a line between it and North Carolina. This book is
a record of personal experiences, and is as interesting as its title is
forbidding. This selection describes the Dismal Swamp, through which the
line ran:--
"Since the surveyors had entered the Dismal they had laid eyes on no
living creature; neither bird nor beast, insect nor reptile came in view.
Doubtless the eternal shade that broods over this mighty bog and hinders
the sunbeams from blessing the ground, makes it an uncomfortable
habitation for anything that has life. Not so much as a Zealand frog
could endure so aguish a situation. It had one beauty, however, that
delighted the eye, though at the expense of all the other senses: the
moisture of the soil preserves a continual verdure, and makes every plant
an evergreen, but at the same time the foul damps ascend without ceasing,
corrupt the air, and render it unfit for respiration. Not even a turkey
buzzard will venture to fly over it, no more than the Italian vultures
will fly over the filthy lake Avernus or the birds in the Holy Land over
the salt sea where Sodom and Gomorrah formerly stood.
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