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JOHN SMITH

FROM

A TRUE RELATION

40. miles I passed up ye river, which for the most part is a quarter of a mile broad, & 3. fatham & a half deep, exceeding osey, many great low marshes, & many high lands, especially about ye midst at a place called Moysonicke, a Peninsule of 4. miles ci[r]cuit, betwixt two rivers joyned to the main, by a neck of 40. or 50. yards, and 40. or 50 yards from the high water marke: on both sides in the very necke of the maine, are high hills and dales, yet much inhabited, the lle declining in a plaine fertile corne field, the lower end a low marsh. More plentie of swannes, cranes, geese, duckes, and mallards, & divers sorts of fowles none would desire: more plaine fertile planted ground, in such great proportions as there I had not seene, of a light blacke sandy mould, the cliffes commonly red, white and yellowe coloured sand, & under red & white clay; fish great plenty, & people aboundance, the most of their inhabitants, in view of ye neck of Land, where a better seat for a towne cannot be desired. At the end of forty miles this river invironeth many low Ilands, at each high water drowned for a mile, where it uniteth it selfe, at a place called Apokant the highest Towne inhabited.

10. miles higher I discovered with the barge: in the mid way, a great tree hindred my passage which I cut in two: heere the river became narrower, 8. 9 or 10. foote at a high water, and 6. or 7. at a lowe: the streame exceeding swift, & the bottom hard channell, the ground most part a low plaine, sandy soyle. This occasioned me to suppose it might issue from some lake or some broad ford, for it could not be far to the head, but rather then I would endanger the barge, Yet to have beene able to resolve this doubt, & to discharge the imputation of malicious tungs, that halfe suspected I durst not for so long delaying, some of the company as desirous as my self, we resolved to hier a Canow, and returne with the barge to A pocant, there to leave the barge secure, and put our selves uppon the adventure: the

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