it proceeded from their secluded situation, which has prevented them
from mixing with others. It is therefore easy to conceive how they
have retained every degree of peculiarity for which this sect was
formerly distinguished. Never was a bee-hive more faithfully
employed in gathering wax, bee-bread, and honey, from all the
neighbouring fields, than are the members of this society; every one
in the town follows some particular occupation with great diligence,
but without that servility of labour which I am informed prevails in
Europe. The mechanic seemed to be descended from as good parentage,
was as well dressed and fed, and held in as much estimation as those
who employed him; they were once nearly related; their different
degrees of prosperity is what has caused the various shades of their
community. But this accidental difference has introduced, as yet,
neither arrogance nor pride on the one part, nor meanness and
servility on the other. All their houses are neat, convenient, and
comfortable; some of them are filled with two families, for when the
husbands are at sea, the wives require less house-room. They all
abound with the most substantial furniture, more valuable from its
usefulness than from any ornamental appearance. Wherever I went, I
found good cheer, a welcome reception; and after the second visit I
felt myself as much at my ease as if I had been an old acquaintance
of the family. They had as great plenty of everything as if their
island had been part of the golden quarter of Virginia (a valuable
track of land on Cape Charles): I could hardly persuade myself that
I had quitted the adjacent continent, where everything abounds, and
that I was on a barren sand-bank, fertilised with whale oil only. As
their rural improvements are but trifling, and only of the useful
kind, and as the best of them are at a considerable distance from
the town, I amused myself for several days in conversing with the
most intelligent of the inhabitants of both sexes, and making myself