This colony is computed to extend 660 miles in length; but its breadth is unknown. The lands here are generally low and flat, aid not a hill to be seen from St Augustine to Virginia, and a great way beyond. It is mostly covered with woods, where the planters have not cleared it. About 100 miles west of the coast it shoots up into eminences, and continues to rise gradually all along to the Apalachian mountains, which are about 16O miles distant from the ocean. The north parts of Carolina are very uneven, but the ground is extremely proper for producing wheat: and all other sorts of grain that grow in Europe will come to great perfection here. The south parts of Carolina [1], if properly cultivated, might be made to produce silk, wine, and oil. This country yields large quantities of rice, of which they yearly ship off to other colonies about 80,000 barrels, each barrel containing 400 weight; besides they make abundance of tar, pitch, and turpentine.

They carry on also a great trade with deer skins and furs [2], to all places of Europe, which the English receive from the Indians in barter for guns, powder, knives, scissars, looking glasses, beads, rum, tobacco, coarse cloth, etc.

The English chapmen carry their pack horses five or 600 miles into the country, west of Charlestown; but most of the commerce is confined within the limits of the Creek and Cherokee nations, which do not lie above [3] 350 miles from the coast. The air is very temperate and agreeable both summer and winter. Carolina is divided into two distinct provinces, viz. North and South Carolina.

1. Peter may be including what became the colony of Georgia, or parts thereof, in this survey.

2. Daniel Boone would make his name in this fur trade, having travelled south from Pennsylvania with his rifle to make a living as a hunter. The colonial officials preferred to trade with Indians—thus arming the Indians—and did make half-hearted attempts to keep back country hunters from settling in and beyond the Appalachians, which the reader might imagine as a kind of “forbidden zone” for whites, jealously patrolled by native warriors. British officials desired a colony hemmed in by mountains and allied savages to its back so that the population might be easily exploited and regulated.

3. People of the age of sail, from great sailing nations such as Britain [and, in antiquity, the Greeks] thought in terms of travelling "up" from the sea and "down" to the sea, not as industrial and postmodern people, thinking as we do in terms of distance "inland" from the sea. This may seem like a small thing, but amounts to a great psychological barrier in terms of how pre-industrial people viewed elevated and particularly un-cleared hinterlands.