In descending a long and steep hill they have a contrivance to prevent the load from making too rapid a descent.  Some of the cattle are placed behind it; a chain which is attached to their yokes is brought forward and fastened to the hinder end of the load, and the resistance which is made by these cattle checks the descent.  This operation is called tailing.  The most dangerous circumstance is the passing over the top of a sharp hill, by which means the oxen which are nearest to the tongues are sometimes suspended, till the foremost cattle can draw the mast so far over the hill as to give them opportunity to recover the ground.  In this case the drivers are obliged to use much judgment and care to keep the cattle from being killed.  There is no other way to prevent this inconvenience than to level the roads.

* * * * *

=_David Ramsay, 1749-1815._= (Manual, p. 491.)

From “The History of the Revolution in South Carolina.”

=_114._= FEELING OF THE PROVINCE TOWARD GREAT BRITAIN.

In South Carolina, an enemy to the Hanoverian succession, or to the British constitution, was scarcely known.  The inhabitants were fond of British manners even to excess.  They for the most part, sent their children to Great Britain for education, and spoke of that country under the endearing appellation of Home.  They were enthusiasts for that sacred plan of civil and religious happiness under which they had grown up and flourished....  Wealth poured in upon them from a thousand channels.  The fertility of the soil generously repaid the labor of the husbandman, making the poor to sing, and industry to smile, through every corner of the land.  None were indigent but the idle and unfortunate.  Personal independence was fully within the reach of every man who was healthy and industrious.  The inhabitants, at peace with all the world, enjoyed domestic tranquility, and were secure in their persons and property.  They were also completely satisfied with their government, and wished not for the smallest change in their political constitution.

In the midst of these enjoyments, and the most sincere attachment to the mother country, to their king and his government, the people of South Carolina, without any original design on their part, were step by step drawn into an extensive war, which involved them in every species of difficulty, and finally dissevered them from the parent state.

...  Every thing in the colonies contributed to nourish a spirit of liberty and independence.  They were planted under the auspices of the English constitution in its purity and vigor.  Many of their inhabitants had imbibed a largo portion of that spirit which brought one tyrant to the block, and expelled another from his dominions.  They were communities of separate, independent individuals, for the most part employed in cultivating a fruitful soil, and under no general influence but of their own feelings