Meanderings Among The Tar-heels

"John," in the New York Sijn. Port Macon is oppusito Beaufort, on Bogue's Point. lts easier to take a drink ot' whisky than it is to take Fort Maoon. Fort Macon was taken once. I was in Groldsboro in April, 1861, and thero was an extra out with Uncle Abu's proelamation cailing for 75,000 men : and üov. Ellis telagrapbed to the captain ot' a. militia company at Goldsboro to raiso thiity-two inen, not to take the 75,000 rneii, but to take Fort Macon. I saw him raise the men, an.l i saw tlmni leave to take it, which wasn't a hard job, as the garrison consisted ot' an old Scotcli sergeant nd his wife. ïhat was a wiíd dav for boro ; barrels of whisky were drunk to light the torch-light oí' Kberty with. In tho sitting-room in the hotel where I stopped was a white niarblo monument, and on it wfts written in red clialk " Sacxed fcü tho meivnvy of Abo Lincoln, who died April - , -18(31," and his effigy hung dangling l'rom a telegraph pole in front of the hou. I conversed with a plain man to-day. He has lived on the plams ten years. he says they never postpone a caso out there, because there is not wood enough to make the post to postjono it with. It has recently been disx)vered that no such man as Williara Teil ever existed. And there is a man down here, a scholar, whosaysno such -man as Georgo Washington ever lived. He declaros that he has looked through every dictionary in existence, and thure is no such word as George Washington in the English language. I have íooked, and I cau't find it either; Lots of tar are made in N. C. The way they mako tar is to take some tar and cook it uutil it becomes tar, then it's tar. J no trees aro üaií ehewmg gum, the other half turpentine, the other half pitch, and the other half resin, and the rest sticks -in f'act, everyihing about 'em sticks, and the bark sticks to the tree tighter than the bark sticks to a dog. This brings me to a historical remiuiscence that has never boen published in print or type either. I was taken into the pine wonds and shown some trees which, years ago, three brave Araericans climbed to capture 'possum. As they embraced the trees forty feet from the ground, the tar season commencpd, and thosepoorfeliows froze to the tree and stayed there until they died. Years aiterward sorne boys discovered the remains. Nothing but the bones were left, and the boys, like good boys, went directly home and swore thatthoy had discovered a hoop-skirt iactory. Ono man, a learned tarite, said it must have been left there by the Normans. Another man, who was well acquainted with the Normans, says the Normaus never wore hoop-skirts. A western man said he'd often neard of whoops on the skirts of the woods in his country, and hisremarks elicited applause. Then the party visited the woods, and decided that the relies were bones, not hoop-skirts. It was the greatest oase of up a trpe I ever heard of. 8ome North Carolina ians are awful thin. Two of 'em would make a fair-sizod penhandle. They grow lengthwise all right, but they don't grow sideways or thicken worth a cent. They never unbutton their clothes. thev crawl in anrl nut nf 'e:n through the button holes, and insonie sections one good-sized sack coat would button around a whole family. The children under six years look like crochet needies, only darker in hue. They use windmills here to grind hash. I hear minors that the fowls are gotting the epizoots. I hope it won't go to the legs, as it did with the horses. If it does the chicken pies will have it badly. There is nothing on earth that has inoro legs than a cliieken pie - it's all legs. I was in a rootn in Wilrnington to-day, and saw a sight which fllled me with so much awe that I took a drink. It appears one day in 1814 a female woraan put some powder into a now chicken pie she was building. She took it for black pepper. It acted worse than emptyings or yeast ; for when she put it on. the stove and the warm air ot into it, it made the pie rise, but it didn't ruake it light, for it hain't lit yet. Thoso chicken legs blow up into a room overhead and stuck in the wall in a row, and have been used for clothes pegs ever since. This is a fact, for I hung my hat on one of 'em, and it didn't havo a brick in it either. The hole that that chicken pie made in the womau's head is still to bo seen in the wail. There is lots of curious things in this section. I saw, a fow days since, a spot where the soil is so fertilo that one year ago last May a wooden-legged man stepped on it a fow minutes to talk, and his legs sprouted and he grewup sohigh that he had to be sawed down. The medical men decided it was quite a feat for a man without feet to perform, and they ascertained that the man ono day had barked bis shins, and they concluded that that bark on his shins put now life into his woelen legs, and that caused Ihem to iprout.