Mr. Hugh MacKay, about this time, arrived in Frederica and reported, that with the assistance of Messrs. Augustine and Tolme, and the guides furnished by Tomo-chi-chi, he had surveyed and located a road, practicable for horses, between Savannah and Darien. This information was very gratifying to the Colonists on St. Simons, assuring them, as it did, that their situation was not so isolated as they at first supposed. Frederica was located in the midst of an Indian field[48] containing between thirty and forty acres of cleared land. The grass in this field yielded an excellent turf which was freely used in sodding the parapet of the fort. The bluff upon which it stood rose about ten feet above high-water mark, was dry and sandy, and exhibited a level expanse of about a mile into the interior of the island. The position of the fort was such that it fully commanded the reaches in the river both above and below. With their situation the Colonists were delighted. The harbor was land-locked,[49] having a depth of twenty-two feet of water at the bar, and capable of affording safe anchorage to a large number of ships of considerable burden. Surrounded by beautiful forests of live-oak, water oaks, laurel, bay, cedar, sweet-gum, sassafras, and pines, festooned with luxuriant vines, [among which those bearing the Fox-grape and the Muscadine were peculiarly pleasing to the Colonists,] and abounding in deer, rabbits, raccoons, squirrels, wild-turkeys, turtle-doves, red-birds, mocking birds, and rice birds,[50] with wide extended marshes frequented by wild geese, ducks, herons, curlews, cranes, plovers, and marsh-hens,—the adjacent waters teeming with fishes, crabs, shrimps, and oysters, and the island fanned by South-East breezes prevailing with the regularity of the trade winds—the strangers were charmed with their new home. Within their fort were enclosed and preserved several of those grand old live-oaks which for centuries had crowned the bluff, and whose shade was refreshing beyond any shelter the hand of man could devise. The town sprang into being as a military post. It was ordered and grew day by day under the immediate supervision of Oglethorpe. The soil of the island was fertile, and its health unquestioned. Lieutenant George Dunbar, on the 20th of January, 1739, made oath before Francis Moore, Recorder of the Town of Frederica, that since his arrival with the first detachment of Colonel Oglethorpe’s regiment the preceding June, all the carpenters and many of the soldiers had been continuously occupied in building clap-board huts, carrying lumber and bricks, unloading vessels, [often working up to their necks in water,] in clearing the parade, burning wood and rubbish, making lime, and in other out-door exercises,—the hours of labor being from daylight until eleven or twelve M. and from two or three o’clock in the afternoon until dark. Despite these exposures, continues the Affiant,