November. Wednef. 21 to affift us, we were obliged to anchor near the 1764. fouth fhore. The wind came off the land in very hard flaws, and in a fhort time, our anchor coming home, the fhip tailed on fhore against a steep gravelly beach. The anchoring ground indeed as far as we had yet founded was bad, being very hard; fo that, in this fituation, if the wind blows fresh, there is always the greatest reafon to fear that the anchor fhould come home before the fhip can be brought up. While we were on fhore, it began to blow very hard, and the tide running like a fluice, it was with the utmoft difficulty that we could carry an anchor out to heave us off; however, after about four hours hard labour, this was effected, and the fhip floated in the ftream. As there was only about fix or seven feet of the after part of her that touched the ground, there was reason to hope that she had suffered no damage; however, I determined to unhang the rudder, that it might be examined. During all this night and the next morning the Thurf, 22. wind blew with great violence; and we had let go our best bower anchor when we were near the fhore, in hopes it would have brought us up, and had not yet been able to weigh it. We now rode in a very difagreeable fituation with our fmall bower, and that unfortunately came home again : we therefore got a hawfer out of the Tamar, who lay in the ftream, and after weighing the fmall bower, we got out by her affiftance, and then dropped it again, moft ardently withing for fair weather, C 2 1764. weather, that we might get the fhip properly moored. November. Friday 23. Saturd. 24. The next day we founded the harbour higher up, and found the ground fofter, and the water not fo deep; yet the wind continued to blow fo hard that we could not venture to change our ftation. We had found a small spring of water about half a mile inland, upon the north fide of the bay, but it had a brackish tafte; I had alfo made another excurfion of several miles into the country, direcwhich I found barren and defolate, in every tion, as far as the eye could reach. We had feen many guanicoes at a distance, but we could not get near enough to have a fhot at them; we tracked beasts of feveral kinds in the foil, near a pond of falt water, and among them a very large tyger: we found alfo a neft of oftriches eggs, which we eat, and thought very good. It is probable that all the animals which had left marks of their feet near the falt pond, drank the water, and indeed we faw no fresh water for them. fpring that we had found, which was not perfectly fresh, was the only one of the kind that we had been able to difcover; and for that we had been obliged to dig, there being no appearance of it except a flight moisture of the ground. The On the 24th, upon flack water, we carried both the fhips higher up and moored them: the extreme points of the harbour's mouth at low water bore from E. by S. S. to E.; and the Steeple rock S. E. E. We had here, at low water, but 1764. November. fix fathom; but at spring tides the water rifes no lefs than four fathom and an half, which is feven and twenty feet. The tide indeed in this place is Saturd. 24 fuch as perhaps it is not in any other. It happened by fome accident that one of our men fell overboard; the boats were all along-fide, and the man was an exceeding good fwimmer, yet before any affiftance could be fent after him, the rapidity of the ftream had hurried him almost out of fight; we had however at last the good fortune to fave him. This day I was again on fhore, and walked fix or seven miles up the country: I faw several hares as large as a fawn; I fhot one of them which weighed more than fix and twenty pounds, and if I had had a good greyhound, I dare fay the ship's company might have lived upon hare two days in the week. In the mean time the people on board were bufy in getting up all the cables upon deck, and clearing the hold, that a proper quantity of ballaft might be taken in, and the guns lowered into it, except a few which it might be thought neceffary to keep above. On the 25th, I went a good way up the harbour Sunday 15. in the boat, and having landed on the north fide, we foon after found an old oar of a very fingular make, and the barrel of a mufket, with the King's broad arrow upon it. The mufket barrel had fuffered fo much from the weather, that it might be crumbled to duft between the fingers: I imagined it had been left there by the Wager's people, or perhaps by Sir John Narborough. Hitherto we had found no kind of vegetables except a spe C 3 November. 1764. cies of wild peas; but though we had feen no inhabitants, we faw places where they had made their Sunday 25. fires, which however did not appear to be recent. While we were on fhore we shot fome wild ducks, and a hare; the hare ran two miles after he was wounded, though it appeared when he was taken up that a ball had paffed quite through his body. I went this day many miles up the country, and· had a long chace after one of the guanicoes, which was the largest we had feen: he frequently stopped to look at us, when he had left us at a good diftance behind, and made a noife that refembled the neighing of a horfe; but when we came pretty near him he fet out again, and at laft, my dog being fo tired that he could not run him any longer, he got quite away from us, and we faw him no more. We fhot a hare however, and a little ugly animal which stunk fo intolerably that none of us could go near him. The flesh of the hares here is as white as fnow, and nothing can be better tafted. A ferjeant of marines, and fome others who were on fhore at another part of the bay, had better fuccefs than fell to our fhare, for they killed two old guanicoes and a fawn; they were however obliged to leave them where they fell, not being able to bring them down to the water fide, near fix miles, without farther affift. ance, though they were but half the weight of thofe that are mentioned by Sir John Narborough; fome however I faw, which could not weigh less than feven or eight and thirty ftone, which is about three hundred pounds. When we returned in the November. evening it blew very hard, and the deck being fo1764. full of lumber that we could not hoift the boats in, we moored them aftern. About midnight, Sunday 25. the storm continuing, our fix oared cutter filled with water and broke adrift; the boat-keeper, by whofe neglect this accident happened, being on board her, very narrowly escaped drowning by catching hold of the ftern ladder. As it was tide of flood when he went from the fhip, we knew that she must drive up the harbour; yet as the lofs of her would be an irremediable misfortune, I fuffered much anxiety till I could fend after her in the morning, and it was then fome hours before Monday 26. The was brought back, having driven many miles with the ftream. In the mean time, I fent another party to fetch the guanicoes which our people had fhot the night before; but they found nothing left except the bones, the tygers having eaten the flesh, and even cracked the bones of the limbs to come at the marrow. Several of our people had been fifteen miles up the country in fearch of fresh water, but could not find the leaft rill: we had funk several wells to a confiderable depth where the ground appeared moist, but upon visiting them, I had the mortification to find that, altogether, they would not yield more than thirty gallons in twenty-four hours: this was a difcouraging circumftance, especially as our people, among other expedients, had watched the guanicoes, and feen them drink at the falt ponds. I therefore determined to leave the place as foon as the fhip could be got into a little order, and the fix oared |