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1764. Novemb.

Thurf. 22.

Friday 23.

the ship tailed on shore 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 reason to fear that the anchor fhould come home before the ship 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 utmost 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 reafon to hope that she had fuffered no damage; however, I determined to unhang the rudder, that it might be examined.

During all this night and the next morning the wind blew with great violence; 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 small bower, and that unfortunately came home again we therefore got a hawfer out of the Tamar, who lay in the stream, and after weighing the fmall bower, we got out by her affiftance, and then dropped it again, most ardently wishing for fair weather, that we might get the ship properly moored.

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 so hard that we could not venture to change our station. We had found a fmall fpring 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 feveral miles into the country, which I found barren and defolate, in every direction, as far as the eye could reach. We had seen many guanicoes at a diftance, but we could not get near enough to have fhot at them; we tracked beafts 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 Jeft marks of their feet near the falt pond, drank the water, and indeed we faw no fresh water for them.

The

had

The spring that we had found, which was not perfectly fresh, was the only one of the kind that we been able to discover; and for that we had been obliged to dig, there being no appearance of it except a flight moisture of the ground.

[blocks in formation]

On the 24th, upon flack water, we carried both the Sat. 24. ships 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 fix fathom; but at fpring tides the water rifes no less than four fathom and an half, which is feven and twenty feet. The tide indeed in this place is 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 stream had hurried him almoft out of fight; we had however at last the good fortune to fave him. This day I was again on shore, and walked fix or seven miles up the country I faw feveral hares as large as a fawn: I.fhot one of them, which weighed more than fix and twenty pounds, and if I had a good greyhound, Idare say 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 in Sund. 25. 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 mufquet, with the King's broad arrow upon it. The mufquet barrel had fuffered fo much from the weather, that it might be crumbled into 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 fpecies of wild peas; but though we had feen no inhabitants, we faw places where they had made their fires, which however did not appear to be recent. While we were on fhore we shot some wild

ducks,

1764. Novemb.

Mond. 26.

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 distance behind, and made a
noife that resembled the neighing of a horfe; but when
we came pretty near him he fet out again, and at last,
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 shot a hare however, and a little ugly animal
which funk 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 tasted. A Serjeant of
marines, and some others who were on fhore at another
part of the bay, had better fuccefs than fell to our share,
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 affistance, though they were
but half the weight of those 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 above four hundred pounds. When we re-
turned in the evening it blew very hard, and the deck
being fo full of lumber that we could not hoift the boats
in, we moored them aftern. About midnight, the storm
continuing, our fix oared cutter filled with water and
broke adrift; the boat keeper, by whofe neglect this ac-
cident happened, being on board her, very narrowly
efcaped drowning by catching hold of the ftern ladder.
As it was tide of flood when the went from the ship, we
knew that the muft drive up the harbour; yet as the
lofs of her would be an irremediable misfortune, I fuf-
fered much anxiety till I could fend after her in the
morning, and it was then fome hours before she was
brought back, having driven many miles with the stream.
In the mean time, I fent another party to fetch the gua-
nicoes which our people had shot 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

Novemb.

of our people had been fifteen miles up the country in 1764 fearch of fresh water, but could not find the least rill: we had funk feveral wells to a confiderable depth where the ground appeared moift, but upon vifiting them I had the mortification to find that, all together, they would not yield more than thirty gallons in twenty-four hours; this was a difcouraging circumftance, efpecially 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 ship could be got into a little order, and the fix-oared cutter repaired, which had been hauled up upon the beech for that purpose.

On the 27th, fome of our people, who had been afhore Tuesd. 27. on the north fide of the bay to try for more guanicoes, found the skull and bones of a man, which they brought off with them, and one young guanicoe alive, which we all agreed was one of the most beautiful creatures we had ever seen: it foon grew very tame, and would fuck our fingers like a calf; but, notwithstanding all our care and contrivances to feed it, it died in a few days. In the afternoon of this day it blew so hard that I was obliged to keep a confiderable number of hands continually by the sheet anchor, as there was too much reafon to fear that our cables would part, which however did not happen. In the mean time, fome of our people that were on fhore with the carpenters, who were repairing the cutter on the fouth fide of the bay, found two more fprings of tolerable water about two miles from the beach, in a direct line from the ships station. To these springs I fent twenty hands early in the morn- Wedn. 28. ing with fome small cafks called Earecas, and in a few turns they brought on board a tun of water, of which we began to be in great want. In the mean time I went myself about twelve miles up the river in my boat, and the weather then growing bad, I went on fhore the river, as far as I could fee, was very broad; there were in it a number of, iflands, fome of which were very large, and I make no doubt but that it penetrates the country for fome hundreds of miles. It was upon one of the islands that I went on fhore, and I found there such a number of birds, that when they rofe they literally darkened the fky, and we could not walk a ftep

without

1764. Novemb.

without treading upon their eggs. As they kept hover-
ing over our heads at a little distance, the men knocked
down many
of them with stones and sticks, and carried
off feveral hundreds of their eggs. After fome time, I
left the island and landed upon the main, where our
men dreffed and eat their eggs, though there were young
birds in most of them. I faw no traces of inhabitants
on either fide of the river, but great numbers of guani-
coes, in herds of fixty or seventy together: they would
not however fuffer us to approach them, but stood and
gazed at us from the hills. In this excurfion the Sur-
geon, who was of my party, fhot a tyger-cat, a fmall
but very fierce animal; for though it was much wound-
ed, it maintained a very sharp conteft with my dog for
a confiderable time before it was killed.

Thurfd. 29. On the 29th, we completed our ballaft, which the strength of the tide, and the constant gales of wind difficult and laborious task: we also got

rendered a very

on board another tun of water. On the morning of the Friday 30. 30th, the weather was so bad that we could not fend a boat on fhore; but employed all hands on board in setting up the rigging. It grew more moderate however about noon, and I then fent a boat to procure more water: the two men who firft came up to the well found there a large tyger lying upon the ground; having gazed at each other fome time, the men who had no fire arms, feeing the beast treat them with as much contemptuous neglect as the lion did the knight of La-` Mancha, began to throw ftones at him: of this infult however he did not deign to take the leaft notice, but continued ftretched upon the ground in great tranquility till the rest of the party came up, and then he very leifurely rofe and walked away.

December.
Saturd. I.

On the first of December, our cutter being thoroughly repaired, we took her on board, but the weather was fo bad that we could not get off any water : the next day we ftruck the tents which had been fet up at the watering-place, and got all ready for fea. The two wells from which we got our water bear about S. S. E. of the steeple rock, from which they are diftant about two miles and an half; but I fixed a mark near them, that they might be ftill more eafily found than by their bearings. During our ftay in this harbour,

we

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