On the 7th, I sent the Master again out to sound about the shoals, the account which he had brought me of a channel being by no means satisfactory; and we spent the remainder of this day, and the morning of the next, in fishing, and other necessary occupations.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, Mr. Banks and his party returned, and gave us an account of their expedition. Having proceeded about three leagues among swamps and mangroves, they went up into the country, which they found to differ but little from what they had seen before: they pursued their course therefore up the river, which at length was contracted into a narrow channel, and was bounded, not by swamps and mangroves, but by steep banks, that were covered with trees of a most beautiful verdure, among which was that which in the West Indies is called Mohoe, or the bark tree, the hibiscus tiliaceus; the land within was in general low, and had a thick covering of long grass: the soil seemed to be such as promised great fertility, to any who should plant and improve it. In the course of the day, Tupia saw an animal, which, by his description, Mr. Banks judged to be a wolf: they also saw three other animals, but could neither catch nor kill one of them, and a kind of bat, as large as a partridge, but this also eluded all their diligence and skill. At night, they took up their lodging close to the banks of the river, and made a fire, but the musquitos swarmed about them in such numbers, that their quarters were almost untenable; they followed them into the smoke, and almost into the fire, which, hot as the climate was, they could better endure than the stings of these insects, which were an intolerable torment. The fire, the flies, and the want of a better bed than the ground, rendered the night extremely uncomfortable, so that they passed it not in sleep, but in restless wishes for the return of day. With the first dawn they set out in search of game, and in a walk of many miles, they saw four animals of the same kind, two of which Mr. Banks’s greyhound fairly chaced, but they threw him out at a great distance, by leaping over the long thick grass, which prevented his running: this animal was observed not to run upon four legs, but to bound or hop forward upon two, like the Jerbua, or Mus Jaculus. About noon, they returned to the boat, and again proceeded up the river, which was soon contracted into a fresh water brook, where, however, the tide rose to a considerable height: as evening approached, it became low water, and it was then so shallow that they were obliged to get out of the boat and drag her along, till they could find a place in which they might, with some hope of rest, pass the night. Such a place at length offered, and while they were getting the things out of the boat, they observed a smoke at the distance of about a furlong: as they did not doubt but that some of the natives, with whom they had so long and earnestly desired to become personally acquainted, were about the fire, three of the party went immediately towards it, hoping that so small a number would not put them to flight: when they came up to the place, however, they found it deserted, and therefore they conjectured that before they had discovered the Indians, the Indians had discovered them. They found the fire still burning, in the hollow of an old tree that was become touch-wood, and several branches of trees newly broken down, with which children appeared to have been playing: they observed also many foot-steps upon the sand, below high water mark, which were certain indications that the Indians had been recently upon the spot. Several houses were found at a little distance, and some ovens dug in the ground, in the same manner as those of Otaheite, in which victuals appeared to have been dressed since the morning, and, scattered about them, lay some shells of a kind of clamm, and some fragments of roots, the refuse of the meal. After regretting their disappointment, they repaired to their quarters, which was a broad sand bank, under the shelter of a bush. Their beds were plantain leaves, which they spread upon the sand, and which were as soft as a mattress; their cloaks served them for bed-clothes, and some bunches of grass for pillows: with these accommodations they hoped to pass a better night than the last, especially as, to their great comfort, not a musquito was to be seen. Here then they lay down, and, such is the force of habit, they resigned themselves to sleep, without once reflecting upon the probability and danger of being found by the Indians in that situation. If this appears strange, let us for a moment reflect, that every danger, and every calamity, after a time becomes familiar, and loses its effect upon the mind. If it were possible that a man should first be made acquainted with his mortality, or even with the inevitable debility and infirmities of old age, when his understanding had arrived at its full strength, and life was endeared by the enjoyments of youth, and vigour, and health, with what an agony of terror and distress would the intelligence be received! yet, being gradually acquainted with these mournful truths, by insensible degrees, we scarce know when, they lose all their force, and we think no more of the approach of old age and death, than these wanderers of an unknown desart did of a less obvious and certain evil, the approach of the native savages, at a time when they must have fallen an easy prey to their malice or their fears. And it is remarkable, that the greater part of those who have been condemned to suffer a violent death, have slept the night immediately preceding their execution, though there is perhaps no instance of a person accused of a capital crime having slept the first night of his confinement. Thus is the evil of life in some degree a remedy for itself, and though every man at twenty deprecates fourscore, almost every man is as tenacious of life at fourscore as at twenty; and if he does not suffer under any painful disorder, loses as little of the comforts that remain by reflecting that he is upon the brink of the grave, where the earth already crumbles under his feet, as he did of the pleasures of his better days, when his dissolution, though certain, was supposed to be at a distance.

Voyaging Accounts