Leaving Mr. Tarrant in charge of the yawl, I proceeded with Mr. Helpman to trace the river, immediately after daylight.  Against the last of the ebb tide, and with the thermometer at 80 degrees, we contrived to reach a spot two miles beyond Point Escape before noon.  From Point Escape upwards, there appeared to be, at low-water, no regular channel; the bed of the river assumed the aspect of an extensive flat of mud, intersected with small rivulets or streams that served to drain it.  No signs of human habitation were seen along its banks, which divided by numerous small creeks, and thickly fringed with the unfailing mangrove, stretched away in level and drear monotony, only broken towards the west by land of inconsiderable elevation.  The circling flight of the ever-wary curlew, and the shrill cry of the plover, now first disturbed in their accustomed territory, alone vouched for the presence of animal life in that vast solitude, the effect of which they heightened, rather than removed!

RETURN ON FOOT.

Finding the further ascent almost if not altogether impracticable at the present state of the tide, I ordered the boat back to Point Escape, and landed, accompanied by Mr. Helpman, and a seaman, intending to return on foot.

PERILOUS SITUATION.

The shore was a soft mud, in which the small mangroves had found a most congenial soil:  while our journey every now and then, arrested by the intervention of one or other of the numerous little creeks of which I have before spoken, promised to prove a more fatiguing, if not more hazardous affair, than we had originally contemplated.

We managed at first, by ascending their banks for a short distance from the river, to jump across these opposing creeks, but as the tide rose, they filled and widened in proportion, and each moment increased the difficulties of our position, now heightened by the untoward discovery that William Ask, the seaman who had accompanied us, was unable to swim!

Time and tide, however, wait for no man, and the rapidly rising waters had flooded the whole of the low land which formed this bank of the river, so that we were compelled to wade, feeling with a stick for the edges of the creeks in our route, over each of which Mr. Helpman and myself had alternately to swim in order to pass the arms undamaged; and then Ask, making the best jump that he could muster for the occasion, was dragged ashore on the opposite side.  At length we reached a creek, the breadth of which rendered this mode of proceeding no longer practicable, and we were compelled to stop, being fortunately very near the point where I had directed the boat to meet us.  Our situation was now anything but pleasant, the water being already above our knees, and the tide having still several hours to rise; while the mangrove trees by which we were surrounded, were all too slender to afford the least support.