It might be about the middle of March that we embarked with these Indians.  They separated our little company entirely, not putting any two of us together in the same canoe.  The oar was my lot, as usual, as also Mr Campbell’s; Mr Hamilton could not row, and Captain Cheap was out of the question; our surgeon was more dead than alive at the time, and lay at the bottom of the canoe he was in.  The weather coming on too bad for their canoes to keep the sea, we landed again, without making any great progress that day.  Here Mr Elliot, our surgeon, died.  At our first setting out, he promised the fairest for holding out, being a very strong active young man:  He had gone through an infinite deal of fatigue, as Mr Hamilton and he were the best shots amongst us, and whilst our ammunition lasted never spared themselves, and in a great measure provided for the rest; but he died the death many others had done before him, being quite starved.  We scraped a hole for him in the sand, and buried him in the best manner we could.

Here I must relate a little anecdote of our Christian cacique.  He and his wife had gone off at some distance from the shore in their canoe, when she dived for sea-eggs; but not meeting with great success, they returned a good deal out of humour.  A little boy of theirs, about three years old, whom they appeared to be doatingly fond of, watching for his father and mother’s return, ran into the surf to meet them:  The father handed a basket of sea-eggs to the child, which being too heavy for him to carry, he let it fall; upon which the father jumped out of the canoe, and catching the boy up in his arms, dashed him with the utmost violence against the stones.  The poor little creature lay motionless and bleeding, and in that condition was taken up by the mother, but died soon after.  She appeared inconsolable for some time, but the brute his father shewed little concern about it.

A day or two after we put to sea again, and crossed the great bay I mentioned we had been to the bottom of, when we first hauled away to the westward.  The land here was very low and sandy, with something like the mouth of a river, which discharged itself into the sea, and which had been taken no notice of by us before, as it was so shallow that the Indians were obliged to take every thing out of their canoes, and carry it over the neck of land, and then, haul the boats over into a river which at this part of it was very broad, more resembling a lake than a river.  We rowed up it for four or five leagues, and then took into a branch of it, that ran first to the eastward, and then to the northward:  Here it became much narrower, and the stream excessively rapid, so that we made but little way, though we worked very hard.  At night we landed upon its banks, and had a most uncomfortable lodging, it being a perfect swamp; and we had nothing to cover us, though it rained very hard.  The Indians were little better off than we, as there was no wood here to make their wigwams;