While the other gentlemen of the party were along with the governor, examining the country, I employed myself in taking the meridian altitude of the sun, by which I found the highest part of the hill to be in latitude 33 deg. 37’ south.

The gentlemen spoke highly in favour of the country as far as they walked; it was perfectly clear of any kind of under-wood; the trees upon it were all very tall, and stood very wide apart; the soil was also examined, and found very good:  a small patch was dug up, and a few potatoes, Indian-corn, melon, and other seeds sown.  This was a common practice, when a piece of ground, favourable from its soil, and being in an unfrequented situation, was found, to sow a few seeds of different kinds:  some of the little gardens, which had been planted in this manner, and left to nature, have been since visited and found thriving, others have miscarried.

After making these observations, the tide being made, we put off in the boats, and endeavoured to get higher up, but were frequently aground:  by the time we had reached half a mile higher than the foot of Richmond-hill, we met the stream setting down so strong, that it was with much difficulty we could get the boats so high.  We here found the river to divide into two narrow branches, from one of which the stream came down with considerable velocity, and with a fall over a range of stones which seemed to lye across its entrance:  this was the fall which we had heard the night before from our situation on the side of Richmond-hill.

We found too little water for the boats which we had with us to advance any farther, and the stream was very strong, although weak to what it may reasonably be conjectured to be after heavy rains; for here we had evident marks of the vast torrents which must pour down from the mountains, after heavy rains.  The low grounds, at such times, are entirely covered, and the trees with which they are overgrown, are laid down (with their tops pointing down the river,) as much as I ever saw a field of corn after a storm; and where any of these trees have been strong enough to resist in any degree the strength of the torrent, (for they are all less or more bent downwards) we saw in the clifts of the branches of such trees, vast quantities of large logs which had been hurried down by the force of the waters, and lodged from thirty to forty feet above the common level of the river; and at that height there were great quantities of grass, reeds, and such other weeds as are washed from the banks of the river, hanging to the branches.

The first notice we took of these signs of an extraordinary swelling of the water, was twelve or fourteen miles lower down, and where the river is not so confined in its breadth:  there we measured the same signs of such torrents twenty-eight feet above the surface of the water:  the common rise and fall of the tide did not appear to be more than six feet.