Friday, April 15th, 1791.  The return of light aroused us to the repetition of toil.  Our friends breakfasted with us, and previous to starting Gombeeree gave a specimen of their manner of climbing trees in quest of animals.  He asked for a hatchet and one of ours was offered to him, but he preferred one of their own making.  With this tool he cut a small notch in the tree he intended to climb, about two feet and a half above the ground, in which he fixed the great toe of his left foot, and sprung upwards, at the same time embracing the tree with his left arm.  In an instant he had cut a second notch for his right toe on the other side of the tree into which he sprung, and thus, alternately cutting on each side, he mounted to the height of twenty feet in nearly as short a space as if he had ascended by a ladder, although the bark of the tree was quite smooth and slippery and the trunk four feet in diameter and perfectly strait.  To us it was a matter of astonishment, but to him it was sport; for while employed thus he kept talking to those below and laughing immoderately.  He descended with as much ease and agility as he had raised himself.  Even our natives allowed that he was a capital performer, against whom they dared not to enter the lists; for as they subsist chiefly by fishing they are less expert at climbing on the coast than those who daily practice it.

Soon after they bade us adieu, in unabated friendship and good humour.  Colbee and Boladeree parted from them with a slight nod of the head, the usual salutation of the country; and we shook them by the hand, which they returned lustily.

At the time we started the tide was flowing up the river, a decisive proof that we were below Richmond Hill.  We had continued our march but a short time when we were again stopped by a creek, which baffled all our endeavours to cross it, and seemed to predict that the object of our attainment, though but a very few miles distant, would take us yet a considerable time to reach, which threw a damp on our hopes.  We traced the creek until four o’clock, when we halted for the night.  The country, on both sides, we thought in general unpromising; but it is certainly very superior to that which we had seen on the former creek.  In many places it might be cultivated, provided the inundations of the stream can be repelled.

In passing along we shot some ducks, which Boladeree refused to swim for when requested, and told us in a surly tone that they swam for what was killed, and had the trouble of fetching it ashore, only for the white men to eat it.  This reproof was, I fear, too justly founded; for of the few ducks we had been so fortunate as to procure, little had fallen to their share except the offals, and now and then a half-picked bone.  True, indeed, all the crows and hawks which had been shot were given to them; but they plainly told us that the taste of ducks was more agreeable to their palates, and begged they might hereafter partake of them.  We observed that they were thoroughly sick of the journey, and wished heartily for its conclusion:  the exclamation of “Where’s Rose Hill, where?” was incessantly repeated, with many inquiries about when we should return to it.