ascent, this extraordinary degree of cold must be ascribed to the easterly
wind blowing fresh over the snowy mountains.

Early on the 27th they set out again, and filled their calibashes at an
excellent well about half a mile from their hut. Having passed the
plantations, they came to a thick wood, which they entered by a path made
for the convenience of the natives, who go thither to fetch the wild or
horse-plantain, and to catch birds. Their progress now became very slow,
and attended with much labour; the ground being either swampy, or covered
with large stones; the path narrow, and frequently interrupted by trees
lying across it, which it was necessary to climb over, the thickness of the
underwood on both sides making it impossible to pass round them. In these
woods they observed, at small distances, pieces of white cloth fixed on
poles, which they supposed to be land-marks for the division of property,
as they only met with them where the wild plantains grew. The trees, which
are of the same kind with those we called the spice-tree at New Holland,
were lofty and straight, and from two to four feet in circumference.

After they had advanced about ten miles in the wood, they had the
mortification to find themselves, on a sudden, within sight of the sea, and
at no great distance from it; the path having turned imperceptibly to the
southward, and carried them to the right of the mountain, which it was
their object to reach. Their disappointment was greatly increased by the
uncertainty they were now under of its true bearings, since they could not,
at this time, get a view of it from the top of the highest trees. They,
therefore, found themselves obliged to walk back six or seven miles to an
unoccupied hut, where they had left three of the natives and two of their
own people, with the small stock that remained of their provisions. Here
they spent the second night; and the air was so very sharp, and so little
to the liking of their guides, that, by the morning, they had all departed,