102 cook's voyage to march, 



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 taken themselves off, 

 except one. 



The want of provisions now making it necessary to 

 return to some of the cultivated parts of the island, 

 they quitted the wood by the same path they had 

 entered it; and, on their arrival at the plantations, 

 were surrounded by the natives, of whom they pur- 

 chased a fresh stock of necessaries; and prevailed 

 upon two of them to supply the place of the guides 

 that were gone away. Having obtained the best 

 information in their power, with regard to the direc- 

 tion of their road, the party being now nine in number, 

 marched along the skirts of the wood for six or seven 

 miles, and then entered it again by a path that bore 

 to the eastward. For the first three miles they passed 

 through a forest of lofty spice-trees, growing on a 

 strong rich loam; at the back of which they found 

 an equal extent of low shrubby trees, with much 

 thick underwood, on a bottom of loose burnt stones. 

 This led them to a second forest of spice-trees, and 

 the same rich brown soil, which was again succeeded 

 by a barren ridge of the same nature with the former. 

 This alternate succession may, perhaps, afford matter 

 of curious speculation to naturalists. The only addi- 

 tional circumstance I could learn relating to it, was, 

 that these ridges appeared, as far as they could be 

 seen, to run in directions parallel to the sea shore, 

 and to have Mouna Roa for their centre. 



In passing through the woods, they found many 

 canoes half finished, and here and there a hut j but 



