JAN. 1769 RETURN TO THE SHIP 55 



being nearer to the ship than we had any reason to hope for. 

 From the ship we found that we had made a half-circle 

 round the hills instead of penetrating, as we thought we 

 had done, into the inner part of the country. With what 

 pleasure we congratulated each other on our safety no one 

 can tell who has not been in such circumstances. 



ISth. Peter was very ill to-day, and Mr. Buchan not at 

 all well ; the rest of us, thank God, in good health, though 

 riot yet recovered from our fatigue. 



20th. This morning was very fine, so much so that we 

 landed without any difficulty at the bottom of the bay and 

 spent our time very much to our satisfaction in collecting 

 shells and plants. Of the former we found some very 

 scarce and fine, particularly limpets ; of several species of 

 these we observed (as well as the shortness of our time 

 would permit) that the limpet with a longish hole at the 

 top of his shell is inhabited by an animal very different 

 from that which has no such hole. Here were also some 

 fine whelks, one particularly with a long tooth, and an 

 infinite variety of Lepades, Sertularice, Onisci, etc., in much 

 greater variety than I have anywhere seen. But the 

 shortness of our time would not allow us to examine 

 them, so we were obliged to content ourselves with taking 

 specimens of as many of them as we could in so short a 

 time scrape together. 



We returned on board to dinner, and afterwards went 

 about two miles into the country to visit an Indian town, of 

 which some of our people had given us news. We arrived 

 there in about an hour, walking through a path which I 

 suppose was their common road, though it was sometimes 

 up to our knees in mud. The town itself was situated upon 

 a dry knoll among the trees, which had not been at all 

 cleared ; it consisted of not more than twelve or fourteen 

 huts or wigwams of the most unartificial construction imagin- 

 able ; indeed, nothing bearing the name of a hut could pos- 

 sibly be built with less trouble. A hut consisted of a few 

 poles set up and meeting together at the top in a conical 

 figure, and covered on the weather side with a few boughs 



