JULY 1770 KANGOOROOS MOSQUITOS 285 



at least I guess by his description, and we saw three of the 

 animals of the country, but could not get one ; also a kind 

 of bat as large as a partridge, but these also we were not 

 lucky enough to get. At night we took up our lodgings 

 close to the banks of the river, and made a fire ; but the 

 mosquitos, whose peaceful dominions it seems we had invaded, 

 spared no pains to molest us as much as was in their power : 

 they followed us into the very smoke, nay, almost into the 

 fire, which, hot as the climate was, we could better bear the 

 heat of than their intolerable stings. Between the hardness 

 of our bed, the heat of the fire, and the stings of these inde- 

 fatigable insects, the night was not spent so agreeably but 

 day was earnestly wished for by all of us. 



*lik. At last it came, and with its first dawn we set out 

 in search of game. We walked many miles over the flats 

 and saw four of the animals, two of which my greyhound 

 fairly chased ; but they beat him owing to the length and 

 thickness of the grass, which prevented him from running, 

 while they at every bound leaped over the tops of it. We 

 observed, much to our surprise, that instead of going upon 

 all fours, this animal went only upon two legs, making vast 

 bounds just as the jerboa (Mus jaculus : ) does. 



We observed a smoke, but when we came to the place the 

 people were gone. The fire was in an old tree of touchwood. 

 Their houses were there, and branches of trees broken down, 

 with which the children had been playing, were not yet 

 withered ; their footsteps, also, on the sands below high-water 

 mark proved that they had very lately been there. Near their 

 oven, in which victuals had been dressed since noon, were the 

 shells of a kind of clam, and the roots of a wild yam which 

 had been cooked in it. Thus were we disappointed of the 

 only good chance we have had of seeing the people since we 

 came here, by their unaccountable timidity. Mght soon 

 coming on, we repaired to our quarters, which were upon a 

 broad sand-bank under the shade of a bush, where we hoped 

 the mosquitos would not trouble us. Our beds of plantain 

 leaves spread on the sand, as soft as a mattress, our cloaks 



1 Dipus jaculus. 



