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. 
18th. Peter was very ill to-day, and Mr. Buchan not at 
all well; the rest of us, thank God, in good health, though 
not 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 ZLepades, Sertularie, 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 
