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. 
7th. 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. Night 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, 
