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confiderable fervices : he gave us to underftand that 

 the commandant of St. Mark intended to detain 

 us, till he mould fend advice of our arrival to the 

 governor of St. Auguftin, and mould receive his 

 orders. I begged of this officer, that provided he 

 had fufffcient to maintain us all the time, we might 

 be permitted to remain with him; as what provi- 

 fions we had left, were fcarce enough to carry us 

 to Louifiana. He acquitted himfelf extremely well 

 of his com million, and the difcourfe he made, ac- 

 companied with fome prefents which he hinted we 

 mould offer the commandant, had all the effect we 

 hoped for from it. This officer, even frankly, of- 

 fered us the guides we afked to carry us to St. 

 Jofeph, which lies thirty leagues from St. Mark, 

 and to which they advertifed us the courfe was very 

 difficult to find. This obliged us to tarry the next 

 day, and I was not difpleafed at it; as, befides that 

 I was as well lodged in the fort as the Francifcan 

 governor, (a diftindtion fhewn to me alone, and 

 which I owed to my habit) I was glad to furvey 

 the parts adjacent to the fort. There is a way 

 over land from St. Mark to St. Auguftin, the dis- 

 tance of which is fourfcore leagues, and the road 

 exceeding bad. 



We fet out the twenty third in the morning, and 

 on the twenty fifth about ten o'clock, our guides 

 made us undertake a traverfe of three leagues, to 

 get into a kind of channel formed by the continent 

 on one fide, and on the other by a feries ofiflands 

 of different extent. Had it not been for them, we 

 durft never have ventured to engage in it, and fo 

 had miffed the bay of St. Jofeph. However, we 

 were out of provifions, and the difficulty of find- 

 ing water encreafed every day. One evening that 

 we dug ten paces from the fea on a pretty rifing 



Z 3 ground, 



2 



