473 



HISTOBY OF THE SEA. 



At a place which, in consequence of the difficulty of pro- 

 curing fresh water, received the name of Thirsty Sound, the 

 watering party met with singular adventures. They found 

 walking exceedingly difficult, owing to the ground being covered 

 with a kind of grass, the seeds of which were very sharp and 

 bearded backwards, so that when they stuck into their clothes 

 they worked forward by means of the beard till they pierced the 

 flesh. Mosquitos stung them at every pore. The air was so 

 filled with butterflies that they saw, smelt, tasted, and breathed 

 butterflies. Black ants swarmed upon the trees, eating out the 

 pith from the small branches and then inhabiting the pipe which 

 had contained it; and yet the branches, thus deprived of their 

 marrow and occupied by millions of insects, bore leaves, flowers, 

 and even fruit. They saw a species of fish resembling a minnow, 

 which appeared to prefer land to water : it leaped before them, 

 by means of its breast-fins, as nimbly as a frog; when found in 

 the water it frequently jumped out and pursued its way upon 

 the dry ground ; in places where small stones were standing 

 above the surface of the water at a little distance from each 

 other, it chose rather to leap from stone to stone than to pass 

 through the water. They saw several of them proceed dry-shod 

 over large puddles in this ingenious and unusual manner. The 

 ship left Thirsty Sound on the 31st of May. 



On the night of Sunday, the 10th of June, the vessel struck 

 at high tide upon a rock which lay concealed in seventeen 

 fathoms' water, and beat so violently against it that there 

 seemed little hope of saving her. Land was twenty-five miles 

 off, with no intervening island in sight. The sheathing-boards 

 were soon seen to be floating away all around, and the false keel 

 was finally torn off. The six deck-guns, all the iron and stone 

 ballast, casks, staves, oil-jars, decayed stores, to the weight of 

 fifty tons, were thrown overboard with the utmost expedition. 

 To Cook's dismay, the vessel, thus lightened, did not float by a 



