30 loss OF THE 
considerable quantity of oysters, muscles, and limpets. These 
were divided among the women, the children, and the sick ; 
for the tide happening to come m before they had collected a 
sufficient stock, some of the wretched troop were obliged to 
put up with a very scanty allowance. Alter a repast which 
rather excited than gratified their appetites, they continued 
their march, and about noon reached a small village, where 
an old man approached them, armed with a lance, which he 
levelled, making at the same time a noise somewhat resem- 
bling the report of a musket. From this circumstance, it is 
probable, he was acquainted with the use of fire arms, and 
apprehended they would kill his cattle, for he immediately 
drove his herd into the kraal ; an enclosure, where they are 
always secured upon the approach of danger, and during the 
night. The old man took no further notice of the English, 
but they were followed by some of the other inhabitants of 
the village, who behaved extremely ill. 
The final separation now took place ; they parted to meet 
no more. In adopting this resolution they appear to have 
been infiiuenced by motives which had, at least, the specious 
appearance of reason. They conceived that by pursuing 
different routes, and traveling in small parties, they should be 
less the objects of jealousy to the natives, and could the more 
easily procure subsistence. To counterbalance these advan- 
tages, however, they lost that unity of action, that systematic 
direction, which a prudent superior can communicate to those 
under his care ; and by rejecting established authority, they 
soon split into parties, guided only by caprice, and swayed by 
temporary views. After all, they did not part without evinc- 
ing those emotions so honorable to human nature : their mis- 
fortunes had, in some measure, levelled distinctions, and the 
services of the lowest were regarded as tokens of friendship, 
not expressions of duty. 
From this period the fate of the captain and his associates 
is almost wholly unkno^Ti. But imagination cannot form a 
scene of deeper distress than what the delicate and tender sex 
and the innocent children must have experienced. From the 
accounts of some of the party who survived their distresses, 
and subsequent inquiries, it is probable that the hand of death 
soon released them from their accumulated ills ; though the 
public mind was long harassed with the belief that a few 
had been doomed to worse than death by the natives. 
The separation being decided upon, the party which had 
attached itself to the second mate, traveled till it was quite 
