250 LOSS OF A JAMAICA SLOOP. 
and anxiety. We put our canoe's head to the eastward, in or- 
der to return to Plantain River, but had not rowed above five 
or six miles, (being now obliged to row against the wind,) be- 
fore the sky beg;an to lovver, grow cloudy, and thicken apace 
to the northward, which threatened an approaching storm. It 
being then about four or five o'clock in the afternoon, I thought 
it high time to provide for our safety before night, by putting* 
the canoe ashore or into some river ; but there being a very 
great sea, either was very dangerous ; and to keep the sea m 
a storm was still worse ; and so of two evils I chose the lesser. 
Seeing the opening of a river, we endeavored to get in ; but 
the sea ran so high at the mouth of it that it filled our canoe 
and threw us ashore on the west side. With a good deal of 
hard labor we freed her and put her into the river. It being 
now night, we anchored in the middle of the stream, in hopes 
of being free from flies. The night proving very stormy, we 
thought ourselves very happy we had got into so good an har- 
bor. In the morning we rowed about two miles up the river ; 
and observing a little ridge of land standing above the rest, 
landed there, and soon after pitched a tent with our canoe's 
sails ; we cut down the branches of the cohone trees, to lay 
at the bottom of it to sleep upon and keep us from the wet 
ground. The weather continued very stormy, and in the night 
there fell such a prodigious deal of rain that it occasioned a 
continual rivulet to run through our tent ; and we lay in water, 
though it was placed on the highest ground; being also very 
much pestered with musketoes and other stinging flies, which 
would not suffer us to sleep. 
" In the morning the rain ceased and it grew fair weather, 
though the wind continued to blow hard. We began to look 
about to see what we could meet with for the mouth, and went 
on the other side of the river in order to hunt. We saw a 
large guana on the bough of a tree, which one of our people 
endeavored to take with his hand, but it escaped into the river, 
and so we lost a creature that would have given us all a good 
meal. We had not gone far into the woods before we saw a 
company of Irage black monkeys, of which we killed several, 
and then returned to our tent. Our people thought these mon- 
keys excellent victuals, and ate them very greedily ; though, 
for my own part, it was several days before I could prevail 
with myself to taste them, they looked so much like young chil- 
dren broiled. But it was not long before I got over the preju- 
dice, and ate them as heartily as any of our men. The flesh 
of a monkey has some thing of the taste of ill-fed pork, and 
are about the bigness of a full grown hare. 
