LOSS OF A JAMAICA SLOOP. 251 
"After two or three days being in the river, we rowed up 
several miles, to see if we could discover the signs of any in- 
habitants, or a more convenient place to pitch our tent ; but 
found the whole country flat and morassy, and not the least 
sign of any people. The weather continued bad for eight or 
ten days, often raining very hard; and being still plagued 
with flies, were obliged to quit the woods and go to the sea- 
side, into the breeze, to get rid of them ; but found we had 
not changed much for the better, for the sand flies there were 
almost as troublesome as the musketoes in the woods. 
" In a day or two after we changed our quarters one of 
our people took a hicatee asleep upon a log of wood m the 
river, as it was sunning itself, on which we feasted plentifully. 
It is an amphibious creature, and like what is called a tortoise 
or land turtle. In two or three days after we removed to the 
sea-side I was seized with a violent pain in my right thigh ; 
it swelled extremely, and looked very red, insomuch that I 
could neither stand nor go ; from the excessive pain of my 
thigh, and the biting and stinging of musketoes and sand 
flies, I had no rest either night or day, my hands being always 
employed in beating ofl* the flies from my face. Our powder 
and shot being all spent, except a little reserved to make a 
fire, we lived chiefly upon cabbage, which grew there in great 
numbers, some of the trees grow to fifty or sixty feet high, 
the circumference being about four or five feet. The cabbage 
is close, very white, short, and well tasted, and I thought 
sweeter and better than our English cabbage. In this river 
we frequently saw numbers of large alligators, and it was 
usual for eight or ten of them together to come ashore upon 
a point of sand near the river's mouth, in the middle of the 
day, to sun themselves. Our provisions growing short, be- 
fore I was lame, I endeavored to shoot some of them for food, 
but had not the good fortune to kill any. 
"When we had been here ten or twelve days, the weather 
was grown pretty tolerable, but there was still a great sea beat 
upon the shore, when the seamen took it in their heads to go 
to sea in the canoe, in order to get to Plantain River ; and 
notwithstanding my lameness, and earnest entreaties to the 
contrary, I could not prevail with them to stay a day or two 
till I was better, in which time the sea might have fallen, and 
we should then not run half the risk in going out of the river, 
as at this time. I made shift to crawl to the canoe, and placed 
myself in the stern-sheets, and with the help of my boatswain 
undertook to steer her. It is commonly observed, that the sea 
