98 
TERRIBLE WALKING. 
the branches of the lower bushes just about as high as 
we usually carried our heads : this was 'particularly plea- 
sant, — worse even than being the ^lasi man' I think of 
that Avalk even now and shudder. It was after dark 
when we reached the schooner; and we returned without 
hope. Before turning in it was determined to start again 
on the morrow, leaving but one well man and the sick to 
look out for the vessel. We thought to find some sign 
that could determine their fate; at any rate, we could not 
give them up without another trial. 
“ The morrow came, and our swelled feet and aching 
muscles moved us slowly into the boat. We had walked 
some twenty miles on the previous day, through the 
dense jungle and miry swamps, and over broken rocks 
and abrupt elevations, and were hardly fit for another 
tramp. We had wrung blood from our stockings when 
we had bathed our feet at dinner-time, and yet sunrise 
found us again entering the jungle. 
“The boat which landed us we sent some miles up the 
beach, with orders to anchor at a certain point and keep 
up a regular discharge of musketry until sundown. 
Three men were detailed for this service, and they were 
ordered to fire every half-hour. 
“The rest of us — ten in number — were fully armed, and 
carried, in addition to our own provisions, a two-pound 
tin of meat-biscuit, in case we should find the men in an 
exhausted state. We now gave up the single-file idea, 
and tried to spread over a wide area by walking abreast 
of each other, keeping from ten to twenty paces between 
each man and the next on either hand; but the utter 
impossibility of progressing in that style soon demon- 
/ 
