360 
FRAGMENTS OF WRECKS. 
in the middle of the day, the foot-prints of the natives 
were quite fresh, and shewed that they were travel- 
ling the same way as ourselves. 
For the last two or three days, we had passed 
many pieces of wreck upon the beach, oars, thwarts 
of boats, fragments of masts, spars, &c. strewed 
about in every direction ; none of them, however, 
appeared to have been recently deposited there, and 
many of the oars, and lighter spars, were stuck up 
on their ends in the sand above high water mark, 
probably so placed by the natives, but with what 
object I know not. One oar was stuck up upon a 
high sand ridge, some distance from the shore, and 
I spent some time in examining the place, in the 
vain hope that it might be an indication of our 
vicinity to water. 
In the afternoon we all had a little tea ; and after 
a bathe in the sea, again moved onwards ; fortu- 
nately the beach was firm and hard, and the evening 
cool ; the horses advanced slowly and steadily, and 
in a way that quite surprised me. After travelling 
for thirteen miles, we encamped under the coast 
ridge late in the evening, all very much ex- 
hausted, having made several ineffectual searches 
for water, among the sandy ridges, as we passed 
along. 
In our route along the shore, we had seen im- 
mense numbers of fish in the shallow waters, and 
among the reefs lying off* the coast; several dead 
ones had been picked up, and of these the boys 
