was the better
able to receive and resist the shock. When the tide slacked we returned
to the deep water off Escape Point, and spent the remainder of the night
in quiet, I would fain hope, so far as most of us were concerned, not
without a thankful remembrance of Him, whose merciful providence had been
so recently manifested in our behalf!

ASCENT OF THE FITZROY.

February 27.

Leaving Mr. Tarrant in charge of the yawl, I proceeded with Mr. Helpman
to trace the river, immediately after daylight. Against the last of the
ebb tide, and with the thermometer at 80 degrees, we contrived to reach a
spot two miles beyond Point Escape before noon. From Point Escape
upwards, there appeared to be, at low-water, no regular channel; the bed
of the river assumed the aspect of an extensive flat of mud, intersected
with small rivulets or streams that served to drain it. No signs of human
habitation were seen along its banks, which divided by numerous small
creeks, and thickly fringed with the unfailing mangrove, stretched away
in level and drear monotony, only broken towards the west by land of
inconsiderable elevation. The circling flight of the ever-wary curlew,
and the shrill cry of the plover, now first disturbed in their accustomed
territory, alone vouched for the presence of animal life in that vast
solitude, the effect of which they heightened, rather than removed!

RETURN ON FOOT.

Finding the further ascent almost if not altogether impracticable at the
present state of the tide, I ordered the boat back to Point Escape, and
landed, accompanied by Mr. Helpman, and a seaman, intending to return on
foot.

PERILOUS SITUATION.

The shore was a soft mud, in which the small mangroves had found a most
congenial soil: while our journey every now and then, arrested by the
intervention of one or other of the numerous little creeks of which I
have before spoken, promised to prove a more fatiguing, if not more
hazardous affair, than we had originally contemplated.

We managed at first, by ascending their banks for a short distance from
the river, to jump across these opposing creeks, but as the tide rose,
they filled and widened in proportion, and each moment increased the
difficulties of our position, now heightened by the untoward discovery
that William Ask, the seaman who had accompanied us, was unable to swim!

Time and tide, however, wait for no man, and the rapidly rising waters
had flooded the whole of the low land which