f them drank pretty plentifully of it, so far will
necessity and custom get the better of nature! On this account they were
obliged to return to the last-mentioned well, where, after having quenched
their thirst, they directed their route across the island towards the ship,
as it was now four o'clock.

In a small hollow, on the highest part of the island, they met with several
such cylinders as are placed on the heads of the statues. Some of these
appeared larger than any they had seen before; but it was now too late to
stop to measure any of them. Mr Wales, from whom I had this information, is
of opinion that there had been a quarry here, whence these stones had
formerly been dug; and that it would have been no difficult matter to roll
them down the hill after they were formed. I think this a very reasonable
conjecture, and have no doubt that it has been so.

On the declivity of the mountain towards the west, they met with another
well, but the water was a very strong mineral, had a thick green scum on
the top, and stunk intolerably. Necessity, however, obliged some to drink
of it; but it soon made them so sick, that they threw it up the same way
that it went down.

In all this excursion, as well as the one made the preceding day, only two
or three shrubs were seen. The leaf and seed of one (called by the natives
_Torromedo_) were not much unlike those of the common vetch; but the
pod was more like that of a tamarind in its size and shape. The seeds have
a disagreeable bitter taste; and the natives, when they saw our people chew
them, made signs to spit them out; from whence it was concluded that they
think them poisonous. The wood is of a reddish colour, and pretty hard and
heavy, but very crooked, small, and short, not exceeding six or seven feet
in height. At the S.W. corner of the island, they found another small
shrub, whose wood was white and brittle, and in some measure, as also its
leaf, resembling the ash. They also saw in several places the Otaheitean
cloth plant, but it was poor and weak, and not above two and a half feet
high at most.

They saw not an animal of any sort, and but very few birds; nor indeed any
thing which can induce ships that are not in the utmost distress, to touch
at this island.

This account of the excursion I had from Mr Pickersgill and Mr Wales, men
on whose veracity I could depend; and therefore I determined to leave the
island the next morning, since nothing was to be obtained t