prung, and thus, alternately cutting on each side, he mounted to
the height of twenty feet in nearly as short a space as if he had ascended
by a ladder, although the bark of the tree was quite smooth and slippery
and the trunk four feet in diameter and perfectly strait. To us it was a
matter of astonishment, but to him it was sport; for while employed thus he
kept talking to those below and laughing immoderately. He descended with
as much ease and agility as he had raised himself. Even our natives allowed
that he was a capital performer, against whom they dared not to enter
the lists; for as they subsist chiefly by fishing they are less expert at
climbing on the coast than those who daily practice it.

Soon after they bade us adieu, in unabated friendship and good humour.
Colbee and Boladeree parted from them with a slight nod of the head, the
usual salutation of the country; and we shook them by the hand, which they
returned lustily.

At the time we started the tide was flowing up the river, a decisive proof
that we were below Richmond Hill. We had continued our march but a
short time when we were again stopped by a creek, which baffled all our
endeavours to cross it, and seemed to predict that the object of our
attainment, though but a very few miles distant, would take us yet a
considerable time to reach, which threw a damp on our hopes. We traced the
creek until four o'clock, when we halted for the night. The country, on
both sides, we thought in general unpromising; but it is certainly very
superior to that which we had seen on the former creek. In many places
it might be cultivated, provided the inundations of the stream can be
repelled.

In passing along we shot some ducks, which Boladeree refused to swim for
when requested, and told us in a surly tone that they swam for what was
killed, and had the trouble of fetching it ashore, only for the white men
to eat it. This reproof was, I fear, too justly founded; for of the few
ducks we had been so fortunate as to procure, little had fallen to their
share except the offals, and now and then a half-picked bone. True, indeed,
all the crows and hawks which had been shot were given to them; but
they plainly told us that the taste of ducks was more agreeable to their
palates, and begged they might hereafter partake of them. We observed
that they were thoroughly sick of the journey, and wished heartily for its
conclusion: the exclamation of "Where's Rose Hill, where?" was