it, deserves to be recommended to all who shall
hereafter water at this place. Our method consisted in making use of
canoes which drew but little water; for, loading them with a number of
small casks, they easily got up the lake to the spring-head, and the
small casks being there filled, were in the same manner transported
back again to the beach, where some of our hands always attended to
start them into other casks of a larger size.

Though this lake, during our continuance there, appeared to have no
outlet into the sea, yet there is reason to suppose that in the wet
season it overflows the strand, and communicates with the ocean; for
Dampier, who was formerly here, speaks of it as a large river. Indeed,
there must be a very great body of water amassed before the lake can
rise high enough to overflow the strand, for the neighbouring country
is so low, that great part of it must be covered with water before it
can run out over the beach.

As the country in the neighbourhood, particularly the tract which we
have already described, appeared to be well peopled and cultivated, we
hoped thence to have procured fresh provision and other refreshments
which we stood in need of. With this view, the morning after we came
to an anchor, the commodore ordered a party of forty men, well armed,
to march into the country, and to endeavour to discover some town
or village, where they were to attempt a correspondence with the
inhabitants; for we doubted not if we could have any intercourse with
them, but that by presents of some of the coarse merchandise, with
which our prizes abounded (which, though of little consequence to us,
would to them be extremely valuable,) we should allure them to furnish
us with whatever fruits or fresh provisions were in their power. Our
people were directed on this occasion to proceed with the greatest
circumspection, and to make as little ostentation of hostility as
possible; for we were sensible that we could meet with no wealth here
worth our notice, and that what necessaries we really wanted we
should in all probability be better supplied with by an open amicable
traffic, than by violence and force of arms. But this endeavour of
opening an intercourse with the inhabitants proved ineffectual, for
towards evening, the party which had been ordered to march into the
country, returned greatly fatigued with their unusual exercise, and
some of them so far spent as to have fainted by the way, and to be
oblig