and attended with much labour; the ground being either swampy, or covered
with large stones; the path narrow, and frequently interrupted by trees
lying across it, which it was necessary to climb over, the thickness of the
underwood on both sides making it impossible to pass round them. In these
woods they observed, at small distances, pieces of white cloth fixed on
poles, which they supposed to be land-marks for the division of property,
as they only met with them where the wild plantains grew. The trees, which
are of the same kind with those we called the spice-tree at New Holland,
were lofty and straight, and from two to four feet in circumference.

After they had advanced about ten miles in the wood, they had the
mortification to find themselves, on a sudden, within sight of the sea, and
at no great distance from it; the path having turned imperceptibly to the
southward, and carried them to the right of the mountain, which it was
their object to reach. Their disappointment was greatly increased by the
uncertainty they were now under of its true bearings, since they could not,
at this time, get a view of it from the top of the highest trees. They,
therefore, found themselves obliged to walk back six or seven miles to an
unoccupied hut, where they had left three of the natives and two of their
own people, with the small stock that remained of their provisions. Here
they spent the second night; and the air was so very sharp, and so little
to the liking of their guides, that, by the morning, they had all departed,
except one.

The want of provisions now making it necessary to return to some of the
cultivated parts of the island, they quitted the wood by the same path they
had entered it; and, on their arrival at the plantations, were surrounded
by the natives, of whom they purchased a fresh stock of necessaries; and
prevailed upon two of them to supply the place of the guides that were gone
away. Having obtained the best information in their power, with regard to
the direction of their road, the party, being now nine in number, marched
along the skirts of the wood for six or seven miles, and then entered it
again by a path that bore to the eastward. For the first three miles they
passed through a forest of lofty spice-trees, growing on a strong rich
loam; at the back of which they found an equal extent of low shrubby trees,
with much thick underwood, on a bottom of loose burnt stones. This led them
to a second forest of