ore, to be overset by a heavy sea, but being near a
rock, though no swimmer, he managed so as to scramble to it, and with great
difficulty ascended it: There he remained two days with very little hopes
of any relief, for he was too far off to be seen from shore; but
fortunately a boat, having put off and gone in quest of wild-fowl that way,
discovered him making such signals as he was able, and brought him back to
the island. But this accident did not discourage him, but that soon after,
having procured an ox's hide, used on board for sifting powder, and called
a gunner's hide, by the assistance of some hoops he formed something like a
canoe, in which he made several successful voyages. When the weather would
permit us, we seldom failed of getting some wild-fowl, though never in any
plenty, by putting off with our boats; but this most inhospitable climate
is not only deprived of the sun for the most part by a thick, rainy
atmosphere, but is also visited by almost incessant tempests. It must be
confessed we reaped some benefit from these hard gales and overgrown seas,
which drove several things ashore; but there was no dependence on such
accidental relief; and we were always alert to avail ourselves of every
interval of fair weather, though so little to be depended on, that we were
often unexpectedly and to our peril overtaken by a sudden change. In one of
our excursions, I, with two more, in a wretched punt of our own making, had
no sooner landed at our station upon a high rock, than the punt was driven
loose by a sudden squall; and had not one of the men, at the risk of his
life, jumped into the sea and swam on board her, we must in all probability
have perished, for we were more than three leagues from the island at the
time. Among the birds we generally shot, was the painted goose, whose
plumage is variegated with the most lively colours; and a bird much larger
than a goose, which we called the racehorse, from the velocity with which
it moved upon the surface of the water, in a sort of half-flying half-
running motion. But we were not so successful in our endeavours by land;
for though we sometimes got pretty far into the woods, we met with very few
birds in our walks. We never saw but three woodcocks, two of which were
killed by Mr Hamilton, and one by myself. These, with some humming-birds,
and a large kind of robin red-breast, were the only feathered inhabitants
of this island, excepting a small bird with two very lon