EXAMINATION OF THE SHORE TO THE NORTHWARD, AND OF THE COUNTRY TO THE SOUTH-EAST.
I was only well enough to write and survey a little, but I sent off a party to a point which lay about six miles to the north of us, and they on their return reported that there was a continuation of a similar shore for the next fourteen or fifteen miles, bordered in like manner by sandy muddy plains similar to those behind the hills where we were.
This party found one of the yellow and black water-snakes asleep upon a piece of dry seaweed on the beach and killed it. The fact of this animal being found on shore proves its amphibious character. I saw them in one instance, in December 1837, so far out at sea as to be distant 150 miles from land.
Sunday March 10.
I spent a wretched night from illness and foul weather; the roaring of the surf on the shore was so loud and incessant that to one feverish and in want of quiet and rest it was a positive distress, and both Mr. Smith, myself, and half the men were at this time seriously indisposed. We had strong gales of wind all day from south by east, but in the afternoon I walked out for five miles in an east-south-east direction with such of the men as were able to move; nothing however could be seen but a continuation of the same barren, treeless country; we observed no signs of natives except tracks in the mud of a single man who had passed some months ago.
It annoyed me now to find that the silvering of the glasses of my large sextant was so much injured from the constant wettings it had experienced that this day it was almost useless. I had hoped in the course of our walk to have fallen in with some game, but we did not see a single bird with the exception of some small ones, about the size of tomtits, which flew from bush to bush along the sandhills.
SUFFERINGS FROM HEAT AND PRIVATION.
We had a small quantity of portable soup with us, nearly all of which we used, and it in some degree restored us, but another miserable night was passed by us all and in the morning I was grieved to see how ill many of the men looked. Their situation was really deplorable and I had with me neither medicines nor proper food to give them. Abundance of these lay at our depot not more than forty miles from us, yet to reach it was impossible; and dawn this morning had only revealed to us a heavier surf and stronger gale from the southward than we had yet experienced. None of the men were well enough to undergo the fatigue of another day's walking, so I busied myself with making observations and taking bearings, and thus the forenoon wore away. The point of the coast on which we were lay in 24 degrees 30 minutes south latitude, and the mean temperature up to this period had been:
6 A.M. 76.
12 M. 83.
3 P.M. 87.
6 P.M. 78 degrees.
At noon a portion of some disgusting damper and a small piece of pork was served out to each of us and, having soon disposed of this, the men lay down under the side of the boats, seeking some shelter from the burning rays of a tropical sun which, being reflected back from the white sand, were very oppressive.