I accordingly started with Coles and had not proceeded more than a mile when we found two huts (one in ruins and the other complete) of exactly the same size and form as that which we had seen in the morning: the recent track of a native along the beach close to these was also visible. In another half mile our progress was arrested by an arm of the sea, about four or five hundred yards across, from which the tide was running out with fearful rapidity; and on the opposite cliffs we observed a native watching our movements.

As night was coming rapidly on it was necessary for me to decide at once what I should do. Coles was unable to swim. If therefore I crossed the stream it must be alone: to do so with natives on the opposite bank, of whose intentions towards us we were entirely ignorant, was not without considerable danger; yet I was very unwilling to leave the men in such a state of suffering from thirst when I was so near the schooner, from whence their wants could be supplied. Whilst I was debating what to do Coles kept firing his gun in hopes that they might hear the report on board and send a boat to our relief; in vain however we strained our ears, the report of Coles's gun was reverberated from cliff to cliff and from hill to hill, but no answering sound came back across the tranquil water.

In the meantime I felt more and more anxious about the portion of the party who were with Mr. Lushington, having left with them certain orders and promised to send a boat up to them; on which promise all their further movements would be regulated. The beach near us afforded no wood wherewith to make a fire as a signal to the schooner; the cliffs hereabouts were too precipitous to climb; and it was evident that but very few of the party could swim so broad a space of water; granting that they ever reached so far as the point where Coles and myself now were.

SWIM AN INLET OF THE SEA. DANGER IN THE PASSAGE ACROSS AND AFTER LANDING.

I therefore determined to run all risks, and swim the arm of the sea which stopped our way.

I directed Coles to wait until the others came up and then to remain with them until I returned in a boat. From the rugged nature of the shore I could not have walked a yard without shoes, so I kept them on, as well as my shirt and military cap, and I took a pistol in one hand as a means of defence against the natives, or else to fire it when I reached a spot where it could be seen or heard from the vessel.

I plunged in and very soon found myself caught in a tideway so violent that resistance to its force, so as either to get on or return, appeared at the moment hopeless.* My left hand, in which I held the pistol, was called into requisition to save my life; for the stream washed the cap from my head and, the cap then filling with water, and being carried down by the strong current, the chin-strap caught round my neck and nearly throttled me as I dragged it after me through the water; whilst the loose folds of my shirt, being washed out to seawards by the tide, kept getting entangled with my arm. I grew weak and faint but still swam my best, and at last I providentially reached a reef of rocks which projected from the opposite shore, and to which I clung until I had somewhat regained my strength.

(*Footnote. I should state that the rise and fall of tide here is thirty-eight feet.)

DANGER FROM NATIVES.

I then clambered up on the rocks, and from thence made my way to the beach; but no sooner had I gained it than I heard a native call from the top of the cliffs, and the answering cries of his comrades rang through the wood as they followed me along; my pistol was so thoroughly soaked in my passage across the inlet that it was quite useless except as a club. To attempt to swim back again after the narrow escape I had just had would have been madness; besides which if I had succeeded I should have lost the object for which I had put my life at hazard. Nothing therefore was left but to walk along shore to the schooner, trusting, in my defenceless state, that I might not fall in with any natives. It was now dark and the shore was so broken and rocky that I got terribly cut and bruised, and was, moreover, so weak from my exertions in swimming that when I arrived opposite the vessel I could scarcely hail. Some of those on board however heard me (as I found afterwards) and shouted in reply; but their voices never reached my ears, and I imagined they were too far for I could not now see the vessel.