While dinner was preparing, I took an observation, and found our
latitude was 1 degree 33 minutes N. We had travelled well, having made
16 minutes direct northing.
On the first crowing of our solitary cock, we prepared to start; - the
boatmen were gone!
As soon as it was light, I took two men and went to the village,
supposing they were sleeping in their huts. Within three hundred paces
of the boats, upon a fine turfy sward, on rising ground, were three
miserable fishing huts. These constituted the village. Upon arrival, no
one was to be found: the natives had deserted. A fine tract of broken
grassland formed a kind of amphitheatre beneath the range of cliffs.
These I scanned with the telescope, but I could trace no signs of man.
We were evidently deserted by our boatmen, and the natives had
accompanied them to avoid being pressed into our service.
On my return to the canoes with this intelligence, my men were quite in
despair: they could not believe that the boatmen had really absconded,
and they begged me to allow them to search the country in the hope of
finding another village. Strictly forbidding any man to absent himself
from the boats, I congratulated ourselves on having well guarded the
paddles, which there was no doubt would have been stolen by the boatmen
had I allowed them to remain in their possession.
