As The Daylight Dawned The Dreadful Nature Of The Scrub Drove Us To The Sea Beach; Fortunately It Was Low

Water, and we obtained a firm hard sand to travel over, though occasionally obstructed by enormous masses of sea-weed,

Thrown into heaps of very many feet in thickness and several hundreds of yards in length, looking exactly like hay cut and pressed ready for packing.

To-day we overtook the natives, whose tracks we had seen so frequently on our route. There was a large party of them, all busily engaged in eating the red berries which grew behind the coast ridge in such vast quantities; they did not appear so much afraid of us as of our horses, at which they were dreadfully alarmed, so that all our efforts to communicate with them were fruitless; they would not come near us, nor would they give us the opportunity of getting near them, but ran away whenever I advanced towards them, though alone and unarmed. During the route I frequently ascended high scrubby ridges to reconnoitre the country inland, but never could obtain a view of any extent, the whole region around appeared one mass of dense impenetrable scrub running down to the very borders of the ocean.

After travelling twenty miles I found that our horses needed rest, and halted for an hour or two during the heat of the day, though without grass, save the coarse wiry vegetation that binds the loose sands together, and without even bushes to afford them shade from the heat, for had we gone into the scrub for shelter we should have lost even the wretched kind of grass we had.

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