A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 12: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the; Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea; and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
As soon as the ship was secured, I went on shore, to fix upon a place
where tents might be erected for the sick, which were now very numerous;
not a single man being wholly free from the scurvy, and many in the last
stage of it. We found several huts which had been left by the Spaniards
and Indians the year before; for this year none of them had as yet been
at the place, nor was it probable that they should come for some months,
the sun being now almost vertical, and the rainy season set in. After I
had fixed upon a spot for the tents, six or seven of us endeavoured to
push through the woods, that we might come at the beautiful lawns and
meadows of which there is so luxuriant a description in the Account of
Lord Anson's Voyage, and if possible kill some cattle. The trees stood
so thick, and the place was so overgrown with underwood, that we could
not see three yards before us, we therefore were obliged to keep
continually hallooing to each other, to prevent our being separately
lost in this trackless wilderness. As the weather was intolerably hot,
we had nothing on besides our shoes, except our shirts and trowsers, and
these were in a very short time torn all to rags by the bushes and
brambles; at last however, with incredible difficulty and labour, we got
through; but, to our great surprise and disappointment, we found the
country very different from the account, we had read of it: The lands
were entirely overgrown with a stubborn kind of reed or brush, in many
places higher than our heads, and no where lower than our middles, which
continually entangled our legs, and cut us like whipcord; our stockings
perhaps might have suffered still more, but we wore none. During this,
march we were also covered with flies from head to foot, and whenever we
offered to speak we were sure of having a mouthful, many of which never
failed to get down our throats. After we had walked about three or four
miles, we got sight of a bull, which we killed, and a little before
night got back to the beach, as wet as if we had been dipt in water, and
so fatigued that we were scarcely able to stand. We immediately sent out
a party to fetch the bull, and found that during our excursion some
tents had been got up, and the sick brought on shore.
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