The night was pitch dark, and though I instinctively turned my eyes towards the offing, I could see nothing, but as each anxious moment passed away, the fearful voice of the waters sounded nearer and nearer, and within less time than I have occupied in the narration, the full force of the rush of tide coming on like a wall, several feet high, and bringing our anchor away with it, was upon us. The cable thus slackened, the yawl sheered, and was thrown violently upon her broadside in the midst of it, and had it not been for the shores lashed to each mast, she must inevitably have capsized. The whaleboat fared better; being lighter she was the sooner afloat, and besides her buoyant bow was the better able to receive and resist the shock. When the tide slacked we returned to the deep water off Escape Point, and spent the remainder of the night in quiet, I would fain hope, so far as most of us were concerned, not without a thankful remembrance of Him, whose merciful providence had been so recently manifested in our behalf! ASCENT OF THE FITZROY. February 27. Leaving Mr. Tarrant in charge of the yawl, I proceeded with Mr. Helpman to trace the river, immediately after daylight. Against the last of the ebb tide, and with the thermometer at 80 degrees, we contrived to reach a spot two miles beyond Point Escape before noon. From Point Escape upwards, there appeared to be, at low-water, no regular channel; the bed of the river assumed the aspect of an extensive flat of mud, intersected with small rivulets or streams that served to drain it. No signs of human habitation were seen along its banks, which divided by numerous small creeks, and thickly fringed with the unfailing mangrove, stretched away in level and drear monotony, only broken towards the west by land of inconsiderable elevation. The circling flight of the ever-wary curlew, and the shrill cry of the plover, now first disturbed in their accustomed territory, alone vouched for the presence of animal life in that vast solitude, the effect of which they heightened, rather than removed! RETURN ON FOOT. Finding the further ascent almost if not altogether impracticable at the present state of the tide, I ordered the boat back to Point Escape, and landed, accompanied by Mr. Helpman, and a seaman, intending to return on foot. PERILOUS SITUATION. The shore was a soft mud, in which the small mangroves had found a most congenial soil: while our journey every now and then, arrested by the intervention of one or other of the numerous little creeks of which I have before spoken, promised to prove a more fatiguing, if not more hazardous affair, than we had originally contemplated.