_The Endeavour_ set sail from Plymouth on the twenty-sixth of August, 1768, and from Rio-de-Janeiro on the eighth of December. [Sidenote: 1769. January.] On the fourteenth of January, 1769, the naturalists landed at Terra-del-Fuego, and they gathered more than a hundred plants theretofore unknown to European botanists. Proud of their success, they resolved that, after a brief rest, they would explore the higher regions, in hope to reap a rich harvest of Alpine plants. SOLANDER, as a Swede and as a traveller in Norway, knew something of the dangers they would have to face. BANKS himself was not without experience. But both were enterprising and resolute men. They set out on their long march in the night of the fifteenth of January, in order to gain as much of daylight as possible for the work of botanizing. They hoped to return to the ship within ten hours. As they ascended, SOLANDER warned his companions against the temptation that he knew awaited them of giving way to sleep when overcome by the toil of walking. ‘Whoever sits down,’ said he, ‘will be sure to sleep, and whoever sleeps will wake no more.’ But the fatigue proved to be excessive. The foreseeing adviser was borne down by it, and was the first to throw himself upon the snow. BANKS was the younger man by six or seven years, and had a strong constitution. He fought resolutely against temptation, and, with the help of the draughtsmen, exerted himself with all his might to keep SOLANDER awake. They succeeded in getting him to walk on for a few miles more. Then he lay down again, with the words, ‘Sleep I must, for a few minutes.’ In those few minutes the fierce cold almost paralysed his limbs. Two servants (a seaman and a negro) imitated the Swede’s example, and were really paralysed. With much grief, it was found that the servants must, inevitably, be left to their fate. The party had wandered so far that when they set about to return they were—if the return should be by the way they had come—a long day’s journey from the ship. And their route had lain through pathless woods. Their only food was a vulture. A third man seemed in peril—momentarily—of death by exhaustion. Happily, a shorter cut was found. Their journey had not been quite fruitless. But they all felt that they had bought their botanical specimens at too dear a rate. Two men were already dead. One of the draughtsmen seems to have suffered so severely that he never recovered from the effects of the journey. Mr. BUCHAN died, three months afterwards, in Otaheite, just four days after they had landed in the celebrated island, to visit which was among the especial objects of their mission. [Sidenote: THE STAY IN OTAHEITE.]