“Accordingly, we started in our long light canoe, easy of carriage, and proceeded up the river, through a wild and entangled country, clothed with wood and jungle to the very water’s edge, and full of wild beasts. It was very evident no landing could be effected on either shore, except at great risks, and quite impossible to force females through. At length we came to the end of the tide, and to the spot indicated. Our negroes at once pointed to the cleared space, and on grounding our canoe, we at once saw the tracks of many feet, also the marks of hauling a boat up the sloping bank. It was too late to cross to the lake that day, so the canoe was hauled up, a tent rapidly constructed of branches of trees and a quantity of matting, brought for that special purpose. “With the earliest dawn we commenced our way to the lake, dragging our canoe over a narrow slip of swampy country. The track of the other boat and the marks of many feet could also be seen, and amongst them those of the feet of the two black girls, but no trace of the feet of the two Misses Packenham, so we conjectured they had been carried in the boat. It was a dead level, and no doubt at times was overflowed by either the waters of the lake or the river. About noon we reached the borders of as dismal and gloomy a lake as could be imagined, the shores being covered with low entangled masses of vegetation. No trees or high land on either side, the water black, and a hot breeze swept over its surface; there were no islands, and its length appeared about twenty miles, by three and sometime five miles in breadth. From where we were no river could be seen running into it, and yet it must be fed by either streams or springs, for the negroes said where it ran into the sea the stream was broad and rapid, but before reaching the sea it dwindled away into the several small unnavigable streams, running through dangerous sands, bordering a safe kind of creek where small vessels often anchored, and where slaves were often shipped. They also said that the people were very wild and bad, and would seize and sell any one they could get for slaves.