Our travellers were much astonished to find the cold here so intense; but having no thermometer with them, could judge of it only by their feelings; which, from the warm atmosphere they had left, must have been a very fallacious measure. They found it, however, so cold that they could get but little sleep, and the natives none at all; both parties being disturbed the whole night by continued coughing. As they could not at this time be at any very considerable height, the distance from the sea being only six or seven miles, and part of the road on a very moderate ascent, this extraordinary degree of cold must be ascribed to the easterly wind blowing fresh over the snowy mountains. Early on the 27th they set out again, and filled their calibashes at an excellent well, about half a mile from their hut. Having passed the plantations, they came to a thick wood, which they entered by a path made for the convenience of the natives, who go thither to fetch the wild or horse plantain, and to catch birds. Their progress now became very slow, and attended with much labour; the ground being either swampy, or covered with large stones; the path narrow, and frequently interrupted by trees lying across it, which it was necessary to climb over, the thickness of the under-wood on both sides making it impossible to pass round them. In these woods they observed, at small distances, pieces of white cloth fixed on poles, which they supposed to be landmarks for the division of property, as they only met with them where the wild plantains grew. The trees, which are of the same kind with those we called the spice-tree at New Holland, were lofty and straight, and from two to four feet in circumference. After they had advanced about ten miles in the wood, they had the mortification to find themselves on a sudden within sight of the sea, and at no great distance from it; the path having turned imperceptibly to the southward, and carried them to the right of the mountain, which it was their object to reach. Their disappointment was greatly increased by the uncertainty they were now under of its true bearings, since they could not, at this time, get a view of it from the top of the highest trees. They, therefore, found themselves obliged to walk back six or seven miles to an unoccupied hut, where they had left three of the natives, and two of their own people, with the small stock that remained of their provisions. Here they spent the second night; and the air was so very sharp and so little to the liking of their guides, that, by the morning, they had all taken themselves off, except one.