tents had been pitched for taking aſtronomical obſervations. We found nobody there, as the inſtruments had already been carried on board.
Our maſter ſail-maker having gone the preceding day on a ſhooting excurſion, without any companion, had loſt his way in the woods, where he was obliged to ſpend the night. Several guns were fired to let him know where the ſhips lay at anchor; and in the afternoon he returned on board emaciated with hunger and fatigue. Having ſet out without any proviſions, he had been a day and an half without food. He related, that during the night ſeveral quadrupeds had come to ſmell at him, within a few inches diſtance. Many of the crew believed him on his word; but we, who had ſpent ſeveral nights in the woods, and had never met with ſuch familiarity from the beaſts, were not ſo credulous; but far from imagining that he wiſhed to impoſe upon us, we found, in his narrative, the natural effects produced upon the imagination of a man deprived of nouriſhment, and all alone in the midſt of immenſe and pathleſs foreſts.
15th. On the preceding day the large anchor had been drawn up and a ſmaller one moored, that we might be able the ſooner to leave the harbour. The ſame had been done by the Eſperance. Some ſudden blaſts from the north-eaſt,
