uld be picked up: They traversed the woods
all day without success; but as they were returning through a deep
valley, the sides of which, though almost as perpendicular as a wall,
were covered with trees and bushes; they found lying upon the ground
several marking nuts, the _Anacardium orientate_; these put them upon a
new scent, and they made a most diligent search after the tree that bore
them, which perhaps no European botanist ever saw; but to their great
mortification they could not find it: So that, after spending much time,
and cutting down four or five trees, they returned quite exhausted with
fatigue to the ship.

On the 25th, having made an excursion up the river, I found a canoe
belonging to our friends the Indians, whom we had not seen since the
affair of the turtle; they had left it tied to some mangroves, about a
mile distant from the ship, and I could see by their fires that they
were retired at least six miles directly inland.

As Mr Banks was again gleaning the country for his Natural History on
the 26th, he had the good fortune to take an animal of the _Opossum_
tribe: It was a female, and with, it he took two young ones: It was
found much to resemble the remarkable animal of the kind which Mons. de
Buffon has described in his Natural History by the name of _Phalanger_,
but it was not the same. Mons. Buffon supposes this tribe to be peculiar
to America, but in this he is certainly mistaken; and probably, as
Pallas has observed in his Zoology, the Phalanger itself is a native of
the East Indies, as the animal which was caught by Mr Banks resembled it
in the extraordinary conformation of the feet, in which it differs from
animals of every other tribe.

On the 27th, Mr Gore shot a kangaroo, which, with the skin, entrails,
and head, weighed eighty-four pounds. Upon examination, however, we
found that this animal was not at its full growth, the innermost
grinders not being yet formed. We dressed it for dinner the next day;
but to our great disappointment, we found it had a much worse flavour
than that we had eaten before.

The wind continued in the same quarter, and with the same violence,
till five o'clock in the morning of the 29th, when it fell calm; soon
after a light breeze sprung up from the land, and it being about two
hours ebb, I sent a boat to see what water was upon the bar; in the mean
time we got the anchor up, and made all ready to put to sea. But when
the boat came back, the officer repor