From the circumstances of Stiles having thrown away part of his clothes,
and having made such a large quantity of dough to bake into dampers at
the first convenient opportunity, together with various expressions he
had dropped in the presence of the men, there could be no doubt but that
he had purposely quitted the party; yet to abandon him to his fate
amongst natives, who were by no means friendly in their gestures and
appearance, required a degree of resolution I was unprepared at that
moment to exercise. To leave him without a search was to sacrifice one
life, to allow one man to perish, whilst occupying one or two days in
looking for him would merely increase the temporary sufferings of the
rest; whilst the loss of time would probably occasion no other bad result
than a little more personal privation; and this, in order to try to save
the life of a fellow-creature, I conceived it to be my own duty and that
of the rest of the party to undergo. Influenced by these reasons I
desired all hands to prepare to start in search of Stiles.

Strange however to say, my resolution was scarcely made known ere much
grumbling arose; and this chiefly amongst those men who had lately been
loudest in their praises of the system of only marching a few miles a day
and occasionally halting for a day or two where we could get native roots
to eat, in fact, amongst those whose foolish ideas had led Stiles to
desert the party. We however moved on in the direction of the spot where
Kaiber had lost the tracks, and on our way over the high ground we met a
native with his spear and a handful of fish; he was lost in thought and
we were close to him before he saw us: when he did so he took no notice
whatever of us, but without even quickening his pace continued in his
original line of direction, which crossed ours obliquely. As he evidently
did not wish to communicate with us I directed the men not to take the
least notice of him, and thus we passed one another. He must have been a
very brave fellow to act so coolly as he did when an array so strange to
him met his eye.

ANOTHER PARTY OF NATIVES.

On arriving at the beach to the south of a bay or harbour,* which the
pressure of circumstances precluded me from examining, we could find
nothing of Stiles's tracks: he appeared to have gone off due east in the
hope of crossing our route, but, being in advance of us, and consequently
not finding our traces, it was impossible to say in which directi