opped their advance. Mr. Roe's
next care was to reload, but to his extreme mortification and dismay he
found his cartouch box had turned round in the belt and every cartridge
had dropped out: being thus deprived of his ammunition, and having no
other resource left but to make his escape, he turned round and ran
towards the beach; at the same time shouting loudly to apprize our people
of his danger. He was now pursued by three of the natives, whilst the
rest ran along the cliff to cut off his retreat.

(*Footnote. See Note above.)

On his reaching the edge of the water, he found the sand so soft that at
every step his feet sunk three or four inches, which so distressed him
and impeded his progress that he must soon have fallen overpowered with
fatigue had not the sudden appearance of our people, at the same time
that it inspired him with fresh hopes of escape, arrested the progress of
the natives, who, after throwing two or three spears without effect,
stopped and gave him time to join our party, quite spent with the
extraordinary effort he had made to save his life.

Whilst this event occurred I was employed on board in constructing my
rough chart, but upon Mr. Roe's being seen from the deck in the act of
running along the beach pursued by the Indians, I hastened on shore,
determined if possible to punish them for such unprovoked hostility. Upon
landing, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Roe, and one of the men joined me in pursuit of
the natives; but from our comparatively slow movements and our ignorance
of the country, we returned after an hour without having seen any signs
of them; in the evening before our people left off work we made another
circuitous walk, but with the same bad success. The natives had taken the
alarm and nothing more was seen of them during the remainder of our stay,
excepting the smokes of their fires which appeared over the trees at the
back of the island.

Previous to this attack upon Mr. Roe the natives had probably been
following Mr. Hunter; and were doubtless deterred from attacking him by
witnessing the destructive effects of his gun among a flight of
cockatoos, five or six of which he brought away, and left as many more
hopping about the grass wounded and making the woods re-echo with their
screams. When Mr. Hunter parted from Mr. Roe the natives remained to
watch the latter gentleman; and no sooner had he discharged his gun,
which they found was of no use until it was reloaded, than they commenced
t