ap, and the other men. Don Andreas, with
twenty-eight other Indians (two to a canoa) acted as boatmen, or pilots,
to the flotilla.

Basil Ringrose, who was one of the boat party, has told us of the
miseries of the "glide down the stream." The river was low, and full of
rotting tree trunks, so that "at the distance of almost every stone's
cast," they had to leave the boats "and haul them over either sands or
rocks, and at other times over trees." Sharp, who was of tougher fibre,
merely says that they "paddled all Day down the Falls and Currents of
the River, and at Night took up our Quarters upon a Green Bank by the
Riverside, where we had Wild Fowl and Plantanes for Supper: But our Beds
were made upon the cold Earth, and our Coverings were the Heavens, and
green Trees we found there." The next day they went downstream again,
over many more snags and shallows, which set them wading in the mud till
their boots rotted off their feet. Ringrose was too tired to make a note
in his journal, save that, that night, "a tiger" came out and looked at
them as they sat round the camp fires. Sharp says that the labour "was a
Pleasure," because "of that great Unity there was then amongst us," and
because the men were eager "to see the fair South Sea." They lodged that
night "upon a green Bank of the River," and ate "a good sort of a Wild
Beast like unto our English Hog." The third day, according to Ringrose,
was the worst day of all. The river was as full of snags as it had been
higher up, but the last reach of it was clear water, so that they gained
the rendezvous "about Four in the Afternoon." To their very great alarm
they found that the land party had not arrived. They at once suspected
that the Indians had set upon them treacherously, and cut them off in
the woods. But Don Andreas sent out scouts "in Search of them," who
returned "about an Hour before Sun-set," with "some of their Number,"
and a message that the rest would join company in the morning.

A little after daybreak the land force marched in, and pitched their
huts near the river, "at a beachy point of land," perhaps the very one
where Oxenham's pinnace had been beached. They passed the whole day
there resting, and cleaning weapons, for they were now but "a Day and a
Night's Journey" from the town they had planned to attack. Many more
Indians joined them at this last camp of theirs, so that the army had
little difficulty in obtaining enough canoas to carry them to Santa