meridian, for we were only some fifteen degrees
south of the equator; and in the morning, likewise, we had no difficulty
in telling when we faced east.

"Under these circumstances, therefore, I advised all hands to get up
when they felt a little less tired and trudge on steadily due south,
where our only hope of safety lay, as long as the light through the
trees enabled us to see where we were going. Once the light became
uncertain, it would be better to stop for the night than to wander about
and fatigue ourselves unnecessarily, only perhaps to find out when the
sun rose again at dawn that we had been merely retracing our previous
day's steps to no good.

"It was a hard job to make the poor chaps buckle to their tramp again,
and it was as much as Magellan and I could do to get them to start. One
of them, Denis Brown, he was a faint-hearted man even on board ship,
entreated us to let him lie down there and die where he was; but of
course we would not leave him behind, and he had to come on with us
whether he liked it or not, Magellan and I forcing him on his legs and
dragging him on.

"Our first task was to get round the lagoon, which was so overgrown with
reeds and suchlike rank vegetation as grows in swamps that we couldn't
tell where it began or ended; but as the sea must lay towards the west,
I came to the conclusion that if we skirted the bank in the opposite
direction we would soon come to the neck of the water and be able to
wade across it. This we did, but it was arduous walking--through mud
and slime, with snakes darting out every now and then upon us, and huge
crocodiles crawling out of our way, just as we almost set foot on them,
which frightened some of the timid ones pretty much, I can tell you!

"At last we managed to get round the lagoon; and then, steering steadily
again to the south, this bit of easting having taken us a good deal out
of our straight course southwards, we had a second mountain to climb up
through tangled brushwood and jungle. This seemed harder work a good
deal than the first one, for we were almost tired out when we started on
the journey, while our feet were so swollen and blistered with all the
walking we had already done, besides being torn to pieces with the
stones and jagged bits of tree roots we had trodden on, that we could
hardly crawl up, although we grasped hold of the branches of the shrubs
and brushwood to drag ourselves up by. When we arrived at the top of
this c