them they were able to
barter cloth and beads for some dogs, and these they killed and ate.

The Indians were very short and black, and had long coarse hair that
hung over their faces, and were almost without clothing of any kind.

The shipwrecked men grew more and more discontented as the months went
by, and several of them threatened to take the life of the captain,
whose strict discipline and guard over the stores made them very angry.

James Mitchell, who had murdered a man on the wreck, and had since
committed another murder on Mount Misery, where his victim was found
shockingly stabbed and mangled, was amongst this set. They had
determined to leave the others, and on the night before their departure
had placed a barrel of gunpowder close to the captain's hut, intending
to blow it up, but were dissuaded from doing this by one of their
number. After wandering about the island for some time they went up one
of the lagoons on a punt they had made, and were never heard of again.

Captain Cheap was very jealous of his authority, and hasty in suspecting
both officers and men of a desire to mutiny, and this suspicion on his
part led to the unfortunate shooting by him of a midshipman named Mr.
Cozens, whom he heard one day disputing with the purser as to the
disposal of some stores he was at the time receiving from the wreck. The
captain already had a personal dislike to Mr. Cozens, and hearing high
words immediately rushed out of his hut and shot him. Mr. Cozens did not
die until several days after, but the captain would not allow him to be
attended to by the surgeon, or to have any care from the other men,
though they begged to be allowed to carry him to their tent, but ordered
that he should be left upon the ground, under a bit of canvas thrown
over some bushes, until he died. This inhumanity on the part of Captain
Cheap much embittered the men against him.

[Illustration: The Captain shoots Mr. Cozens]

Their numbers were now lessened, chiefly by famine, to one hundred
souls; the weather was still tempestuous and rainy, and the difficulty
of finding food daily increased.

They had saved the long-boat from the wreck, and about this time John
Bulkely, who had been a gunner on the 'Wager,' formed a plan of trying
to make the voyage home through the Straits of Magellan. The plan was
proposed to the captain, and though he thought it wiser to pretend to
fall in with it, he had no intention of doing so. And when Bulkel