re so emaciated, that we hardly appeared the figures of men.

It has often happened to me in the coldest night, both in hail and snow,
where we had nothing but an open beach to lay down upon, in order to
procure a little rest, that I have been obliged to pull off the few rags I
had on, as it was impossible to get a moment's sleep with them on for the
vermin that swarmed about them, though I used as often as I had time, to
take my clothes off, and putting them upon a large stone, beat them with
another, in hopes of killing hundreds at once, for it was endless work to
pick them off. What we suffered from this was ten times worse even than
hunger. But we were clean in comparison to Captain Cheap, for I could
compare his body to nothing but an ant-hill, with thousands of those
insects crawling over it; for he was now past attempting to rid himself in
the least from this torment, as he had quite lost himself, not recollecting
our names that were about him, or even his own. His beard was as long as a
hermit's; that and his face being covered with train-oil and dirt, from
having long accustomed himself to sleep upon a bag, by the way of pillow,
in which he kept the pieces of stinking seal. This prudent method he took
to prevent our getting at it whilst he slept. His legs were as big as
millposts, though his body appeared to be nothing but skin and bone.

One day we fell in with about forty Indians, who came down to the beach we
landed on, curiously painted. Our cacique seemed to understand but little
of their language, and it sounded to us very different from what we had
heard before. However, they made us comprehend that a ship had been upon
the coast not far from where we then were, and that she had a red flag:
This we understood some time after to have been the Anne pink, whose
adventures are particularly related in Lord Anson's Voyage; and we passed
through the very harbour she had lain in.

As there was but one small canoe that intended to accompany us any longer,
and that in which Mr Hamilton had been to this time intended to proceed no
further to the northward, our cacique proposed to him to come into our
canoe, which he refused, as the insolence of this fellow was to him
insupportable; he therefore rather chose to remain where he was, till
chance should throw in his way some other means of getting forward; so here
we left him, and it was some months before we saw him again.

CHAPTER VII.

We land on the Isla