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.