In his journal on a tour to the River Shukeangha, he writes thus:
"_September 28, 1819._--After we had passed the swamp, we came into a very open country, for many miles round covered with fern. The part through which we walked was gravelly, and not very good in general.
"The wind increased toward evening, and blew strong from the rainy quarter, so that we had the prospect of a very wet night, without a single tree to shelter us from the storm for about eight miles from the swamp we had passed. At this distance was a wood, through which our road lay, which we were anxious to reach, if possible, in order to shelter ourselves from the wind and rain. With this hope we pushed forward, and arrived at the edge of the wood about nine o'clock. The rain now began to fall heavily. The natives cut branches of fern and boughs of trees, and made us a little shed under the trees, to afford us some shelter. The blackness of the heavens, the gloomy darkness of the wood, the roaring of the wind among the trees, the sound of the falling rain on the thick foliage, united with the idea that we were literally at the ends of the earth, with relation to our native land, surrounded with cannibals whom we knew to have fed on human flesh, and wholly in their power, and yet our minds free from fear of danger--all this excited in my breast such new, pleasing, and, at the same time, opposite sensations, as I cannot describe.
"While I sat musing under the shelter of a lofty pine, my thoughts were lost in wonder and surprise, in taking a view of the wisdom and goodness of God's providential care, which had attended all my steps to that very hour. If busy imagination inquired what I did there, I had no answer to seek in wild conjecture: I felt with gratitude that I had not come by chance; but had been sent to labour in preparing the way of the Lord in this dreary wilderness, where the voice of joy and gladness had never been heard: and I could not but anticipate with joyful hope the period when the Day-star from on high would dawn and shine on this dark and heathen land, and cause the very earth on which we then reposed to bring forth its increase, when God himself would give the poor inhabitants his blessing. After reflecting on the different ideas which crowded themselves upon my mind, I wrapped myself up in my great coat, and lay down to sleep."