It was now about the year M DC LXXIII. Altho I had now lived many years in this Land, and God be praised, I wanted for nothing the Land afforded, yet could I not forget my native Countrey England, and lamented under the Famine of Gods Word and Sacraments, the want whereof I found greater than all earthly wants: and my dayly and fervent Prayers to God were, in his good time to restore me to the enjoyment of them.
[Their pedling forwarded their escape.] I and my Companion were still meditating upon our escape and the means to compass it. Which our pedling about the Countrey did greatly forward and promote. For speaking well the Language and going with our Commodities from place to place, we used often to entertain discourse with the Countrey people; viz. concerning the ways and the Countreys, and where there were most and fewest inhabitants, and where and how the Watches laid from one Countrey to another; and what Commodities were proper to carry from one part to the other, pretending we would from time to time go from one place to another, to furnish our selves with ware that the respective places afforded. None doubted but we had made these inquiries for the sake of our Trade, but our selves had other designs in them. Neither was there the least suspition of us for these our questions: all supposing I would never run away and leave such an estate as in their accounts and esteem I had.
[The most probable course to take, was Northwards.] By diligent inquiry I had come to understand, that the easiest and most probable way to make an escape was by travailing to the Northward, that part of the Land being least inhabited. Therefore we furnished our selves with such wares as were vendible in those parts, as Tobacco, Pepper, Garlick, Combs, all sorts of Iron Ware, &c. and being laden with these things, we two set forth, bending our course towards the Northern Parts of the Island, knowing very little of the way; and the ways of this Countrey generally are intricate and difficult: here being no great High-ways that run thro the Land, but a multitude of little Paths, some from one Town to another, some into the Fields, and some into the Woods where they sow their Corn; and the whole Countrey covered with Woods, that a man cannot see any thing but just before him. And that which makes them most difficult of all, is, that the ways shift and alter, new ways often made and old ways stopped up. For they cut down Woods, and sow the ground, and having got one Crop off from it, they leave it, and Wood soon grows over it again: and in case a Road went thro those Woods, they stop it, and contrive another way; neither do they regard tho it goes two or three miles about: and to ask and inquire the way for us white men is very dangerous, it occasioning the People to suspect us. And the Chingulays themselves never Travail in Countreys where they are not experienced in the ways without a guide, it being so difficult. And there was no getting a guide to conduct us down to the Sea.