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CHAPTER IV.
The total absence of roads through the country, 1841.and the uncertain state of feeling towards Europeans which the natives had begun to manifest, prevented our officers from penetrating to any considerable distance into the interior; the native paths through the woods and swamps being quite impracticable without the assistance of guides, and under existing circumstances it was hardly safe for any Europeans to place themselves so completely in the power of the natives, who might, at any time, leave them in a situation from which it would be utterly impossible to extricate themselves, or find a way through the perplexing labyrinth in which they might become helplessly involved.