In Their Own Words
December 23, 1736
Wesley Recorded Getting Lost
In his journal, John Wesley recorded a harrowing day and night he and two companions endured:
“Wednesday 23. Mr. Delamotte and I, with a Guide, set out to walk to Cowpen; when we had walk’d two or three Hours, our Guide told us plainly, ‘He did not know where we were.’ However, believing it could not be far off, we thought it best to go on. In an Hour or two we came to Cypress-Swamp, which lay directly across our way: There was not Time to walk back to Savannah before Night; so we walk’d thro’ it, the Water being about Breast-high. By that Time we had gone a mile beyond it, we were out of all Path; and it now being past Sun-set, we sat down, intending to make a Fire, and to stay there ‘till Morning; but finding our Tender wet, we were at a Stand; I advis’d to walk on still; but my Companions being faint and weary, were for lying down, which we accordingly did about Six o’Clock: The Ground was as wet as our Cloaths, which (it being a sharp Frost) were soon froze together; however, I slept ‘till Six in the Morning. There fell a heavy Dew in the Night, which cover’d us over as white with Snow. Within an Hour after Sun-rise, we came to a Plantation, and in the Evening, without any Hurt, to Savannah.”
Source: [no author or editor cited], Our First Visit in America: Early Reports from the Colony of Georgia, 1732-1740 (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1974), pp. 213-214.
