Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places, South Sea Islands, page 102

Page 102

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

South Sea Islands

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South Sea Islands (continued)

is procurd with no more trouble than that of climbing a tree and pulling it down. Not that the trees grow here spontaneously but if a man should in the course of his life time plant 10 such trees, which if well done might take the labour of an hour or thereabouts, he would as compleatly fulfull his duty to his own as well as future generations as we natives of less temperate climates can do by toiling in the cold of winter to sew and in the heat of summer to reap the annual produce of our soil, which when once gatherd into the barn must be again resowd and re-reapd as often as the Colds of winter or the heats of Summer return to make such labour disagreable.

O fortunati nimium sua si bona norint

may most truly be applied to these people; benevolent nature has not only supplyd them with nescessaries but with abundance of superfluities. The Sea about them in the neighbourhood of which they always live supplys them with vast variety of fish better than what is generaly met with between the tropicks, but these they get not without some trouble; every one desires to have them and there is not enough for all, tho while we remaind in these seas we saw

Voyaging Accounts

© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 347, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-102.html