Page 201 |
Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places |
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New Zealand (continued) which we boild instead of Greens, and once only a Cabbage tree the Cabbage of which made us one delicious meal. These with the Fern roots and one other vegetable (Pandanus ) totaly unknown in Europe, which tho eat by the natives no Europaean will probably ever relish, are the whole of the vegetables which I know to be eatable, except those which they cultivate and have probably brought with them from the countrey from whence they themselves have originaly come. Nor does their cultivated grounds produce many speceis of Esculent plants, three only I have seen - Yams, sweet potatoes, and Coccos, all three well known in both East and West Indies and much esteemd of these, especialy the two former. They cultivate often peices of many acres, and I beleive any ship that was to be to the Northward in the Autumn about the time of digging them up might purchase any quantity. Besides these they cultivate gourds, the fruits of which serve them to make bottles, Jugs &c. and a very small quantity of the Chinese paper mulberry tree, the same as the Inhabitants of the South Sea Islands use to make their garments of. This they very much value, but it is so scarce with them probably having been brought from a hotter countrey and not thriving here, that tho they likewise beat it out into cloth we never saw peices of it larger than what servd to put into the holes they bore in their ears, making
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 171, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-201.html |