Page 390

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

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Batavia (continued) of the rest of its tribe full of seeds, from whence it is calld Pissang Batu or Pissang Bidjis; it has however no excellence to recommend it to the taste or any other way except it is, as the Malayers think, good for the flux. 8. Grapes are here to be had but in no great perfection; they are however sufficiently dear, a bunch about the size of a fist costing a shilling or 18 pence. 9. Tamarinds are prodigiously common and as cheap; the people however either do not know how to put them up as the West Indians do, or do not practise it, but cure them with Salt, by which means they become a black mass so disagreable to the sight and taste that few Europeans chuse to meddle with them. 10. Water melons are plentifull and good, as are also 11. Pumkins, which are certainly almost, or quite, the most usefull fruit which can be carried to Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 464, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-390.html