From Egmont Island to Nova Britannia
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The shore about this place is rocky, and the country high and mountainous, but covered with trees of various kinds, some of which are of an enormous growth, and probably would be useful for many purposes. Among others, we found the nutmeg tree in great plenty, and I gathered a few of the nuts, but they were not ripe: they did not indeed appear to be the best sort, but perhaps that is owing partly to their growing wild, and partly to their being too much in the shade of taller trees. The cocoa-nut tree is in great perfection, but does not abound. Here are, I believe, all the different kinds of palm, with the beetle-nut tree, various species of the aloe, canes, bamboos, and rattans, with many trees, shrubs and plants altogether unknown to me; but no esculent vegetable of any kind. The woods abound with pigeons, doves, rooks, parrots, and a large bird with black plumage, that makes a noise somewhat like the barking of a dog; with many others which I can neither name nor describe. Our people saw no quadruped but two of a small size that they took for dogs; the carpenter and another man got a transient glimpse of them in the woods as they were cutting spars for the ship's use, and said that they were very wild, and ran away the moment they saw them with great swiftness. We saw centipieds, scorpions, and a few serpents of different kinds; but no inhabitants. We fell in however with several deserted habitations, and by the shells that were scattered about them, and seemed not long to have been taken out of the water, and some sticks half burnt, the remains of a fire, there is reason to conclude that the people had but just left the place when we arrived. If we may judge of the people by that which had been their dwelling, they must stand low even in the scale of savage life; for it was the most miserable hovel we had ever seen.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 590 - 591, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/591.html