On the 5th, I got one of the carpenter’s crew, a man in whom I could confide, to go down again to the ship’s bottom, and examine the place. He reported, that three streaks of the sheathing, about eight feet long, were wanting, and that the main plank had been a little rubbed; this account perfectly agreed with the report of the Master, and others, who had been under her bottom before: I had the comfort however to find the carpenter of opinion that this would be of little consequence, and therefore the other damage being repaired, she was again floated at high water, and moored along-side the beach, where the stores had been deposited; we then went to work to take the stores on board, and put her in a condition for the sea. This day, Mr. Banks crossed to the other side of the harbour, where, as he walked along a sandy beach, he found innumerable fruits, and many of them such as no plants which he had discovered in this country produced: among others were some cocoa nuts, which Tupia said had been opened by a kind of crab, which from his description we judged to be the same that the Dutch call Beurs Krabbe, and which we had not seen in these seas. All the vegetable substances which he found in this place, were encrusted with marine productions, and covered with barnacles; a sure sign that they must have come far by sea, and, as the trade-wind blows right upon the shore, probably from Terra del Espirito Santo, which has been mentioned already.

Voyaging Accounts