On this day ...
23 August 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Description of New South Wales
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We found here the palm of three different sorts. The first, which grows in great plenty to the southward, has leaves that are plaited like a fan: the cabbage of these is small, but exquisitely sweet; and the nuts, which it bears in great abundance, are very good food for hogs. The second sort bore a much greater resemblance to the true cabbage tree of the West Indies; its leaves were large and pinnated, like those of the cocoa-nut; and these also produced a cabbage, which though not so sweet as the other, was much larger. The third sort, which, like the second, was found only in the northern parts, was seldom more than ten feet high, with small pinnated leaves, resembling those of some kind of fern: it bore no cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the size of a large chesnut, but rounder: as we found the hulls of these scattered round the places where the Indians had made their fires, we took for granted that they were fit to eat; those however who made the experiment paid dear for their knowlege of the contrary, for they operated both as an emetic and cathartic with great violence. Still, however, we made no doubt but that they were eaten by the Indians; and judging that the constitution of the hogs might be as strong as theirs, though our own had proved to be so much inferior, we carried them to the stye; the hogs eat them, indeed, and for some time we thought without suffering any inconvenience; but in about a week they were so much disordered that two of them died, and the rest were recovered with great difficulty. It is probable, however, that the poisonous quality of these nuts may lie in the juice, like that of the cassada of the West Indies; and that the pulp, when dried, may be not only wholesome, but nutricious. Besides these species of the palm, and mangroves, there were several small trees and shrubs altogether unknown in Europe; particularly one which produced a very poor kind of fig; another that bore what we called a plum, which it resembled in colour, but not in shape, being flat on the sides like a little cheese; and a third that bore a kind of purple apple; which, after it had been kept a few days, became eatable, and tasted somewhat like a damascene.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 624 - 625, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/624.html