On this day ...
1 - 4 May 1771
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
Cape of Good Hope, Saint Helena and Return to England
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Here are a few horses, but they are kept only for the saddle, so that all labour is performed by slaves; nor are they furnished with any of the various machines which art has invented to facilitate their task. The ground is not every where too sleep for a cart, and where it is, the wheelbarrow might be used with great advantage, yet there is no wheelbarrow in the whole, island; every thing is conveyed from place to place by the slaves, and they are not furnished even with the simple convenience of a porter’s knot, but carry their burden upon their heads. They are indeed very numerous, and are brought from-almost every part of the world, but they appeared to be a miserable race, worn out partly by excessive labour, and partly by ill usage, of which they frequently complained; and I am sorry to say, that instances of wanton cruelty are much more frequent among my countrymen here, than among the Dutch, who are and perhaps not without reason, generally reproached with want of humanity at Batavia and the Cape.
Among the native products of this island, which are not numerous, must be reckoned ebony, though the trees are now nearly extinct, and are not remembered to have been plenty: pieces of the wood are frequently found in the vallies, of a fine black colour, and a hardness almost equal to iron: these pieces, however, are always so short and crooked, that no use can be made of them. Whether the tree is the same with that which produces ebony upon the isle of Bourbon, or the islands adjacent, is not known, as the French have not yet published any account of it.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 797, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/797.html