1769. on board, or give it a birth of near half a mile, in order to avoid a fmall fhoal of coral rocks, on which there is but two fathom and an half of water. The beft anchoring is on the eastern fide of the bay, where there is fixteen and fourteen fathom upon an oufey bottom. The shore of the bay is a fine fandy beach, behind which runs a river of fresh water, fo that any number of ships may water here without incommoding each other; but the only wood for firing, upon the whole island, is that of fruit trees, which must be purchased of the natives, or all hope of living upon good terms with them given up. There are fome harbours to the weftward of this bay which have not been mentioned, but, as they are contiguous to it, and laid down in the plan, a description of them is unneceffary.. The face of the country, except that part of it which borders upon the fea, is very uneven; it rifes in ridges that run up into the middle of the island, and there form mountains, which may be feen at the diftance of fixty miles: between the foot of thefe ridges and the fea, is a border of low land, furrounding the whole island, except in a few places where the ridges rife directly from the fea: the border of low land is in different parts of different breadths, but no where more than a mile and a half. The foil, except upon the very tops of the ridges, is extremely rich and fertile, watered by a great number number of rivulets of excellent water and co vered with fruit trees of various kinds, fome of which are of a ftately growth and thick foliage, fo as to form one continued wood; and even the tops of the ridges, though in general they are bare, and burnt up by the fun, are, in some parts, not without their produce. The low land that lies between the foot of the ridges and the fea, and fome of the vallies, are the only parts of the island that are inhabited, and here it is populous; the houses do not form villages or towns, but are ranged along the whole border at the diftance of about fifty yards from each other, with little plantations of plantains, the tree which furnishes them with cloth. The whole ifland, according to Tupia's account, who certainly knew, could furnish fix thoufand feven hundred and eighty fighting men, from which the number of inhabitants may easily be computed. The produce of this ifland is bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas, of thirteen forts, the best we had ever eaten; plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, which, when ripe, is very pleasant; fweet potatoes, yams, cocoas, a kind of Arum; a fruit known here by the name of Jambu, and reckoned most delicious; fugar cane, which the inhabitants eat raw; a root of the falop kind, called by the inhabitants Pea; a plant called Ethee, of which the root only is eaten; a fruit C 2 1769. 1769. fruit that grows in a pod, like that of a large kidney bean, which, when it is roafted, eats very much like a chefnut, by the natives called Abee; a tree called Wharra, called in the East Indies Pandanes, which produces fruit, fomething like the pine-apple; a fhrub called Nono; the Morinda, which alfo produces fruit; a fpecies of fern, of which the root is eaten, and fometimes the leaves; and a plant called Theve, of which the root alfo is eaten but the fruits of the Nono, the fern, and the Theve, are eaten only by the inferior people, and in times of fcarcity. All thefe, which ferve the inhabitants for food, the earth produces fpontaneously, or with fo little culture, that they feem to be exempted from the first general curse, that "man "fhould eat his bread in the fweat of his brow." They have also the Chinese paper mulberry, morus papyrifera, which they call Aouta; a tree resembling the wild fig tree of the West Indies; another species of fig, which they call Matte; the cordia febeftina orientalis, which they call Etou; a kind of Cyperus grafs, which they call Moo; a fpecies of tournefortia, which they call Tabeinoo; another of the convolvulus poluce, which they call Eurbe; the folanum centifolium, which they call Ebooa; the calophyllum mophylum, which they call Tamannu; the bibifcus tiliaceus, called Poerou, a frutefcent nettle; the urtica argentea, called Erowa; with many other plants |