fea as far as an island could be distinguished; it must 1770. not therefore be fuppofed, by future navigators, that, Auguft. where no fhoal or ifland is laid down in my chart, no fhoal or ifland will be found in these feas: it is enough that the fituation of thofe that appear in the chart is faithfully afcertained, and, in general, I have the greatest reason to hope that it will be found as free from error as any that has not been corrected by fubfe'quent and fucceffive obfervations. The latitudes and longitudes of all, or most of the principal head-lands and bays, may be confided in; for we seldom failed of getting an observation once at leaft every day, by which to correct the latitude of our reckoning, and obfervations for fettling the longitude were equally numerous, no opportunity that was offered by the fun and moon being fuffered to efcape. It would be injurious to the memory of Mr. Green, not to take this opportunity of attefting that he was indefatigable both in making obfervations and calculating upon them; and that, by his inftructions and affiftance, many of the petty officers were enabled both to observe and calculate with great exactness. This method of finding the longitude at fea, may be put into univerfal practice, and may always be depended upon within half a degree, which is fufficient for all nautical purposes. If, therefore, obferving and calculating were confidered as neceffary qualifications for every fea officer, the labours of the fpeculative theorift to folve this problem might be remitted, without much injury to mankind: neither will it be fo difficult to acquire this qualification, or put it in practice, as may at first appear; for, with the affiftance of the nautical almanack, and aftronomical ephemeris, the calculations for finding the longitude will take up little more time than the calculation of an azimuth for finding the variation of the compass.

CHAP.

1770. Auguft.

CHA P., VIII.

Departure from New South Wales. A particular Defeription of the Country, its Products, and People. A Specimen of the Language; and fome Obfervations upon the Currents and Tides.

F this country, its products, and its people, many particulars have already been related in the courfe of the narrative, being so interwoven with the events, as not to admit of a separation. I fhall now give a more full and circumftantial defcription of each, in which, if fome things should happen to be repeated, the greater part will be found new.

New Holland, or, as I have now called the eastern coaft, New South Wales, is of a larger extent than any other country in the known world that does not bear the name of a continent. continent. The length of coaft along which we failed, reduced to a ftraight line, is no lefs than twenty-feven degrees of latitude, amounting to near 200 miles, fo that its fquare furface must be much more than equal to all Europe. To the fouthward of 33 or 34, the land in general is low and level; farther northward it is hilly, but in no part can be called mountainous, and the hills and mountains, taken together, make but a fmall part of the furface, in comparifon with the vallies and plains. It is, upon the whole, rather barren than fertile, yet the rifing ground is chequered by woods and lawns, and the plains and vallies are in many places covered with herbage: the foil however is frequently fandy, and many of the lawns, or favannahs, are rocky and barren, especially to the northward, where, in the best spots, vegetation was lefs vigorous than in the fouthern part of the country; the trees were not fo tall, nor was the herbage fo rich. The grafs in general is high but thin, and the trees, where they are largest, are feldom less than forty feet afunder; nor is the country inland, as far as we could examine it, better cloathed than the fea coaft. 'The banks of the bays are covered with mangroves, to the distance of a mile within the beach, under which the foil is a rank mud,

that

that is always overflowed by a spring tide; farther in the country we sometimes met with a bog, upon which the grafs was very thick and luxuriant, and sometimes with a valley that was cloathed with underwood. The foil in fome parts feemed to be capable of improvement, but the far greater part is such as can admit of no cultivation. The coast, at least that part of it which lies to the northward of 25° S. abounds with. fine bays and harbours, where veffels may lie in perfect fecurity from all winds.

If we may judge by the appearance of the country while we were there, which was in the very height of the dry feafon, it is well watered. We found innumerable fmall brooks and fprings, but no great rivers; these brooks, however, probably become large in the, rainy season. Thirsty Sound was the only place where fresh water was not to be procured for the ship, and even there one or two fmall pools were found in the woods, though the face of the country was every where interfected by falt-creeks and mangrove-land.

Of trees there is no great variety. Of those that could be called timber, there are but two forts; the largest is the gum-tree, which grows all over the country, and has been mentioned already: it has narrow feaves, not much unlike a willow, and the gum, or rather refin, which it yields, is of a deep red, and refembles the fanguis draconis: poffibly it may be the fame, for this fubftance is known to be the produce of more than one plant. It is mentioned by Dampier, and is perhaps the fame that Tafman found upon Diemen's Land, where, he fays, he faw "Gum of the trees, "and gum lac of the ground." The other timber tree is that which grows fomewhat like our pines, and has been particularly mentioned in the account of Botany Bay. The wood, of both thefe trees, as I have before remarked, is extremely hard and heavy. Befides thefe, here are trees covered with a soft bark that is eafily peeled off, and is the fame that in the Eaft Indies is ufed for the caulking of fhips.

We found here the palm of three different forts: the first, which grows in great plenty to the fouthward, has leaves that are plaited like a fan; the cabbage of thefe is fmall, but exquifitely fweet, and the nuts,

1779. August.

1770.

which it bears in great abundance, are very good food Auguft. for hogs. The fecond fort bore a much greater refemblance to the true cabbage-tree of the West Indies; its leaves were large and pinnated, like thofe of the cocoa-nut; and thefe alfo produced a cabbage, which though not fo sweet as the other, was much larger. The third fort, which, like the fecond, was found only in the northern parts, was feldom more than ten feet high, with fmall pinnated leaves, resembling those of fome kind of fern; it bore no cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the fize of a large chestnut, 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 ; thofe, however, who made the experiment, paid dear for their knowledge 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 conftitution of the hogs might be as ftrong as theirs, though our own had proved to be so much inferior, we carried them to the flye; the hogs eat them, indeed, and for some time, we thought, without fuffering any inconvenience; but in about a week they were fo much difordered that two of them died, and the rest were recovered with great difficulty. It is probable, however, that the poisonous quality of thefe nuts may lie in the juice, like that of the caffada of the West Indies, and that the pulp, when dried, may be not only wholesome but nutritious. Befides thefe fpecies of the palm and mangroves, there were feveral fmall trees and fhrubs, altogether unknown in Europe, particularly one which produced a very poor kind of fig; another that bore what we called a plum, which it refembled in colour, but not in shape, being flat on the fides like little cheese; and a third that bore a kind of purple apple, which, after it had been kept a few days, became eatable, and tafted fomewhat like a damafcene.

a

Here is a great variety of plants to enrich the collection of a botanist, but very few of them are of the efculent kind. A fmall plant, with long, narrow, graffy leaves, resembling that kind of bullruth, which in En land is called the Cat's-tail, yields a refin of a bright

yellow

yellow colour, exactly refembling gambouge,, except that it does not ftain; it has a fweet fmell, but its properties we had no opportunity to difcover, any more. than thofe of many others with which the natives appear to be acquainted, as they have distinguished them by names.

I have already mentioned the root and leaves of a plant refembling the coccos of the Weft Indies, and at kind of bean; to which may be added, a fort of parfley and purfelain, and two kinds of yams, one fhaped like a raddish, and the other round and covered with ftringy fibres: both forts are very small, but sweet, and we never could find the plants that produced them, though we often faw the places where they had been newly dug up; it is probable that the drought had deftroyed the leaves, and we could not, like the Indians, difcover them by the ftalks..

Most of the fruits of this country, fuch as they are, have been mentioned already. We found one in the fouthern part of the country refembling a cherry, except that the ftone was foft; and another not unlike a pine-apple in appearance, but of a very difagreeable tafte, which is well known in the East Indies, and is called by the Dutch Pyn Appel Boomen.

Of the quadrupeds, I have already mentioned the dog, and particularly defcribed the kanguroo, and the animal of the opoffum kind, refembling the phalanger of Buffon; to which I can add only one more, refembling a polecat, which the natives call Quoll; the back is brown, fpotted with white, and the belly white unmixed. Several of our people faid they had feen wolves, but perhaps if we had not feen tracks that favoured the account, we might have thought them little more worthy of credit than he who reported that he had feen the devil.

Of bats, which hold a middle place between the beafts and the birds, we faw many kinds, particularly one which, as I have observed already, was larger than a partridge. We were not fortunate enough to take one either alive or dead, but it was fuppofed to be the fame as Buffon has defcribed by the name of Roufet or Rouget.

The

1770.

Augult.