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At noon the latitude observed was 10° 40′ S., at which time the opening between the island and main land bore E.S. five or six miles.

Before quitting Indenny, or Santa Cruz, I must give some account of the island and its productions. None of my people having penetrated into the interior, a detail of its different kinds of wood, its soil, &c. cannot be expected. It is not very high; but to the summit of its hills a thick forest covers it, except where the trees have been cleared away for cultivation. It abounds with hogs, fowls, wood-pigeons, doves, wild-ducks, herons, a kind of swallow, and the thrush. Fish is plentiful on the coast, and caught in a variety of ways. Its vegetable productions consist of cocoa-nuts, sugar-cane, bread-fruit, plantains of different kinds, yams of three or four pounds each, several sorts of potatoe, which the natives roast in hot embers, or bake in ovens similar to those already described; tara, which they cut in thin slices and dry in the sun, in which state it will keep for many months, and when roasted it eats very agreeably, something like biscuit. I met with the shaddock of the West-Indies, and a kind of almond, of which I saved a quantity for the inspection of gentlemen skilled in botany: the island also yields a species of nut common at Otaheite and the other South Sea Islands,

known among the natives by the name of the

marare.

Having described the several productions that come under my own immediate observation, I shall close the account by an extract from the Spaniard's narrative on the same subject:"There were abundance of pine-cones as large as the head of a man, containing kernels of the size of Spanish almonds, which grew on a tree that had very few leaves, but those large; a fruit which was thought to resemble a pippin and grew on large and high trees; another fruit, not so good as the one last-mentioned, resembling a pear; ginger in great quantity, growing spontaneously. There were trees of the American aloe (arboles de Pita); another tree, from the body of which the natives by incision obtained an oily liquor of good scent; fine rushes, and a plant which in Figueroa's account is called damahague, both of which were used for making lines and nets; the herb ocymum (albahaca), of strong scent; a great quantity of a small herb of tall growth, named xiquilite, from which was made a die of a deep azure colour; many flowers of fine colour without scent, and much other herbage of various kinds.”

I saw none of the fruits described by the Spaniards, though I am pretty certain the natives brought me specimens of every sort of fruit in season; but this may be accounted for,

as the Spaniards were here a month later in the season, when perhaps the fruits they mention ripened.

Both sides of La Graciosa's (or beautiful) Bay are thickly strewed with villages, consisting of from twenty to thirty houses, sufficiently capacious to accommodate forty or fifty persons each. There are also other houses in each village, with spiral roofs, devoted to religious purposes and the reception of strangers. I understood from the Tucopian, that the inland parts are as thickly inhabited as the coasts; that the people speak a different dialect, cultivate their ground exceedingly well, and keep their plantations clean and enclosed with fences of reeds to defend their crops from the ravages of the hogs. There is no paramount head authority on the island, every village having its separate chief, though in some instances one chief rules over four or five.

I did not find the people naked, as related by Labillardière, who perhaps mistook the thrift of the natives for habit; for I saw instances of individuals coming off to the ship naked, but that was only done to preserve their garments from being wetted, as their crazy wherries frequently upset. The few males who came alongside in a state of nudity, had, I observed, conformed to the Hebrew rite of circumcision.

The people ornament their heads with a red

flower, somewhat resembling the dog-rose; they have also different kinds of strong-scented herbs placed under the bracelets on their arms, and a tuft of the same stuck into their girdle both before and behind. They always approached the ship singing songs like those sung by the Malabars in the moussoula boats at Madras.

During my stay among the islands I experienced no inconvenience from the heat of the weather, probably on account of the frequent showers of rain that tempered the excessive heat, and rendered the atmosphere less oppressive. These I ascribe to the high land under which we lay attracting the clouds. There were none of those exhalations arising from the forests here, which sometimes obscures the island of Mannicolo from view, and renders its climate so unwholesome. The range of the thermometer at noon was from 80° to 82°.

CHAPTER V.

OCCURRENCES FROM QUEEN CHARLOTTE'S ISLAND TO NEW ZEALAND, AND AT THAT PLACE.

15th October 1827.-Moderate trades with gloomy weather. Latitude observed, 12° 24′ S., longitude 164° 28' E. The only occurrence to-day was the addition of two more to the hospital list. Thermometer in shade 81°.

19th.-Fine trade weather. Supposing the ship not far distant from the Holy Shoals, I hauled to the eastward at 8 P.M. for the night.

Yesterday morning I was seized with the disease now raging on board, and have since been confined to my bed. All All my efforts to counteract sickness by cleanliness and fumigation proved ineffectual.

Latitude at noon, 19° 55′ S., longitude by observation 159° 59' E. At midnight stood to the southward.

20th.-Trade weather as usual. At 7 A.M. a shoal was discovered from the ship bearing S.S.E. two or three miles: at 8 A.M. it bore per compass E.S.E. distant off two miles. This is the Minerva Shoals of Captain Bell, discovered in A.D. 1819. It may be a hundred and twenty fathoms long, lying north and south, and appeared very narrow, not more than three or

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