o'Ybt’r ” e found it uninhabited, and were undoubtedly the
.— v— ■> firft that ever fet foot on it. We obferved many trees and
londay 10. pjant^ comrnon at New Zealand; and, in particular, the
flax plant, which is rather more luxuriant here than in any
part of that country; but the chief produce is a fort of
fpruce pine, which grows in great abundance, and to a
large fize, many of the trees being as thick, breaft high, as
two men could fathom, and exceedingly ftraigbt and tall, This
pine is of a fort between that which grows in New Zealand,
and that in New Caledonia ; the foliage differing fomething
from both ; and the wood not fo heavy as the former, nor
fo light and clofe-grained as the latter. It is a good deal
like the Quebec pine. For about two hundred yards from
the fhore, the ground is covered fo thick with fhrubs and
plants, as hardly to be penetrated farther inland. The
woods were perfectly clear and free from underwood, and
the foil feemed rich and deep.
We found the fame kind of pigeons, parrots, and parrot-
quets as in New Zealand, rails, and fome fmall birds. The
fea fowl are, white boobies, gulls, tern, &c. which breed
undifturbed on, the fhores, and in the cliffs of the rocks. '
On the ifle is frefh water; and cabbage-palm, wood-forrel,
fow-thiftle, and famphire abounding in fome places on the
fhores, we brought on board as much of each fort as the
time we had to gather them would admit. Thefe cabbage-
trees or palms, were not thicker than a man’s leg, and from
ten to twenty feet high. They are of the fame genus with
the cocoa-nut tree; like it they have large pinnated leaves,
and are the fame as the fecond fort found in the northern
parts of New South Wales *. The cabbage is, properly
* Yi.de HawkeJworth’s Voyages, Vol, III, Page 624.
fpeakfpeaking,
the bud of the tree ; each tree producing but one 0^07b*;r
cabbage, which is at the crown, where the leaves fpring out, ---->
and is inclofed in the item. The cutting off the cabbage er-
fedtually deftroys the tree; fo that no more than one can be
had from the fame ftem. The cocoa-nut tree,, and fome
others of the palm kind, produce cabbage as well as thefe.
This vegetable is not only wholefome, but exceedingly palatable,
and proved the moft agreeable repaft we had for fome
time.
The coaft does not want fifh. While we were on fhore,,
the people in the boats caught fome which were excellent. I
judged that it was high water at the full and change, about
one o’clock; and that the tide rifes and falls upon a perpendicular
about four or five feet. _
The approach of night brought us all on hoard, when
we hoifted in the.boats; and flretched to E. N., E. (with the
wind at S Ejf; till midnight, we tacked, and fpent the re-
'mainder of the night making fhort boards.
Next morning at fun-rife, we made fail, ftretching to Taefdayja,
S. S. W., and weathered the ifland ; on the fouth-fide of which
lie two ifles, that ferve as roofting and breeding-places for
birds. On this, as alfo on the S. E. fide, is a fandy beach;
whereas moft of the other fhores are bounded by rocky cliffs
which have twenty and eighteen fathoms water clofeto them;
at leaft fo we found it on the N. E. fide, and with good anchorage.
A bank of coral fand, mired with ffiells; on which
we found from nineteen to thirty-five or forty fathoms water,
furrounds the ifle, and extends, efpecially to the South,
feven leagues off. The morning we difcovered the ifland,.
the