being the neareft; place they could be fupplied from. Amonb
the birds were parrots, cockatoos, pigeons,, crows,, and abundance
o f other fpecies. There was alfo filh in plenty, Now
.unfortunate were our conyi&s, that this rich ifland was,- not
thought o f as the place, o f their involuntary retreat,
A v e r y little to the north pf Montagu, Bay was difcovered,
in 1767,. another ftreiglit, o f fmall breadth, but which fevers
New Britain into two iflands, leaving the uorthero the largeft.
It was not Dampie.r\fortune to difcover it; he palled it by, and,
C a p e O r f o r d . in Eat» 5 ° 2 5 ' louth, faw a headland he n a m e d Cape, Oxford.
The country continued very mountanous, full of people; the
men armed with lances, their head gay with feathers; the
women had no fort o f ornaments, and nothing to hide their
nakednefs except a bunch of green leaves behind, and before.
There were tame hogs in great abundance, which ran about
near the hovels of the natives.
W i t h i n cape Orford was an inlet, which Dampier fuppofing
to be a great bay, named by him that of St. George, and a cape on
the northern tide, in Lat. 5” fouth, Long- 152° 19' eaft, correc
a p e St . fpondent to cape Orford, he called cape-¿7. G e o rg e Thefe two
G e o r g e , ** ' - ' . headlands proved the diftinguilhing mark of the entrance into a
ilreight, which divided New Britain into a fecond iiland. This
difcovery was made by that able officer Captain Carteret, September
9th 1767, on his difaftrpus return from the South Seas.
When he got into St. George's bay, he found fo ftrong a current
to the north-weft, that he could not return to purfue Dampier's
track. Captain Carteret, foon after he doubled cape St. George,
met with feveral iflands in the foutliern fide o f the ftreights ;
9 the
the neareft, about three leagues' from the cape, he named
Wallis's, which lay before an harbor he called Gower's. The W a l l i s ’ s I s l e .
ifland was lofty; well wooded, and inhabited; farther on were
two coves, with frelh water rivers falling into their bottom.
About four leagues from Wallis's ifle, ftfllta the weft, was a good
harbor, on which was bellowed the refpectable name o f the dif-
coverer; acrofs it lay Co£oa-nut ifle. Qn this coaft were trees o f >
enormous growth, all the kinds o f palms, the betel tree, aloes,
bamboos, rattans, a fruit the failors call a Jamaica plumb, and
probably many o f the tropical fruits and plants; he alfo found
the nutmeg tree in plenty; poifibly this place is its molt remote
fituation to the north.
T h e country abounded with land birds, feemingly the fame
with thofe o f N e?v Britain ; among them was a large black bird,
that made a noife like the barking of a dog, which I fuppofe to
have been a Buceros.
Mr. Carteret purfued his own difcovery, and failed diteCliy
weft ward. He gave the name o f New Ireland to the ifland on N ew I r e l a n d .
the northern fide, and diftinguilhed three capes on the foiithern
by the names o f Bitller, Pallifer, and Stephens, Between cape C a p e S t e p h e n s
Pallifer and cape Stephens, is an ifland, to which Mr. Carteret
gave the name of the Duke o f York's, quite level, delicioufly
clpathed with lofty woods in the inland parts, and near the ihpre
planted' with cocoa groves, intermixed with the houfes of the
iflanders.
T o the eaft of cape Stephens, is in mid-channel an ifle he
called the ifle o f Man. Cape Stephens is the fuppofed moft extreme
weftern point of New Britain; all that fide, as far as cape
V o l. IV. g g Gloucejler,