Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/318

 162 dampiek's voyages.

meal for burgoo, whereby we might save the remains of our other water for drinking, till we should get more ; and accordingly the next day we brought aboard four hogsheads of it : but while we were at work about the well we were sadly pester'd with the flies, which were more troublesome to us than the sun, tho' it shone clear and strong upon us all the while, very hot. All this while we saw no more of the natives, but saw some of the smoaks of some of their fires at two or three miles distance.

The land hereabouts was much like the part of New Hol- land that I formerly described (vol. i, p. 463) ; 'tis low, but seemingly barricado'd with a long chain of sandhills to the sea, that lets nothing be seen of what is farther within land. At high water, the tides rising so high as they do, the coast shows very low ; but when 'tis low water it seems to be of an indifferent heighth. At low water-mark the shore is all rocky, so that then there is no lauding with a boat ; but at high water a boat may come in over those rocks to the Sandy Bay, which runs all along on this coast. The land by the sea for about five or six hundred yards is a dry sandy soil, bearing only shrubs and bushes of divers sorts. Some of these had them at this time of the year, yellow flowers or blossoms, some blue and some white, most of them of a very fragrant smell. Some had fruit-like peascods, in each of which there were just ten small peas : I opened many of them, and found no more nor less. There are also here some of that sort of bean which I saw at Rosemary Island, and another sort of small, red, hard pulse, growing in cods also, with little black eyes like beans. I know not their names, but have seen them used often in the East Indies for weighing gold ; and they make the same use of them at Guinea as I have heard, where the women also make brace- lets with them to wear about their arms. These grow on bushes ; but here are also a fruit like beans, growing on a creeping sort of shrub-like vine. There was great plenty of