Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/342

284 place; so this discovery added but little comfort to our situation. The crew of the pinnace had, on their return, landed on a dry reef, where they found great plenty of shellfish, so that the boat was completely loaded, chiefly with a large kind of cockle (Chama gigas), one of which was more than two men could eat; many, indeed, were larger. The coxswain of the boat, a little man, declared that he saw on the reef a dead shell of one so large that he got into it, and it fairly held him. At night the ship floated and was hauled off. An alligator was seen swimming alongside of her for some time. As I was crossing the harbour in my small boat, we saw many shoals of garfish leaping high out of the water, some of which leaped into the boat and were taken.

5th. Went to the other side of the harbour, and walked along a sandy beach open to the trade-wind. Here I found innumerable fruits, many of plants I had not seen in this country. Among them were some cocoanuts that had been opened (as Tupia told us) by a kind of crab called by the Dutch Boers krabba (Cancer latro) that feeds upon them. All these fruits were incrusted with sea productions, and many of them covered with barnacles, a sure sign that they have come far by sea, and as the trade-wind blows almost right on shore must have come from some other country, probably that discovered by Quiros, and called Terra del Espiritu Santo [New Hebrides], as the latitudes according to his account agree pretty well with ours here.

6th. Set out to-day with the second lieutenant, resolved to go a good way up the river, and see if the country inland differed from that near the shore. We went for about three leagues among mangroves: then we got into the country, which differed very little from what we had already seen. The river higher up contracted much, and lost most of its mangroves: the banks were steep and covered with trees of a beautiful verdure, particularly what is called in the West Indies mohoe or bark-tree (Hibiscus tiliaceus). The land was generally low, thickly covered with long grass, and seemed to promise great fertility, were the people to plant and improve it. In the course of the day Tupia saw a wolf, so