Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/349

Rh had we looked further we should have found our other trinkets, for they seemed to set no value on anything we had except our turtle, which of all things we were the least able to spare them.

24th. While travelling in a deep valley, the sides of which were steep almost as a wall, but covered with trees and plenty of brushwood, we found marking-nuts (Anacardium orientale) lying on the ground. Desirous as we were to find the tree on which they had grown, a thing that I believe no European botanist has seen, we were not with all our pains able to find it, so after cutting down four or five trees, and spending much time, we were obliged to give over our hopes.

26th. While botanising to-day I had the good fortune to take an animal of the opossum (Didelphis) tribe; it was a female, and with it I took two young ones. It was not unlike that remarkable one which De Buffon has described by the name of Phalanger as an American animal. It was, however, not the same. M. de Buffon is certainly wrong in asserting that this tribe is peculiar to America, and in all probability, as Pallas has said in his Zoologia, the Phalanger itself is a native of the East Indies, as my animals and that agree in the extraordinary conformation of their feet, in which particular they differ from all the others.

27th. This day was dedicated to hunting the wild animal. We saw several, and had the good fortune to kill a very large one weighing 84 lbs.

28th. Botanising with no kind of success, the plants were now entirely completed, and nothing new to be found, so that sailing is all we wish for, if the wind would but allow us.

10th August. Fine weather, so the anchor was got up, and we sailed down to leeward, hoping there might be a passage that way. In this we were much encouraged by the sight of some high islands where we hoped the shoals would end. By twelve we were among these, and fancied that the grand or outer reef ended on one of them, so were all in high spirits; but about dinner-time the people who