Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/358

300 provision than we were, ate them heartily, and we considered their constitutions stronger than ours, until after about a week they were all taken extremely ill of indigestion; two died, and the rest were saved with difficulty.

Other useful plants we saw none, except perhaps two, which might be found so, yielding resin in abundance. The one, a tree tolerably large, with narrow leaves not unlike a willow, was plentiful in every place into which we went, and yielded a blood-red resin or rather gum-resin, very nearly resembling Sanguis draconis; indeed, as Sanguis draconis is the produce of several different plants, this may be perhaps one of the sorts. This I should suppose to be the gum mentioned by Dampier in his voyage round the world, and by him compared with Sanguis draconis, as possibly also that which Tasman saw upon Van Diemen's Land, where he says he saw gum on the trees, and gum lac on the ground. (See his voyage in a collection published at London in 1694, p. 133.) The other was a small plant with long narrow grassy leaves and a spike of flowers resembling much that kind of bulrush which is called in England cat's tail: this yielded a resin of a bright yellow colour perfectly resembling gamboge, only that it did not stain; it had a sweet smell, but what its properties are the chemists may be able to determine.

Of plants in general the country affords a far larger variety than its barren appearance seemed to promise: many of these no doubt possess properties which might be useful for physical and economical purposes, which we were not able to investigate. Could we have understood the Indians, or made them by any means our friends, we might perchance have learnt some of these; for though their manner of life, but one degree removed from brutes, does not seem to promise much, yet they had some knowledge of plants, as we could plainly perceive by their having names for them.

Thus much for plants. I have been rather particular in mentioning those which we ate, hoping that such a record might be of use to some or other into whose hands