Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/508

450 hundred miles from the place of its rest. It appears, indeed, far more difficult to account for the passage of one individual, than to believe the destruction of all that may ever have been by their ill fate hurried into such an attempt.

Money of all nations passes here according to its real intrinsic European value; there is therefore no kind of trouble on that head, as in all the Dutch settlements.

4th. Sailed after dinner in company with twelve Indiamen and His Majesty's ship Portland. We resolved to steer homewards with all expedition, in order (if possible) to bring the first news of our voyage, as we found that many particulars of it had transpired, and particularly that a copy of the latitudes and longitudes of most or all the principal places we had been at had been taken by the captain's clerk from the captain's own journals, and given or sold to one of the India captains. War we had no longer the least suspicion of; the Indiamen being ordered to sail immediately without waiting for the few who had not yet arrived was a sufficient proof that our friends at home were not at all apprehensive of it.

10th. This day we saw the Island of Ascension, which is tolerably high land: our captain, however, did not choose to anchor, unwilling to give the fleet so much start of him. Those who have been ashore upon this island say that it is little more than a heap of cinders, the remains of a volcano ever since the discovery of the Indies. Osbeck, who was ashore on it, found only five species of plants; but I am much inclined to believe that there are others which escaped his notice, as he certainly was not on the side of the island where the French land, in which place I have been informed is a pretty wide plain covered with herbage, among which grows Cactus opuntia, a plant not seen by that gentleman.

11th. Saw Holothuria physalis, which our seamen call Portuguese man-of-war, for the first time since we left these seas in going out.

23rd. Dined on board the Portland with Captain Elliot: