Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/393

] us, finding their liquor too sweet, mixed with it as much brandy as suited their taste, and we had the satisfaction of observing, that this potation was by no means disagreeable to our host.

After this breakfast, each of us entered on the business which had brought him thither; and we agreed to rendezvous at the place where we landed.

For my own part, I resolved to make an attempt on the mountains to the eastward.

I followed a path very much frequented by the natives, leaving it, however, and penetrating into the forest at every clear interval, which facilitated my entrance.

In several places the earth had rushed down, and exposed to view the hard grey stone, which formed the bases of those mountains. I had also observed the same kind of stone on the shore of the road-stead, along which we had just been walking.

Among the different shrubs which grew on the low lands, I obtained a very fine mixed species of the genus conysa, remarkable for having three principal nerves on each leaf, as in several species of the melastoma. It had also the general appearance of the plants of that genus, to which I should have been inclined to refer it, if I had not seen the flower. The