Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/39

] arrived on board. One of the gunners of the Esperance, named Boucher, we learned had died, during our absence, of a consumption.

6th and 7th. After having described and prepared the subjects of natural history, which I had collected the preceding days, I employed the remainder of my time in visiting the low lands to the south-east. The woods here were easily penetrated, as the trees stood at some distance from each other. Almost every where I found the soil an excellent mould. I cut specimens of several sorts of wood, to find out the different uses for which each might be employed. That fine tree, which I imagine to be of the coniferous family, and which I have already mentioned, gave considerable resistance to the saw: no doubt it will furnish the most compact timber of any of that family.

It had long been my wish, that the greater part of the seeds we had brought from Europe, capable of succeeding in this climate, might be sown on this part of the coast in a good mould sufficiently watered: but on my return I saw with regret that a very dry and very sandy spot, pretty near the head of the bay, had been dug up and sown.

Early in the morning of the 8th, the gardener and I, with two of the crew, set off for port Dentre-