als whether gold, silver, tin, iron, lead,
copper or quicksilver. In the first place, in making further landings we
should have been troubled by the rainy season, which might have seriously
interfered with the use of our muskets, whereas it does no harm to the
weapons of the savages; secondly, we should first have been obliged to
seek practicable paths or roads of which we knew nothing; thirdly, we
might easily have been surrounded by the crowds of blacks, and been cut
off from the boats, which would entail serious peril to the sailors with
whom we always effected the landings, and who are imperfectly versed in
the use of muskets; if on the contrary we had had well-drilled and
experienced soldiers (the men best fitted to undertake such expeditions),
we might have done a good deal of useful work; still, in spite of all
these difficulties and obstacles, we have shunned neither hard work,
trouble, nor peril, to make a thorough examination of everything with the
means at our disposal, and to do whatever our good name and our honour
demanded; the result of our investigation being as follows:

[* A curiously subjective way of looking at things!]

The land between 13 deg. and 17 deg. 8' is a barren and arid tract, without any
fruit-trees, and producing nothing fit for the use of man; it is
low-lying and flat without hills or mountains; in many places overgrown
with brushwood and stunted wild trees; it has not much fresh water, and
what little there is, has to be collected in pits dug for the purpose;
there is an utter absence of bays or inlets, with the exception of a few
bights not sheltered from the sea-wind; it extends mainly N. by E. and S.
by W., with shallows all along the coast, with a clayey and sandy bottom;
it has numerous salt rivers extending into the interior, across which the
natives drag their wives and children by means of dry sticks or boughs of
trees. The natives are in general utter barbarians, all resembling each
other in shape and features, coal-black, and with twisted nets wound
round their heads and necks for keeping their food in; so far as we could
make out, they chiefly live on certain ill-smelling roots which they dig
out of the earth. We infer that during the eastern monsoon they live
mainly on the beach, since we have there seen numerous small huts made of
dry grass; we also saw great numbers of dogs, herons and curlews, and
other wild fowl, together with plenty of excellent fish, easily caught
wit