he open air. There are three or five pointed stones fixed in the
ground, their pointed ends being about six inches above the surface. Those
of three stones are only for one jar, those of five stones for two. The
jars do not stand on their bottoms, but lie inclined on their sides. The
use of these stones is obviously to keep the jars from resting on the fire,
in order that it may burn the better.

They subsist chiefly on roots and fish, and the bark of a tree, which I am
told grows also in the West Indies. This they roast, and are almost
continually chewing. It has a sweetish, insipid taste, and was liked by
some of our people. Water is their only liquor, at least I never saw any
other made use of.

Plantains and sugar-canes are by no means in plenty. Bread-fruit is very
scarce, and the cocoa-nut trees are small and but thinly planted; and
neither one nor the other seems to yield much fruit.

To judge merely by the numbers of the natives we saw every day, one might
think the island very populous; but I believe that, at this time, the
inhabitants were collected from all parts on our account. Mr Pickersgill
observed, that down the coast, to the west, there were but few people; and
we knew they came daily from the other side of the land, over the
mountains, to visit us. But although the inhabitants, upon the whole, may
not be numerous, the island is not thinly peopled on the sea-coast, and in
the plains and valleys that are capable of cultivation. It seems to be a
country unable to support many inhabitants. Nature has been less bountiful
to it than to any other tropical island we know in this sea. The greatest
part of its surface, or at least what we saw of it, consists of barren
rocky mountains; and the grass, &c. growing on them, is useless to people
who have no cattle.

The sterility of the country will apologise for the natives not
contributing to the wants of the navigator. The sea may, perhaps, in some
measure, compensate for the deficiency of the land; for a coast surrounded
by reefs and shoals, as this is, cannot fail of being stored with fish.

I have before observed, that the country bears great resemblance to New
South Wales, or New Holland, and that some of its natural productions are
the same. In particular, we found here, the tree which is covered with a
soft white ragged bark, easily peeled off, and is, as I have been told, the
same that, in the East Indies, is used for caulking of ships. The wood is
very