high and fourteen inches in circumference.

In the evening I returned on board.

Friday 22.

The next morning, the 22nd, at daylight, a party was sent on shore for
wooding and watering under the command of Mr. Christian and the gunner;
and I directed that one man should be constantly employed in washing the
people's clothes. There was so much surf that the wood was obliged to be
rafted off in bundles to the boat. Mr. Nelson informed me that in his
walks today he saw a tree in a very healthy state which he measured and
found to be thirty-three feet and a half in girt; its height was
proportioned to its bulk.

Saturday 23.

The surf was rather greater than yesterday which very much interrupted
our wooding and watering. Nelson today picked up a male opossum that had
been recently killed, or had died, for we could not perceive any wound
unless it had received a blow on the back where there was a bare place
about the size of a shilling. It measured fourteen inches from the ears
to the beginning of the tail which was exactly the same length.

Most of the forest trees were at this time shedding their bark. There are
three kinds, which are distinguished from each other by their leaves,
though the wood appears to be the same. Many of them are full one hundred
and fifty feet high; but most of those that we cut down were decayed at
the heart. There are, besides the forest trees, several other kinds that
are firm good wood and may be cut for most purposes except masts; neither
are the forest trees good for masts, on account of their weight, and the
difficulty of finding them thoroughly sound. Mr. Nelson asserted that
they shed their bark every year, and that they increase more from the
seed than by suckers.

I found the tide made a difference of full two feet in the height of the
water in the lake at the back of the beach. At high water it was very
brackish, but at low tide it was perfectly fresh to the taste, and soap
showed no sign of its being the least impregnated. We had better success
in fishing on board the ship than by hauling the seine on shore; for with
hooks and lines a number of fine rock-cod were caught. I saw today
several eagles, some beautiful blue-plumaged herons, and a great variety
of parakeets. A few oyster-catchers and gulls were generally about the
beach, and in the lake a few wild ducks.

Monday 25.

Being in want of plank I directed a saw-pit to be dug and employed some
of the people to saw trees