eal,
and made a most comfortable mess: For each of these cabbages, however,
we were forced to cut down a tree; and it was with great regret that we
destroyed, in the parent stock, so much fruit, which perhaps is the most
powerful antiscorbutic in the world; but necessity has no law. This
supply of fresh vegetable, and especially the milk, or rather the water
of the nut, recovered our sick very fast. They also received great
benefit and pleasure from the fruit of a tall tree, that resembles a
plum, and particularly that which in the West Indies is called the
Jamaica Plum. Our men gave it the same name; it has a pleasant tartish
taste, but is a little woody, probably only for want of culture: These
plums were not plenty; so that having the two qualities of a dainty,
scarcity and excellence, it is no wonder that they were held in the
highest estimation.

The shore about this place is rocky, and the country high and
mountainous, but covered with trees of various kinds, some of which are
of an enormous growth, and probably would be useful for many purposes.
Among others, we found the nutmeg tree in great plenty; and I gathered a
few of the nuts, but they were not ripe: They did not indeed appear to
be the best sort, but perhaps that is owing partly to their growing
wild, and partly to their being too much in the shade of taller trees.
The cocoa-nut tree is in great perfection, but does not abound. Here
are, I believe, all the different kinds of palm, with the beetle-nut
tree, various species of the aloe, canes, bamboos, and rattans, with
many trees, shrubs, and plants, altogether unknown to me; but no
esculent vegetable of any kind. The woods abound with pigeons, doves,
rooks, parrots, and a large bird with black plumage, that makes a noise
somewhat like the barking of a dog, with many others which I can neither
name nor describe. Our people saw no quadruped but two of a small size
that they took for dogs; the carpenter and another man got a transient
glimpse of them in the woods as they were cutting spars for the ship's
use, and said they were very wild, and ran away the moment they saw them
with great swiftness. We saw centipieds, scorpions, and a few serpents
of different kinds, but no inhabitants. We fell in, however, with
several deserted habitations; and by the shells that were scattered
about them, and seemed not long to have been taken out of the water, and
some sticks half burnt, the remains of a fire, there is reas