What Beasts The Island Affords I Know Not, But Here Are
Both Sea And Land Fowl.
Of the first, boobies and men-of-war birds
are the chief, some goldens, and small milk-white crab-
Catchers; the
land-fowl are pigeons, about the bigness of mountain-pigeons in
Jamaica, and crows about the bigness of those in England, and much
like them, but the inner part of their feathers are white, and the
outside black, so that they appear all black, unless you extend the
feathers. Here are large sky-coloured birds, such as we lately
killed on New Guinea, and many other small birds, unknown to us.
Here are likewise abundance of bats, as big as young coneys, their
necks, head, ears, and noses like foxes, their hair rough, that
about their necks is of a whitish yellow, that on their heads and
shoulders black, their wings are four feet over from tip to tip;
they smell like foxes. The fish are bass, rock-fish, and a sort of
fish like mullets, old-wives, whip-rays, and some other sorts that I
knew not; but no great plenty of any, for it is deep water till
within less than a mile of the shore, then there is a bank of coral
rocks, within which you have shoal-water, white clean sand, so there
is no good fishing with the seine.
This island lies in latitude 2 degrees 43 minutes south, and
meridian distance from port Babo, on the island Timor, four hundred
and eighty-six miles:
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 132 of 180
Words from 37532 to 37788
of 50938
