The Land Hereabouts Was Much Like The Port Of New Holland That I
Formerly Described; It Is Low, But Seemingly Barricaded With A Long
Chain Of Sand-Hills To The Sea, That Lets Nothing Be Seen Of What Is
Farther Within Land.
At high water the tides rising so high as they
do, the coast shows very low:
But when it is low water it seems to
be of an indifferent height. At low water-mark the shore is all
rocky, so that then there is no landing with a boat; but at high
water a boat may come in over those rocks to the sandy bay, which
runs all along on this coast. The land by the sea for about five or
six hundred yards is a dry sandy soil, bearing only shrubs and
bushes of divers sorts. Some of these had them at this time of the
year, yellow flowers or blossoms, some blue, and some white; most of
them of a very fragrant smell. Some had fruit like peascods, in
each of which there were just ten small peas; I opened many of them,
and found no more nor less. There are also here some of that sort
of bean which I saw at Rosemary Island: and another sort of small
red hard pulse, growing in cods also, with little black eyes like
beans. I know not their names, but have seen them used often in the
East Indies for weighing gold; and they make the same use of them at
Guinea, as I have heard, where the women also make bracelets with
them to wear about their arms. These grow on bushes; but here are
also a fruit like beans growing on a creeping sort of shrub-like
vine. There was great plenty of all these sorts of cod-fruit
growing on the sand-hills by the sea side, some of them green, some
ripe, and some fallen on the ground: but I could not perceive that
any of them had been gathered by the natives; and might not probably
be wholesome food.
The land farther in, that is, lower than what borders on the sea,
was so much as we saw of it, very plain and even; partly savannahs
and partly woodland. The savannahs bear a sort of thin coarse
grass. The mould is also a coarser sand than that by the sea-side,
and in some places it is clay. Here are a great many rocks in the
large savannah we were in, which are five or six feet high, and
round at top like a hay-cock, very remarkable; some red and some
white. The woodland lies farther in still, where there were divers
sorts of small trees, scarce any three feet in circumference, their
bodies twelve or fourteen feet high, with a head of small knibs or
boughs. By the sides of the creeks, especially nigh the sea, there
grow a few small black mangrove-trees.
There are but few land animals.
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