第48章

Next morning my men came aboard and brought a runlet of brackish water which they had got out of another well that they dug in a place a mile off, and about half as far from the shore; but this water was not fit to drink. However, we all concluded that it would serve to boil our oatmeal, for burgoo, whereby we might save the remains of our other water for drinking, till we should get more: and accordingly the next day we brought aboard four hogsheads of it: but while we were at work about the well we were sadly pestered with the flies, which were more troublesome to us than the sun, though it shone clear and strong upon us all the while very hot. All this while we saw no more of the natives, but saw some of the smoke of some of their fires at two or three miles distance.

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. I saw some lizards; and my men saw two or three beasts like hungry wolves, lean like so many skeletons, being nothing but skin and bones; it is probable that it was the foot of one of those beasts that I mentioned as seen by us in New Holland. We saw a raccoon or two, and one small speckled snake.

The land fowls that we saw here were crows, just such as ours in England, small hawks and kites, a few of each sort: but here are plenty of small turtle doves, that are plump, fat, and very good meat. Here are two or three sorts of smaller birds, some as big as larks, some less; but not many of either sort. The sea-fowl are pelicans, boobies, noddies, curlews, seapies, &c., and but few of these neither.

The sea is plentifully stocked with the largest whales that I ever saw; but not to compare with the vast ones of the Northern Seas. We saw also a great many green turtle, but caught none, here being no place to set a turtle net in; there being no channel for them, and the tides running so strong. We saw some sharks and parracoots; and with hooks and lines we caught some rock-fish and old-wives. Of shell-fish, here were oysters both of the common kind for eating, and of the pearl kind; and also whelks, conchs, muscles, limpits, periwinkles, &c., and I gathered a few strange shells, chiefly a sort not large, and thickset all about with rays or spikes growing in rows.

And thus having ranged about a considerable time upon this coast, without finding any good fresh water or any convenient place to clean the ship, as I had hoped for; and it being moreover the height of the dry season, and my men growing scorbutic for want of refreshments, so that I had little encouragement to search further, I resolved to leave this coast, and accordingly in the beginning of September set sail towards Timor.

On the 12th of December, 1699, we sailed from Babao, coasting along the island Timor to the eastward, towards New Guinea. It was the 20th before we got as far as Laphao, which is but forty leagues. We saw black clouds in the north-west, and expected the wind from that quarter above a month sooner.

That afternoon we saw the opening between the islands Omba and Fetter, but feared to pass through in the night. At two o'clock in the morning it fell calm, and continued so till noon, in which time we drove with the current back again south-west six or seven leagues.