30 cook's first voyage march, 



their size, their grain, and apparent durability, ren- 

 der them fit for any kind of building, and indeed for 

 every other purpose except masts ; for which, as I 

 have already observed, they are too hard, and too 

 heavy : there is one in particular which, when we 

 were upon the coast, was rendered conspicuous by a 

 scarlet flower, that seemed to be a compendage of 

 many fibres ; it is about as large as an oak, and the 

 wood is exceedingly hard and heavy, and excellently 

 adapted to the use of the millwright. There is an- 

 other which grows in the swamps, remarkably tall and 

 straight, thick enough to make masts for vessels of 

 any size, and, if a judgment maybe formed by the 

 direction of its grain, very tough : this, which, as has 

 been before remarked, our carpenter thoughtto resem- 

 ble the pitch-pine, may probably be lightened by tap- 

 ping, and it will then make the finest masts in the 

 world : it has a leaf not unlike a yew, and bears ber- 

 ries in small bunches. 



Great part of the country is covered with a luxu- 

 riant verdure, and our natural historians were grati- 

 fied by the novelty, if not the variety of the plants. 

 Sow-thistle, garden night-shade, one or two kinds 

 of grass, the same as in England, and two or three 

 kinds of fern, like those of the West Indies, with a 

 few of the plants that are to be found in almost every 

 part of the world, were all, out of about four hun- 

 dred species, that have hitherto been described by 

 any botanists, or had been seen elsewhere during the 

 course of this voyage, except about five or six which 

 had been gathered at Terra del Fuego. 



Of eatable vegetables there are but few ; our peo- 

 ple, indeed, who had been long at sea, eat, with equal 

 pleasure and advantage, of wild celery, and a kind of 

 cresses, which grew in great abundance upon all parts 

 of the sea-shore. We also, once or twice, met with 

 a plant like what the country people in England call 

 Lamb's quarters, or Fat-hen, which we boiled in- 

 stead of greens ; and once we had the good fortune 



