Account of Piroti's Peninsula. 257 



paper call from me the following remark, viz, that excepting the 

 nights in India not being quite so cold, I consider the climate at 

 Peron's Peninsula, as described by the historians of the French ex- 



rsditions of discovery, to be exactly similar to that of India : and 

 feel confident, that Europeans would in time become enured to it 

 as well as the natives, because they would enjoy much greater ad- 

 vantages ; inasmuch as they would have the protection of good 

 houses and clothes against the cold of the nights ; be fed with bet- 

 ter food ; and their occupations and fatigues by day be less severe, 

 and under some regulation. 



Had these voyagers resided some years in India, and been ac- 

 customed to a hot climate, they would probably have represented 

 the physical characters of this peninsula and its climate as not quite 

 so bad ; at least they would not have made it out to be so murder- 

 ous as they thought 'it ; but, being fresh from sea, and unfitted to 

 support the heat on land, (like many others who live on board ship, 

 and in the constant enjoyment of a moist atmosphere and occasional 

 fresh sea breezes,) it felt, and appeared to them, as altogether a 

 spot so dreadful as to be perfectly uninhabitable. 



If due allowance be therefore made for the circumstances under 

 which the place has been so imperfectly explored ; it will not ap- 

 pear eitlier so impossible or so dreadful a site for a small colony of 

 fishermen ; and the utility thereof, and the benefits which may 

 grow out of it, are incalculable. 



Note It is remarkable that none of the writers give the names 



of the trees on Peron's Peninsula ; but there is a passage in one 

 which says the vegetations is similar to that on the south coast. 



Dampier, in his bucaniering voyage, says that he found several 

 little wells of fresh water, (or holes,) close to the sea sliore, in New 

 Holland, about the latitude of 16° (N.W. coast.) And I can state, 

 from my own knowledge, that, on various parts of the coast of 

 Southern India, I have seen wells of fresh water within a few yards 

 of the sea; and the sands in which they were dug are nearly as low 

 as the surface of the briny wave itself. This fact makes me feel 

 ■still more confident of the possibibility of coming at fresh water 

 jon Peron's Peninsula by digging. 



