64 VOYAGE TO THE 



fruit. It affords but little wood, and has a reddish 

 bark of considerable astringency : several species of 

 this genus are to be met with among the Society 

 Islands. There is likewise a long slender plant with 

 a stem about an inch in diameter, bearing a beauti- 

 ful pink flower, of the class and order hexandria 

 monogynia. We saw no esculent roots, and, with 

 the exception of the pandanus, no tree that bore 

 fruit fit to eat. 



This island, which on our charts bears the name 

 of Elizabeth, ought properly to be called Hender- 

 son's Island, as it was first named by Captain Hen- 

 derson of the Hercules of Calcutta. Both these ves- 

 sels visited it, and each supposing it was a new dis- 

 covery, claimed the merit of it on her arrival the 

 next day at Pitcairn Island, these two places lying 

 close together. But the Hercules preceded the for- 

 mer several months. To neither of these vessels, 

 however, is the discovery of the land in question to 

 be attributed, as it was first seen by the crew of the 

 Essex, an American whaler, who accidentally fell in 

 with it after the loss of their vessel. Two of her 

 seamen, preferring the chance of finding subsistence 

 on this desolate spot to risking their lives in an open 

 boat across the wide expanse which lies between it 

 and the coast of Chili, were, at their own desire, left 

 behind. They were afterwards taken off by an 

 English whaler that heard of their disaster at Valpa- 

 raiso from their surviving shipmates.* 



* The extraordinary fate of the Essex has been recorded in a 

 pamphlet published in New York by the mate of that vessel, but 

 of the veracity of which every person must consult his own judg- 

 ment. As all my readers may not be in possession of it, I shall 

 briefly state that it describes the Essex to have been in the act of 



