56 INDIA BEYOND THE GANGES. 



little Condore, lying off the north end, in which is fufficient 

 depth of water and fafe anchorage. Dampier * in 1686 careened 

 and refitted his fliip here, and has given us a good account of 

 many particulars. He fays that the foil is rich and black, the 

 hills craggy, the eaftern part of the ifland fandy, but cloathed 

 with trees of various kinds ; fome of the fliores are rocky, others 

 low and fandy. All the iflands are finely watered with fmall ri- 

 vulets during ten months of the year, which begin to fail towards 

 the latter end of March, in the dry feafon ; but on digging, 

 water may be found in many places. 



The vegetables obfervedbyX)<3';;//)/>rt were mangoes in a ftate of 

 nature ; the Areca Qleracea, or cabbage palm ; the coco palm, wild 

 nutmegs, grape trees, and a large tree four feet in diameter, 

 which, on incifion, yields a clammy juice, that, being boiled, 

 proves an excellent tar, and on farther boiling becomes hard 

 Dammer Pitch, ^s pitch; this probably is the Dani??ier %• Captain Goi'e, in 

 Cook's laft voyage IJ, adds to the lift of plants, water nielons, po- 

 tatoes, gourds, plantains, oranges, fliaddocks, pomegranates, 

 rice, and black beans. Thefe, poffibly, were acquifitions lince 

 the days of Dampier, and introduced by the French, who hu- 

 manely and politically wiflied to render thefe iflands ufeful to 

 navigators in their way to or from Japan, Chhia, Manilla, Ton^ 

 quin, Cochin-China, and many parts of India \\\\X\ v.'hich the 

 Europeans have intercourfe. At the time Captain Gore vifited 

 this ifland, a Mandarine from Saigore, came here with a 

 certificate in French, from the bifhop of Adran, a French- 

 man, certifying that he was fent in order to give his afTiftance 



• Voy. 288. f DamphrVol.'i. p. 314. 



X Ibid. Vol. t, p. 514. II Voy. iii. 458. 



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