177 FISH PLANTS 



227 



when taken out of the water. Of them we bought great 

 quantities everywhere to the northward from the natives, 

 who catch them by diving near the shore, feeling first with 

 their feet till they find out where they lie. We had also 

 that fish described by Frezier in his voyage to Spanish South 

 America by the name of elefant,pejegallo, or poisson coq, which, 

 though coarse, we made shift to eat, and several species of 

 skate or sting-rays, which were abominably coarse. But to 

 make amends for that, we had among several sorts of dog- 

 fish one that was spotted with a few white spots, whose 

 flavour was similar to, but much more delicate than, our 

 skate. We had flat fish also like soles and flounders, eels 

 and congers of several sorts, and many others, which any 

 European who may come here after us will not fail to find 

 the advantage of, besides excellent oysters, cockles, clams, and 

 many other sorts of shell-fish, etc. 



Though the country generally is covered with an abundant 

 verdure of grass and trees, yet I cannot say that it is productive 

 of such great variety as many countries I have seen : the entire 

 novelty, however, of the greater part of what we found 

 recompensed us as natural historians for the want of variety. 

 Sow-thistle, garden-nightshade, and perhaps one or two kinds 

 of grasses, were exactly the same as in England, three or 

 four kinds of fern were the same as those of the West 

 Indies : these with a plant or two common to all the world, 

 were all that had been described by any botanist out of 

 about four hundred species, except five or six which we 

 ourselves had before seen in Terra del Fuego. 



Of eatable vegetables there are very few ; we, indeed, as 

 people who had been long at sea, found great benefit in the 

 article of health by eating plentifully of wild celery and a 

 kind of cress which grows everywhere abundantly near the 

 sea-side. We also once or twice met with a herb 1 like 

 that which the country people in England call " lamb's- 

 quarters " or "fat-hen," which we boiled instead of greens ; and 

 once only a cabbage-tree, 2 the cabbage of which made us 



1 Atriplex patula, Linn. ; it is identical with the English "fat-hen." 

 2 The most southern of all palms, Areca sapida, Soland. 



