298 SOME ACCOUNT OF NEW HOLLAND CH. xm 



whole the fertile soil bears no kind of proportion to that 

 which seems by nature doomed to everlasting barrenness. 



Water is a scarce article, or at least was so while 

 we were there, which I believe to have been in the very 

 height of the dry season. At some places we were in 

 we saw not a drop, and at the two places where we filled 

 for the ship's use it was done from pools, not brooks. This 

 drought is probably owing to the dryness of a soil almost 

 entirely composed of sand, in which high hills are scarce. 

 That there is plenty, however, in the rainy season is 

 sufficiently evinced by the channels we saw cut even in 

 rocks down the sides of inconsiderable hills : these were in 

 general dry, or if any of them contained water, it was such 

 as ran in the woody valleys, and they seldom carried water 

 above half-way down the hill. Some, indeed, we saw that 

 formed brooks, and ran quite down to the sea ; but these 

 were scarce and in general brackish a good way up from the 

 beach. 



A soil so barren, and at the same time entirely void of 

 the help derived from cultivation, could not be supposed to 

 yield much to the support of man. We had been so long 

 at sea with but a scanty supply of fresh provisions, that we 

 had long been used to eat everything we could lay our 

 hands upon, fish, flesh, and vegetables, if only they were not 

 poisonous. Yet we could only now and then procure a dish 

 of bad greens for our own table, and never, except in the 

 place where the ship was careened, did we meet with a 

 sufficient quantity to supply the ship. There, indeed, palm 

 cabbage, and what is called in the West Indies Indian kale, 

 were in tolerable plenty ; as also was a sort of purslane. 

 The other plants which we ate were a kind of bean (very 

 bad), a kind of parsley, and a plant something resembling 

 spinach, which two last grew only to the southward. I 

 shall give their botanical names, as I believe some of them 

 were never eaten by Europeans before : Indian kale (Arum 

 esculentum), red-flowered purslane (Sesuvium portulacastrum), 

 beans (Grlycine speciosa), parsley (Apivm), spinach (Tetragonia 

 cornuta). 



