60 ETERNAL VERDURE. [169I. 



them very big, and all excellently well tasted. We have 

 taken some so Monstrous, (I am afraid to tell it) that two 

 Men cou'd hardly carry home one of them ; 'tis easie to 

 catch them, for you can scarce put your Bait into the 

 Water, before the Fish bite. This Water is seldom deep, 

 and being very Transparent, we cou'd easily see these huge 

 Eels creeping at the bottom ; and if we pleas'd, might have 

 taken them with a Harping-Iron (harpoon) : We have some- 

 times shot them with a Fuzee^ and Hare-shot. 



The Valleys I am talking of, Water'd and made fertile by 

 these little Rivers, extend themselves Insensibly as we draw 

 nearer the Sea, and form a Level, which in some Places is 

 two Miles"^ broad, and two long. The Soil of these little 

 Plains is excellent eight or ten foot deep, and there those 

 great and tall Trees grow, between which one may walk at 

 ease, and find such refreshing coolness in their shade at 

 Noon ; so sweet, so healthy, that 'twou'd give Life to those 

 that are dying. Their spreading and tufty Tops, which are 

 almost all of an equal height, joyn together like so many 

 Canopy's and Unibrello's, and jointly make a Cieling of an 

 eternal Verdure, supported by natural Pillars, which raise 

 and nourish them. This is certainly the Workmanship of a 

 Divine Architect. 



What is more Eemarkable, is the greatest part of the 



good and safe to driuk, but that of some rivers, notably the river 

 Sauniatre, is most unpalatable, and apt to cause slight catharsis. 



" The climate is much like that of Mauritius, where the average annual 

 temperature is 78" Fahr, During the north-west monsoon, from 

 November to April, the weather is wet and warm, and frequently iu 

 the first months of the year the island is visited by severe hurricanes. 

 From May to October the south-east monsoon prevails, and then the 

 Aveather is cool and dry. 



" The rainfall is exceedingly irregular, the hills being hardly high 

 enough, and not sufficiently wooded, to arrest clouds ; hence, also, fogs 

 are rare." (^Philosophical Transactions^ vol. clxviii, p. 292,) 



1 Cf. p. 55. 



2 In original, " two thousand paces''. The breadth of these level 

 valleys near the sea would, therefore, be one mile, not two, as in text. 



