298 SOME ACCOUNT OF NEW HOLLAND cu. 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 Jay 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 (Arwm 
esculentum), red-flowered purslane (Sesuviwm portulacastrum), 
beans (Glycine speciosa), parsley (Apiwm), spinach (Tetragonia 
cornuta). 
