114 
A VOYAGE TO 
[ North Coast. 
1803. 
October. 
Saturday 30. 
trable. The north-western part is entirely sand, but there grew 
upon it numbers of pandanus trees, similar to those of the east coast 
of New South Wales; and around many of them was placed a 
circle of shells of the chamagigas, or gigantic cockle, the intention of 
which excited my curiosity. 
It appeared that this little island was visited occasionally by 
the Indians, who obtained from it the fruit of the pandanus, and 
probably turtle, for the marks of them were seen ; and the reef 
furnishes them with cockles, which are of a superior size here to 
those we had found upon the reefs of the East Coast. There being 
no water upon the island, they seem to have hit upon the following 
expedient to obtain it : Long slips of bark are tied round the smooth 
stems of the pandanus, and the loose ends are led into the shells of the 
cockle, placed underneath. By these slips, the rain which runs down 
the branches and stem of the tree, is conducted into the shells, and 
fills them at every considerable shower ; and as each shell will con- 
tain two or three pints, forty of fifty thus placed under different trees 
will supply a good number of men. A pair of these cockle shells, 
bleached in the sun, weighed a hundred and one pounds ; but still 
they were much inferior in size to some I have since seen. 
The fruit of the pandanus, as it is used by these Indians and by the 
natives of Terra Australis, affords very little nourishment. They suck 
the bottom part of the drupes, or separated nuts, as we do the leaves 
of the artichoke ; but the quantity of pulp thus obtained, is very 
small, and to my taste, too astringent to be agreeable. In the third 
volume of the Asiatic Researches, the fruit of the pandanus is de- 
scribed as furnishing, under the name of Mellon, an important article 
of food to the inhabitants of the Nicobar Islands ; and in Mauritius, 
one of these species is planted for it long and fibrous leaves, of 
which sacks, mats, and bags for coffee and cotton are m ad 
This little island, or rather the surrounding reef, which is three 
or four miles long, affords shelter from the south-east winds ; and 
being at a moderate day’s run from Murray’s Isles, it forms a con- 
