136 COOK’s VOYAGE. 
be fo difficult to acquire this qualification, or put it in prac- 
tice^ as may at firft appear; for, with the afiiftance of the 
nautical almanack, and aftronomical ephemeris, the calcu- 
lations for finding the longitude will take up little more 
time than the calculation of an azimuth, for finding the va- 
riation of the ccmpafs. ' 
CHAP. VIII. 
Departure from New South IV ales ; a particular Defcription of 
the Country , its Produils , and People : A Specimen of the 
Language, and fane Obfirvations upon the Currents and Tides . 
O F this country, its produfts, and its people, many parti- 
culars have already been related in the courfe of the 
narrative, being fo interwoven with the events, as not to ad- 
mit of a feparation. I fhall now give a more full and cir- 
cumftantial defcription of each, in which, if fome things 
Ihould happen to be repeated, the greater part will be found 
new. 
New Holland, or, as I have now called the eaftern coaft, 
New South Wales, is of a larger extent than any other coun- 
try in the known world that does bear the name of a conti- 
nent : the length of coaft along which we failed, reduced to 
a ftreight line, is no lefs than twenty-feven degrees of lati- 
tude, amounting to near 2000 miles, fo that its fquare furface 
muft be much more than equal to all Europe. To the fouth- 
ward of 33 or 34, the land in general is low and level ; far- 
ther northward it is hilly, but in no part can be called moun- 
tainous, and the hills and mountains, taken together, make 
but a fmall part of the furface, in comparifon with the vallies 
and plains. It is upon the whole rather barren than fertile, 
yet the rifing ground is chequered by woods and lawns, and the 
plains and vallies are in many places covered with herbage : 
the foil however is frequently fandy, and many of the lawns, 
or favannahs, are rocky and barren, efpecially to the north- 
ward, where, in the bell: fpots, vegetation was lefs vigorous 
than in the fouthern part of the country ; the trees were not 
fo tall, nor was the herbage fo rich. The grafs in general is 
high, but thin, and the trees, where they are largeft, are fel- 
dom lefs than forty feet afunder ; nor is the country inland, 
as far as we could examine it, better clothed than the fea coaft. 
The banks of the bays are covered with mangroves, to the 
diftance of a mile within the beach, under which the foil is a 
rank mud, that is always overflowed by a fpring tide ; far- 
ther in the country we fometime« met with a bog, upon which 
