Description of the Trees. 137 
the grafs was very thick and luxurient, and fometimes with a 
valley, that was clothed with underwood : the foil in fome 
parts feemed to be capable of improvement, but the far greater 
part is fuch as can admit of no cultivation. The coaft, at 
lealf that part of it which lies to the northward of 25 0 S. 
abounds with fine bays and harbours, where veffels may lie in 
perfect fecurity from all winds. 
If we may judge by the appearance of the country while 
we were there, which was in the very height of the dry fea- 
fon, it is well watered : we found innumerable fmall brooks 
and fprings, but no great rivers ; thefe brooks, however, pro- 
bably become large in the rainy feafon. Thirfty found was 
the only place where frelh water was not to be procured for 
the fhip, and even there one or two fmall pools were found in 
the woods, though the face of the country was every where in- 
terfered by falt-creeks, and mangrove land. 
Of trees there is no great variety. Of thofe that could be 
called timber, there are but two forts ; the largeft is the gum 
tree, which grows all over the country, and has been men- 
tioned already : it has narrow leaves, not much unlike a wil- 
low ; and the gum, or rather refin, which it yields, is of a 
deep red, and refembles the f unguis draconis ; poffibly it may- 
be the fame, for this fubftance is known to be the produce of 
more than one plant. It is mentioned by Dampier, and is 
perhaps the fame that Tafman found upon Diemen’s land, 
where he fays he faw “ gum of the trees, and gum lac of the 
ground.” The other timber tree is that which grows fome- 
wh.it like our pines, and has been particularly mentioned in 
the account of Botany Bay. The wood of both thefe trees, as 
I have before remarked, is extremely hard and heavy. Be- 
fides thefe, here are trees covered with a foft bark that is eafily 
peeled off, and is the fame that in the Eart-Indies is ufed for 
the caulking of fhips. 
We found here the palm of three different forts. The firft, 
which grows in great plenty to the fouthward, has leaves that 
are plaited like a fan : the cabbage of thefe is fmall, but ex- 
quisitely fweet ; and the nuts, which it bears in great abun- 
dance, are very good food for hogs. The fecond fort bore a 
much greater refemblance to the true cabbage tree of the Weft- 
Indies ; its leaves were large and pinnated, like thofe of the 
cocoa-nut; and thefe alfo produced a cabbage, which, though 
not fo fweet as the other, was much larger. The third fort, 
which, like the fecond, was found only in the northern parts, 
was feldom more than ten feet high, with fmall pinnated 
leaves, refembling thofe of fome kind of fern : it bore no 
cabbage, but a plentiful crop of nuts, about the fize of ajarge 
chefnut, but rounder : as we found the hulls of thefe fcattered 
round the places where the Indians had made their iires, we 
M 3 took 
