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We obtained quantities of every description of fruit from the boats which crowded round the ship: in addition to shaddocks, pineapples, oranges, bananas, and many other common varieties, we had the delightful treat of the mangosteins, which grow only in these latitudes. It is impossible to describe the peculiarly grateful taste of this cool and refreshing fruit.
Jam-making was the star item on the latter's domestic bill. Baskets and baskets of golden oranges and paler lemons and shaddocks were converted into jam and marmalade, and ranged on the shelves of the already replete storehouse, in readiness to tempt the summer palate of the week-end boarders which should appear when the days stretched out again.
The climate was delightful and healthy; there were provisions in abundance yams and bananas and plantains, cocoa-nuts and shaddocks, pumpkins and pine-apples, guavas and water-melons indeed, all the tropical fruits and vegetables, with a good supply of pigs for meat.
The vegetation is profuse, but less beautiful and tropical than on the mainland, and I have seen very few flowers except in gardens. The products are manifold guavas, mangoes, lemons, oranges, bananas, plantains, shaddocks, bread-fruit, etc.; and sugar, rice, sweet potatoes, ginger, areca, and cocoa-nuts, coffee, cloves, some nutmegs, and black and white pepper.
The carpenters of the ships built him a small house, to which a garden was attached, planted with shaddocks, vines, pineapples, melons, etc., and a variety of vegetables, the whole of which were thriving before Captain Cook quitted the island.
There were shaddocks and sweet limes; and see! yonder is a clump of sugar-canes, with their thin silken leaves and yellow tassels waving in the wind. Oh, look here! Here is a coffee-shrub, with its ripe, aromatic berries; and here is the cacao-tree. Coffee and chocolate there was a choice of beverages! Ha! what have we here this plant like an orange tree? It is a species of holly.
Oranges, lemons, and shaddocks grow fairly well, and are fruiting all the year round. Apples do badly, being subject to blight, though the young trees grow rapidly, and, if freely pruned, will yield enormous crops. To obviate the blight we keep a constant succession of young trees to replace those that are killed. Pears are not subject to the blight, and do well.
But we make a list of those whose names we do know, and here they are: oranges, bananas, plantains, limes, lemons, cocoanuts, bread-fruit, bread nuts, pomegranates, dates, figs, pawpaws, the tamarind, sugar apple, grosella, mammee, guava, granadilla, naseberry, alligator pears, shaddocks, and Indian plums.
I sent the Governor a box of cigars; and he in return sent us off some sheep and shaddocks. We now steered for the Dutch settlement of Coupang, to the south of Timor. As we sailed along the coast, we observed a number of ridges of lofty mountains, some of which appeared to be a great distance in the interior.
Some of the party accompanied Tioony to his house, which was delightfully situated, and were entertained with refreshments, in the shape of coconuts, bananas, and a few shaddocks, called by Forster pumplemoses, and music; and in return the ship's bagpipes played, to the great enjoyment of the natives.
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