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Updated: May 29, 2025
This part of our journey was through a delightful country, well covered with breadfruit and coconut-trees, and strewed with houses in which were swarms of children.
At 10 o'clock we saw a point which shot out pretty well into the sea, with a bay within it which promised fair for water; and we stood in with a moderate gale. Being got into the bay within the point we saw many coconut-trees, plantations, and houses. When I came within 4 or 5 mile of the shore 6 small boats came off to view us, with about 40 men in them all.
There grow here wild or bastard coconut-trees, neither so large nor so tall as the common ones in the East or West Indies. They bear nuts as the others, but not a quarter so big as the right coconuts. The shell is full of kernel, without any hollow place or water in it; and the kernel is sweet and wholesome, but very hard both for the teeth and for digestion.
On approaching it he observed large plantations of coconut-trees, with several spots of ground cleared for cultivation on the hills, and at night many fires on the beach. Landing was found to be in most parts extremely difficult on account of the surf. Many of the natives were seen armed with lances and squatting down amongst the coral rocks, as if to conceal their numbers.
It lies in the latitude of 3 degrees 25 minutes south, and meridian distance from Cape Mabo 1316 miles. On the south-east part of it or 3 or 4 other small woody islands; one high and peaked, the other low and flat; all bedecked with coconut-trees and other wood.
Within a hundred yards up from the entrance we found the water to be quite fresh, and while some of the men started to fill the casks, the rest, except the sentries, made for a clump of about a dozen coconut-trees growing close beside a magnificent grove of areca-palms. Every nut that was young enough to drink was quickly thrown down, and carried to the boats.
They first passed through the "black town," with its narrow streets, its miserable, dirty huts, and squalid population; then through the "European town," which presented a relief in its bright brick mansions, shaded by coconut-trees and bristling with masts, where, although it was early morning, elegantly dressed horsemen and handsome equipages were passing back and forth.
About twenty of the natives followed us along shore, waving and showing large pieces of cloth; but the surf on the shore was too high to think of having any communication with them. I observed a great number of coconut-trees but did not see one plantain-tree.
In the morning, finding we had not met with any current as we expected, as soon as it was light we made sail to the westward again. After noon, being near the end of the isle Pentare which lies west from Misacomba, we saw many houses and plantations in the country, and many coconut-trees growing by the seaside.
These had branches at the top like coconut-trees, and their fruit like coconuts, but smaller: the nut was of an oval form, and about the bigness of a duck's egg: the shell black and very hard. It was almost full of kernel, having only a small empty space in the middle, but no water as coconuts have. The kernel is too hard to be eaten. The fruit somewhat resembles that in Brazil formerly mentioned.
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