ut finding none after several trials, nor in several miles
compass, we left any further search for it, and spending the rest of the
day in cutting wood, we went aboard at night.
The land is of an indifferent height, so that it may be seen nine or ten
leagues off. It appears at a distance very even; but as you come nigher
you find there are many gentle risings, though none steep or high. It is
all a steep shore against the open sea; but in this bay or sound we were
now in, the land is low by the seaside, rising gradually in with the
land. The mould is sand by the seaside, producing a large sort of
samphire, which bears a white flower. Farther in the mould is reddish, a
sort of sand, producing some grass, plants, and shrubs. The grass grows
in great tufts as big as a bushel, here and there a tuft, being
intermixed with much heath, much of the kind we have growing on our
commons in England. Of trees or shrubs here are divers sorts, but none
above ten feet high, their bodies about three feet about, and five or six
feet high before you come to the branches, which are bushy, and composed
of small twigs there spreading abroad, though thick set and full of
leaves, which were mostly long and narrow. The colour of the leaves was
on one side whitish, and on the other green, and the bark of the trees
was generally of the same colour with the leaves, of a pale green. Some
of these trees were sweet-scented, and reddish within the bark, like
sassafras, but redder. Most of the trees and shrubs had at this time
either blossoms or berries on them. The blossoms of the different sorts
of trees were of several colours, as red, white, yellow, etc., but mostly
blue, and these generally smelt very sweet and fragrant, as did some also
of the rest. There were also besides some plants, herbs, and tall
flowers, some very small flowers growing on the ground, that were sweet
and beautiful, and, for the most part, unlike any I had seen elsewhere.
There were but few land fowls. We saw none but eagles of the larger
sorts of birds, but five or six sorts of small birds. The biggest sort
of these were not bigger than larks, some no bigger than wrens, all
singing with great variety of fine shrill notes; and we saw some of their
nests with young ones in them. The water-fowls are ducks (which had
young ones now, this being the beginning of the spring in these parts),
curlews, galdens, crab-catchers, cormorants, gulls, pelicans, and some
water
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