es are about twelve feet long, and at about a foot and a half from
the body of the tree begin to shoot out leaves, which are four feet long
and an inch broad, and so regularly placed that the whole branch seems
one entire leaf. The cabbage, which grows out from the bottom of the
branches, is about a foot long and very white; and at the bottom of this
there grow clusters of berries, weighing five or six pounds, like
bunches of grapes, as red as cherries and larger than our black-heart
cherries, each having a large stone in the middle, and the pulp eats
like our haws. These cabbage trees abound about three miles into the
woods, the trunk being often eighty or ninety feet high, and is always
cut down to get the cabbages, which are good eating; but most of them
grow on the tops of the nearest mountains to the great bay.

We found here some Guinea pepper, and some silk cotton trees, besides
several others with the names of which I am not acquainted. Pimento is
the best timber, and the most plentiful at this side of the island, but
it is very apt to split till it is a little dried. We cut the longest
and cleanest to split for fire wood. In the nearest plain, we found
abundance of turnip greens, and water-cresses in the brooks, which
greatly refreshed our men, and quickly cured them of the scurvy. Mr
Selkirk said the turnips formed good roots in our summer months, which
are winter at this island; but this being autumn, they were all run up
to seed, so that we had no benefit of them excepting their green leaves
and shoots. The soil is a loose black earth, and the rocks are very
rotten, so that it is dangerous to climb the hills for cabbages without
great care. There are also many holes dug into the ground by a sort of
birds called _puffins_, which give way in walking, and endanger the
breaking or wrenching a limb. Mr Selkirk said he had seen snow and ice
here in July, the depth of the southern winter; but in September,
October, and November, the spring months, the climate is very pleasant,
and there are then abundance of excellent herbs, as purslein, parsley,
and sithes. We found also an herb, not unlike _feverfew_, which proved
very useful to our surgeons for fomentations. It has a most grateful
smell like balm, but stronger and more cordial, and grew in plenty near
the shore. We gathered many large bundles of it, which were dried in the
shade, and sent aboard for after-use, besides strewing the tents with it
fresh gathered eve