d; so that it is not impossible
that mines might be discovered here. In some places we observed
several hills of a peculiar red earth, exceeding vermillion in colour,
which perhaps, on examination, might prove useful for many purposes.
The southern, or rather S.W. part of the island, is widely different
from the rest; being destitute of trees, dry, stony, and very flat and
low, compared, with the hills on the northern part. This part of
the island is never frequented by ships, being surrounded by a steep
shore, and having little or no fresh water; besides which, it is
exposed to the southerly winds, which generally blow here the whole
year round, and with great violence in the antarctic winter.

The trees, of which the woods in the northern part of the island are
composed, are mostly aromatic, and of many different sorts. There are
none of them of a size to yield any considerable timber, except those
we called myrtle-trees, which are the largest on the island, and
supplied us with all the timber we used; yet even these would not
work to a greater length than forty feet. The top of the myrtle is
circular, and as uniform and regular as if clipped round by art. It
bears an excrescence like moss on its bark, having the taste and smell
of garlic, and was used instead of it by our people. We found here
the pimento, and the cabbage-tree, but in no great quantity. Besides
these, there were a great number of plants of various kinds, which
we were not botanists enough to describe or attend to. We found
here, however, almost all the vegetables that are usually esteemed
peculiarly adapted to the cure of those scorbutic disorders which are
contracted by salt diet and long voyages, as we had great quantities
of water-cresses and purslain, with excellent wild sorrel, and a vast
profusion of turnips and Sicilian radishes, which two last, having a
strong resemblance to each other, were confounded by our people under
the general name of turnips. We usually preferred the tops of the
turnips to the roots, which we generally found stringy, though some
of them were free from that exception, and remarkably good.
These vegetables, with the fish and flesh we got here, to be more
particularly described hereafter, were not only exceedingly grateful
to our palates after the long course of salt diet to which we had
been confined, but were likewise of the most salutary consequence in
recovering and envigorating our sick, and of no mean service to us