and his tripe. The fish itself was not quite so good as a skate, nor was it much inferior. The tripe everybody thought excellent. We had it with a dish of the boiled leaves of Tetragonia cornuta, which eat as well, or very nearly as well, as spinach.
17th. About ten we were abreast of a large bay,[1] the bottom of which was out of sight. The sea here suddenly changed from its usual transparency to a dirty clay colour, appearing much as if charged with freshes, from whence I was led to conclude that the bottom of the bay might open into a large river. About it were many smokes, especially on the northern side near some remarkable conical hills.[2] At sunset the land made in one bank, over which nothing could be seen. It was very sandy, and carried with it no signs of fertility.
18th. Land this morning very sandy. We could see through our glasses that the sands, which lay in great patches of many acres each, were movable. Some of them had been lately moved, for trees which stood up in the middle of them were quite green. Others of a longer standing had many stumps sticking out of them, which had been trees killed by the sand heaping about their roots. Few fires were seen. Two water snakes swam by the ship. They were beautifully spotted, and in all respects like land snakes, except that they had broad flat tails, which probably serve them instead of fins in swimming.
22nd. In the course of the night the tide rose very considerably. We plainly saw with our glasses that the land was covered with palm-nut trees, Pandanus tectorius, which we had not seen since we left the islands within the tropics. Along shore we saw two men walking, who took no kind of notice of us.
23rd. Wind blew fresh off the land, so cold that our cloaks were very necessary in going ashore. When we landed, however, the sun soon recovered its influence, and made it sufficiently hot; in the afternoon intolerably so. We landed near the mouth of a large lagoon,[3] which ran a good way
