Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/77

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Oct.]
OF LA PEROUSE.
67

ſtay in this place. The former never roſe above 20° two tenths, nor the latter above 28 inches two lines.

The ſtation of St. Croix is a very excellent one, on account of the plentiful ſupply which it affords of all ſorts of European kitchen-vegetables, cabbages excepted, which, though very ſmall, are ſold at an exorbitantly high price. Moſt of the orchard-fruits of Europe are likewiſe to be met with here, and the ſame domeſtic animals as in the ports of France.

Experience had taught us that the ſheep of this iſland do not bear confinement on board ſo well as ours. The pure air which they have been accuſtomed to breathe on the mountains where they feed, renders them the more ſuſceptible of injury from the impure air between-decks.

Teneriffe alſo affords great abundance of dried fiſh. They particularly carry on an extenſive traffic with the ſpecies termed bonite.

Thoſe parts of the iſland upon which the labour of cultivation has been beſtowed, are very fertile, as is generally the caſe in volcanic iſlands. The internal heat of the earth which forms their baſis, exhales towards the ſurface of the ground a portion of the rain-water which they have imbibed, which produces a remarkably luxuriant vegetation.

On