Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/366

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306
VOYAGE IN SEARCH
[1793.

tree, from which he procures every year a great quantity of the oil of cajeput.

The island of Bourou produces several kinds of wood proper for inlaid work, which are in great request among the Chinese; and others useful in dyeing. Two Chinese vessels were run aground in the mud to the N.E. of the Dutch fort. The village near which the fort is built is called Cayeli, in the Malay language. Those of the natives who follow the Mahometan religion have a mosque, whose roofs diminishing in regular gradation as they rise one above the other, present a very agreeable appearance. (See Plate XLII. which represents a part of this village.)

The coast to the east of the village is watered only by very small streams, but about 2,500 toises to the N.W. we went up a very considerable river, called by the inhabitants Aer-Bessar, which discharges itself into the road-stead. This river is very deep, and for the length of about 2,000 toises, as far as we went up it, more than 70 feet broad. The island of Bourou undoubtedly owes its possessing so considerable a stream to the great elevation of its mountains. On the borders of the river I frequently found the beautiful shrub known by the name of portlandia grandiflora.

The pebbles rolled from the mountains, whichI found