Jun 20-21, 1789 Home Logbook Jun 23, 1789
Revised Jun 30 2021
Moderate and fine pleasant Wr. Wind ESE. Calm in the night.
I began to day to feel my health returning to me and my living is changed to a use of more solids. Some of my Company are become unwell from having eaten too much. The sore Feet and Legs of some are troublesome to heal, they are however getting tolerably on and begin to lose their ghastly meagre countenances.
The Governor having given me the use of a Horse induced me to take a Small Ride into the Country which I found to be very Rocky, a shallow burnt up soil, and but few places worth or fit for any kind of cultivation. The Roads or more properly beaten paths are very bad, being very rocky and encumbered with Bushes.
One mile and half along the Sea side to the northward of the Town is a pretty spot of Garden Ground called Owar the property of Mr. Wanjon who uses it as his country residence. The Cocoa Nutt Trees grow very luxuriantly and the fruit large, of which they make but little use than for oil. Other fine fruits & peculiarities of this Country are here; but as a Kitchen Garden there was but little in it worth notice. The Trees which produce the Beetle nut, called Punang, grow luxuriantly here, they appear to me to be exactly like what we call the mountain Cabbage Tree in the West Indies, which Mr Nelson could not ascertain, as with the latter he told me he was not acquainted. The Fruit which is the size of a nutmeg and not unlike it, is coated like the Cocoa nutt, and they grow in bunches from the Tree where the soft green part of the Top begins. Several very extraordinary and curious Trees were here also of that Genus that encrease their Trunk by Shooting out long strings which on reaching the Ground take Root, and by degrees connect with one another and make a compact body of an incredible size. With a Small degree of Art one of these Trees might be made to spread an acre of Ground with most Romantick and curious Arch Ways. I saw two Breadfruit Trees but no Fruit on them. This Pretty Spot is finely watered by a natural Fountain and has a small Fish Pond with many Carp in it.
The sea shore is formed by Sandy Bays and low Rocky heads, and at low water in some places give a half mile of flat rocky ground where Dams are made to catch Fish. I saw in my Road to Owar several Malay Graves. These people I find perform some peculiar Rites to the deceased as on some of the Graves I saw small baskets with Tobacco & Beetle.
Jun 20-21, 1789 Home Logbook Jun 23, 1789