Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0269
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 269]
265.
May 1770 New South Wales
carried with it no signs of fertility
18. Land this morn very sandy we could see through our glasses that the sands which lay in great patches of many acres each were moveable some of them had been lately movd 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 killd by the sand heaping about their roots: few fires were seen: two water snakes swam by the ship they were in all respects like land snakes & beautifully spotted except that they had broad flat tails which probably serve them instead of fins in swimming. in the evening I went out in the small boat but saw few birds of three sorts Men of War birds (Pelecanus aquilus) Bobies (Pelicanus Sula) & Nectris munda of which last shot one & took up 2 cuttle bones differing from the European ones in nothing but the having a small sharp peg or prickle at one end of them
19. Countrey as sandy & barren as ever two snakes were seen a man of war bird & a small Turtle at sun set the land appeard in a low bank to the sea over which nothing was seen so that we imagind it was very narrow & that some deep bay on the other side ran behind it
20. At day break the land in sight terminated in a Sandy Cape behind which a deep bay ran in across which we could not see, our usual good fortune now again assisted