In this upper region
coarse grasses and ferns abound; but there are no tree-ferns: I saw
nowhere any member of the Palm family, which is the more singular,
as 360 miles northward, Cocos Island takes its name from the number
of cocoa-nuts. The houses are irregularly scattered over a flat
space of ground, which is cultivated with sweet potatoes and
bananas. It will not easily be imagined how pleasant the sight of
black mud was to us, after having been so long accustomed to the
parched soil of Peru and Northern Chile. The inhabitants, although
complaining of poverty, obtain, without much trouble, the means of
subsistence. In the woods there are many wild pigs and goats; but
the staple article of animal food is supplied by the tortoises.
Their numbers have of course been greatly reduced in this island,
but the people yet count on two days' hunting giving them food for
the rest of the week. It is said that formerly single vessels have
taken away as many as seven hundred, and that the ship's company of
a frigate some years since brought down in one day two hundred
tortoises to the beach.
SEPTEMBER 29, 1835.
We doubled the south-west extremity of Albemarle Island, and the
next day were nearly becalmed between it and Narborough Island.
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