On the 5th, I got one of the carpenter’s crew, a man in whom I could confide, to go down again to the ship’s bottom, and examine the place. He reported, that three streaks of the sheathing, about eight feet long, were wanting, and that the main plank had been a little rubbed. This account perfectly agreed with the report of the master, and others, who had been under her bottom before: I had the comfort, however, to find the carpenter of opinion that this would be of little consequence, and therefore, the other damage being repaired, she was again floated at high water, and moored alongside the beach, where the stores had been deposited; we then went to work to take the stores on board, and put her in a condition for the sea. This day, Mr Banks crossed to the other side of the harbour, where, as he walked along a sandy beach, he found innumerable fruits, and many of them such as no plants which he had discovered in this country produced: Among others were some cocoa-nuts, which Tupia said had been opened by a kind of crab, which from his description we judged to be the same that the Dutch call Beurs Krabbe, and which we had not seen in these seas. All the vegetable substances which he found in this place were encrusted with marine productions, and covered with barnacles; a sure sign that they must have come far by sea, and, as the trade-wind blows right upon the shore, probably from Terra del Espirito Santo, which has been mentioned already.
The next morning, Mr Banks, with Lieutenant Gore, and three men, set out in a small boat up the river, with a view to spend two or three days in an excursion, to examine the country, and kill some of the animals which had been so often seen at a distance.
On the 7th, I sent the master again out to sound about the shoals, the account which he had brought me of the channel being by no means satisfactory; and we spent the remainder of this day, and the morning of the next, in fishing, and other necessary occupations.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, Mr Banks and his party returned, and gave us an account of their expedition. Having proceeded about three leagues among swamps and mangroves, they went up into the country, which they found to differ but little from what they had seen before: They pursued their course therefore up the river, which at length was contracted into a narrow channel, and was bounded, not by swamps and mangroves, but by steep banks, that were covered with trees of a most beautiful verdure, among which was that which in the West Indies is called Mohoe, or the bark tree, the hibiscus tiliaceus; the land within was in general low, and had a thick covering of long grass: The soil seemed to be such as promised great fertility to any who should plant and improve it. In the course of the day, Tupia saw an animal, which, by his description, Mr Banks judged to be a wolf: They also saw three other animals, but could neither catch nor kill one