If we look round the coast of Spain, so good a port will not be found; while its soil only produces thorns, ilexes, and broom, or at best arbutus and myrtles, and other poor fruits; and he who grows them for profit has nothing for his pains. April and May failing, the fruits fail.[5]
[1] He means betel. See p. 51.
[2] Thistles; teazel.
[3] The space between the end of the thumb and the end of the forefinger, both stretched out.
[4] Coral cliffs.
[5] Captain Cook visited the Island of Espiritu Santo in August, 1774, and on the 25th entered the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, discovered by Quiros. The wind being S., Cook was obliged to beat to windward. Next morning he was 7 or 8 miles from the head of the bay, which is terminated by a low beach, and behind that an extensive flat covered with trees, and bounded on each side by a ridge of mountains. The latitude was 15° 5′ S. Steering to within 2 miles of the head of the bay, he sent Mr. Cooper and Mr. Gilbert to sound and reconnoitre the coast. Mr. Cooper reported that he had landed on the beach near a fine river. They found 3 fathoms close to the beach, and 55 two cables’ lengths off. At the ship there was no bottom with 170 fathoms. When the boat returned, Captain Cook steered down the bay; and during the night there were many fires on the W. side. In the morning of the 27th the ship was off the N.W. point of the bay, in latitude 14° 39′ 30″. The bay has 20 leagues of sea-coast—6 on the E. side, 2 at the head, and 12 on the W. side. The two points which form the entrance bear S. 53° E., and N. 53° W., from each other distant 10 leagues. An uncommonly luxuriant vegetation was everywhere to be seen. Captain Cook named the E. point of the bay “Cape Quiros,” which is in 14° 56′ S., and longitude 167° 13′ E. He named the N.W. point “Cape Cumberland.” It is in 14° 38′ 45″ S., and 166° 49′ 30″ E.—Cook’s Second Voyage, vol. ii, p. 89.
The Editor has to thank Dr. Bolton G. Corney for the following very interesting account of his visit to the bay of San Felipe y Santiago in 1876:—
“While on a voyage through the New Hebrides in the barque Prospector, of 260 tons, in August, 1876, I visited the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, now commonly known to shipmasters and other habitués of the Western Pacific as the ‘Big Bay.’
“The island itself is, for short, spoken of as ‘Santo,’ not only by local white men, but also by many of the natives of it and the neighbouring ones, many of whom have been in Fiji or Queensland, and have picked up a little Fijian or English, as the case may be.