A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History; of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and; Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the; Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
Pulo-Condore is high and mountainous, and surrounded by several smaller
islands, some of which are less than one, and others two miles distant. It
takes its name from two Malay words, _Pulo_, signifying an island, and
_Condore_, a calabash, of which it produces great quantities. It is of the
form of a crescent, extending near eight miles from the southernmost point,
in a N.E. direction; but its breadth nowhere exceeds two miles. From the
westernmost extremity, the land trends to the S.E. for about four miles;
and opposite to this part of the coast there is an island, called, by
Monsieur D'Apres,[110] _Little Condore_, which runs two miles in the same
direction. This position of the two islands affords a safe and commodious
harbour, the entrance into which is from the N.W. The distance between the
two opposite coasts is three quarters of a mile, exclusive of a border of
coral rock, which runs down along each side, extending about one hundred
yards from the shore. The anchorage is very good, from eleven to five
fathoms water, but the bottom is so soft and clayey, that we found great
difficulty in weighing our anchors. Toward the bottom of the harbour there
is shallow water for about half a mile, beyond which the two islands
approach so near each other, as to leave only a passage at high water for
boats. The most convenient place for watering is at a beach on the eastern
side, where there is a small stream which furnished us with fourteen or
fifteen tons of water a day.
This island, both with respect to animal and vegetable productions, is
considerably improved since the time when Dampier visited it. Neither that
writer, nor the compiler of the East India Directory, make mention of any
other quadrupeds than hogs, which are said to be very scarce, lizards, and
the guanoes; and the latter, on the authority of Monsieur Dedier, a French
engineer, who surveyed the island about the year 1720, says, that none of
the fruits and esculent plants, so common in the other parts of India, are
to be found here, except water-melons, a few potatoes, small gourds,
_chibbolds_, (a small species of onion,) and little black beans. At
present, besides the buffaloes, of which we understood there were several
large herds, we purchased from the natives some remarkably fine fat hogs,
of the Chinese breed. They brought us three or four of a wild sort; and our
sportsmen reported, that they frequently met with their tracks in the
woods, which also abound with monkies and squirrels, but so shy, that it
was difficult to shoot them. One species of the squirrel was of a beautiful
shining black colour; and another species striped brown and white. This is
called the flying-squirrel, from being provided with a thin membrane,
resembling a bat's wing, extended on each side the belly, from the neck to
the thighs; which, on stretching out their legs, spreads and enables them
to fly from tree to tree, at a considerable distance. Lizards were in great
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