The excellence of the climate and the looseness of the soil render this place extremely proper for all kinds of vegetation; for if the ground be anywhere accidentally turned up, it is immediately overgrown with turnips and Sicilian radishes. Mr. Anson therefore having with him garden-seeds of all kinds, and stones of different sorts of fruits, he, for the better accommodation of his countrymen who should hereafter touch here, sowed both lettuces, carrots, and other garden plants, and sett in the woods a great variety of plum, apricot, and peach stones: and these last, he has been informed, have {115} since thriven to a very remarkable degree, for some gentlemen, who in their passage from Lima to Old Spain were taken and brought to England, having procured leave to wait upon Mr. Anson, to thank him for his generosity and humanity to his prisoners, some of whom were their relations, they, in casual discourse with him about his transactions in the South Seas, particularly asked him if he had not planted a great number of fruit trees on the island of Juan Fernandes, for they told him their late navigators had discovered there numbers of peach-trees and apricot-trees, which being fruits before unobserved in that place, they concluded them to have been produced from kernels sett by him. This may in general suffice as to the soil and vegetable productions of this place; but the face of the country, at least of the north part of the island, is so extremely singular that I cannot avoid giving it a particular consideration. I have already taken notice of the wild, inhospitable air with which it first appeared to us, and the gradual improvement of this uncouth landskip as we drew nearer, till we were at last captivated by the numerous beauties we discovered on the shore. And I must now add that we found, during the time of our residence there, that the inland parts of the island did no ways fall short of the sanguine prepossessions which we first entertained in their favour: for the woods, which covered most of the steepest hills, were free from all bushes and underwood, and afforded an easy passage through every part of them, and the irregularities of the hills and precipicies, in the northern part of the island, necessarily traced out by their various combinations a great number of romantic vallies, most of which had a stream of the clearest water running through them, that tumbled in cascades from rock to rock, as the bottom of the valley, by the course of the neighbouring hills, was at any time broken into a sudden sharp descent. Some particular spots occurred in these vallies where the shade and fragrance of the contiguous woods, the loftiness of the overhanging rocks, and the transparency and frequent falls of the neighbouring streams, presented scenes of such elegance and dignity as would with difficulty be rivalled in any other part of the globe. It is in this place, perhaps, that the simple productions of unassisted