A voyage to the South Sea : $b Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East IndiesBligh, William
History
A voyage to the South Sea : $b Undertaken by command of His Majesty for the purpose of conveying the bread-fruit tree to the West Indies in His Majesty's ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh; including an account of the mutiny on board the said ship and the subsequent voyage of part of the crew in the ship's boat from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch settlement in the East Indies
Bligh, William
Bounty (Ship); Bounty Mutiny, 1789; Oceania -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Voyages and travels
I met at Timor with most of the fruits that are described in Captain
Cook's first voyage as natives of Batavia, except the mangosteen. The
breadfruit tree, called by the Malays soccoom, likewise grows here with
great luxuriance and appears to be as much a native of this island as it
is of Otaheite. The fruit is exactly of the same kind but not so good. A
breadfruit of Timor weighs half as much more as one of equal size at
Otaheite. It is not used here as bread but generally eaten with milk and
sugar. At Backennassy I saw about twenty of the trees, larger than any I
have seen at Otaheite. Here is also a sort of breadfruit tree that
produces seeds not unlike Windsor beans and equally palatable either
boiled or roasted. No other part of the fruit is eatable and, though the
tree I am told is to all appearance the same as the other, the fruits
have but little resemblance, the fruit of this being covered with
projecting points nearly half an inch in length.
I received a present of some fine plants from the governor, which I was
afterwards unfortunately obliged to leave at Batavia for want of proper
room to take care of them in the packet by which I returned to Europe.
Mr. Wanjon likewise favoured me with some seeds for His Majesty's garden
at Kew which I had the good fortune to deliver safe on my return: and
some of the mountain rice cultivated at Timor on the dry land, which was
forwarded to His Majesty's botanic garden at St. Vincent, and to other
parts in the West Indies.
A resemblance of language between the people of the South Sea islands and
the inhabitants of many of the islands in the East Indies has been
remarked in Captain Cook's first voyage. Here the resemblance appeared
stronger than has yet been noticed; particularly in their numerals. But
besides the language I observed some customs among the people of Timor
still more striking for their similarity. They practise the tooge-tooge*
of the Friendly Islands which they call toombock: and the roomee of
Otaheite which they call ramas. I likewise saw, placed on their graves,
offerings of baskets with tobacco and betel.
(*Footnote. The tooge-tooge is described in Captain Cook's last voyage
Volume 1 page 323; and the roomee in the same voyage Volume 2 page 64.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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