A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy. Timber trees: fruits / [By Robert Mudie].

Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A description and history of vegetable substances, used in the arts, and in domestic economy. Timber trees: fruits / [By Robert Mudie]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    lago ; and, after suffering the greatest fatigue, being © exposed to the full action and vicissitudes of the ele- ments, and forced for some time to bear famine, they reached the Dutch settlement of Coupang, in the island of Timor, without the loss of one individual by disease; though they had traversed at least five thousand miles of sea. Nay, so ardent was Bligh as a seaman, that, amid all those perils, he was occupied in making some very valuable observations. The Dutch governor of Coupang shewed them every attention ; and, from the care that was taken of them, twelve were enabled to return to England. Though the adventure had failed, every body was disposed to bestow all praise on the adventurer ; and he was promoted to the rank of captain, and appointed to the command of his Majesty’s ship Providence, in order to repeat the voyage. The Providence, with the Assistant, a small ship in company, sailed on the 3d of August, 1791. His instructions were to procure the bread-fruit trees for the West Indies, and, on his return, to examine the passage between the north of New Holland and New Guinea—which, in his former voyage in the Bounty he had been the first to navigate. On the 9th of April, 1792, they reached Otaheite; and, by the 17th of July, they were ready to leave the island, having on board twelve hundred and eighty-one tubs and pots of plants, all in the finest condition. There was no mutiny on this voyage ; but the passage between New Holland and New Guinea was dangerous ; and it was the 2d of October before the captain reached his old friends at Coupang. He remained there for a week, replacing with plants from that island those that had died on the voyage ; and then he came to the Atlantic by the Cape of Good Hope, which he contrived to pass so closely as never to have a lower temperature than sixty-one degrees of Fahrenheit.