Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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Nelson and I felt so much revived after dinner that we set out for a tottering walk into the island. We found it rocky, with a barren soil, supporting a growth of stunted trees. There were many of the small palms whose hearts we had found good to eat; I recognized the purau, of Otaheite, in a stunted form; and there were other trees which Nelson informed me resembled the poisonous manchineel of the West Indies. About the summit of the island, not above one hundred and fifty feet in height, great numbers of parrots and large pigeons were feeding on the berries here growing in abundance, but though we tried to knock them down with stones, the birds were as hard to approach as partridges in England. We gathered a quantity of the better sort of berries, which eat very well indeed, and as we wandered toward the eastern side of the island we came upon two tumbled-down huts of the Indians. These were ruder than any Indian habitations I had seen. Nelson stooped over the blackened stones of a fireplace to take up a roughly fashioned spear, with the sharp end hardened in the fire.