The coast along which we had sailed since first sighting the Great
South Land had been so barren and desolate as to make the novel and
attractive scene which now greeted us the more remarkable. Clustered
together in a pleasant valley, surrounded by green hills, and facing a
white sandy beach, were some two hundred houses, built of stone, and
roofed with what appeared to be clay, of such extraordinary whiteness
that it glistened, like snow, in the sun's rays. The herbs and grass
around the town were green and inviting, while tall, straight trees,
not torn by the wind, bore evidence of shelter from tempest which the
hills provided. To add to the beauty of the scene, flocks of parakeets
and bright-coloured parrots flew among the branches of the trees, while
sweet scents, from many kinds of flowers, were wafted to us from the
shore. On the beach we perceived a number of white people, dressed in
the fashion of some thirty years before. Many of them wore ruffs and
cloaks, which were now no longer the mode, and, to set our doubts at
rest as to their nationality, the Spanish ensign floated from a
flagstaff in front of the town. It was plain we had chanced upon a
Spanish colony, probably of some of the people of Mendana's fleet, who
had succeeded in forming a settlement in New Holland.
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