Bounty Logbook Remarks with Google map, Aug. 31, 1788

Aug. 30, 1788 Home Logbook Remarks GM Sep. 1, 1788

Revised Jun 8 2021

Bounty Logbook Remarks, Aug. 31, 1788

In Adventure Bay Van Diemens Land

Sunday, Aug. 31, 1788

Moderate and Cloudy Weather. Employed wooding and Sawing Plank. In the morning I took the Time Keeper on shore again to determine its State, but I could only get two indifferent sets of Observations. I planted to day some Onions, Cabbage Roots and Potatoes on a flat close by the Watering Place in a Situation I think will answer very well, and where I expect they will thrive if not destroyed by the Natives. These People are an itinerant set, and the whole dependence of their living is totally on Muscles and other kinds of Shell Fish; as their resting places are always where those things can be gathered, which we easily discover by seeing heaps of Shells wherever they have stopped. In former remarks about these people it has been supposed they frequently fix their habitation in the Trunks of Trees hollowed out by fire for that purpose, but it did not appear to me in that point of View when I was here before, and at this time I have considered it in every situation without discovering any thing to reconcile one to that opinion. My Ideas to the contrary are founded principallly on these reasons. That the Trees at the burnt hollow about the Trunk and have room for one or two or three People to crowd in at, will not shelter them from the Weather, and that no one ever saw the least appearance of any thing placed before the opening to effect it.

That there are many instances close to these hollow burnt Trees where there Wigwams are made, and of course the Tree could not be made use of for shelter.

That their Wigwams are calculated to repose themselves at full length, the ground being made level and strewed all over with Grass, and the Roof so disposed with large peices of Bark as to render it perfectly dry on the inside in rainy Weather, but the bottom of the hollow in the Tree is so uneven by the burning of the Roots that it is uneasy to sit down in it; and what is still more, the whole Tree is a conductor of water down into this hollow. I therefore conceive they make use of it as a fire place but no other. Their Wigwams are made with little trouble and afford greater convenience.