seamen, with some humour, called it their spritsail-yard; and, indeed, it had so ludicrous an appearance, that till we were used to it, we found it difficult to refrain from laughter. Beside this nose jewel, they had necklaces made of shells, very neatly cut and strung together; bracelets of small cord, wound two or three times about the upper part of their arm, and a string of plaited human hair about as thick as a thread of yarn, tied round the waist. Besides these, some of them had gorgets of shells hanging round the neck, so as to reach across the breast*. But though these people wear no clothes, their bodies have a covering besides the dirt, for they paint them both white and red: the red is commonly laid on in broad patches upon the shoulders and breast, and the white in stripes, some narrow, and some broad: the narrow were drawn over the limbs, and the broad over the body, not without some degree of taste. The white was also laid on in small patches upon the face, and drawn in a circle round each eye. The red seemed to be ochre, but what the white was we could not discover: it was close-grained, saponaceous to the touch, and almost as heavy as white lead; possibly it might be a kind of Steatites, but to our great regret we could not procure a bit of it to examine. They have holes in their ears, but we never saw any thing worn in them. Upon such ornaments as they had, they set so great a value, that they would never part with the least article for anything we could offer; which was the more extraordinary, as our beads and ribbons were ornaments of the same kind, but of a more regular form and more showy materials. They had, indeed, no idea of traffic, nor could we communicate any to them: they received the things that we gave them, but never appeared to understand our signs when we required a return. The same indifference which prevented them from buying what we had, prevented them also from attempting to steal: if they had coveted more, they would have been less honest; for when we refused to give them a turtle, they were enraged, and attempted to take it by force, and we had nothing else upon which they seemed to set the least value; for, as I have before observed, many of the things that we had given them we found left negligently about in the woods, like the playthings of children, which please only while they are new. Upon their bodies we saw no marks of disease or sores, but large scars in irregular lines, which appeared to be the remains of wounds which they had inflicted upon themselves with some blunt instrument, and which we understood by signs to have been memorials of grief for the dead. They appeared to have no fixed habitations, for we saw nothing like a town or village in the whole country. Their houses, if houses they may be called, seemed to be formed with less art and industry than any we had seen, except the wretched hovels at Terra del Fuego, and in some respects they are inferior even to them. At Botany Bay, where they were best, they were just high enough for a man to sit upright in, but not large enough for him to extend himself in his whole length in any direction: they are built with pliable rods about as thick as a man's finger, in the form of an oven, by sticking the two ends into the ground, and then covering them with palm-leaves and broad pieces of bark: the door is nothing but a large hole at one end, opposite to which the fire is made, as we perceived by the ashes. Under these houses, or sheds, they sleep, coiled up with their heels to their head, and in this position one of them will hold three or four persons. As we advanced northward, and the climate became warmer, we found these sheds still more slight they were built, like the others, of twigs, and covered with bark; but none of them were more than four feet deep, and one side was entirely open: the close side was always opposed to the course of the prevailing wind, and opposite to the open side was the fire, probably more as a defence from the mosquitoes than the cold. Under these hovels it is probable that they thrust only their heads and the upper part of their bodies, extending their feet towards the fire. They were set up occasionally by a wandering horde in any place that would furnish them for a time with subsistence, and left behind them when, after it was exhausted, they 66 * Captain King, in his Survey of Australia, vol. i. p. 157, says, 'In one of the huts, which was of a more elliptical shape, and of larger dimensions than the other, was a bunch of hair that had been recently clipped from either the head or beard. This proves that these operations are not done solely by fire, as Captain Cook sup posed, but by means of a sharp-edged shell, which must be both tedious and painful to endure; and we have often witnessed the delight shown by the natives at the specdy effect a pair of scissors has produced upon the beard or hair." went away; but in places where they remained only for a night or two, they slept without any shelter, except the bushes or grass, which is here near two feet high. We observed, however, that though the sleeping huts, which we found upon the main, were always turned from the prevailing wind, those upon the islands were turned towards it; which seems to be a proof that they have a mild season here, during which the sea is calm, and that the same weather which enables them to visit the islands makes the air welcome even while they sleep. The only furniture belonging to these houses that fell under our observation is a kind of oblong vessel made of bark, by the simple contrivance of tying up the two ends with a withy, which not being cut off serves for a handle; these we imagined were used as buckets to fetch water from the spring, which may be supposed sometimes to be at a considerable distance. They have, however, a small bag, about the size of a moderate cabbage-net, which is made by laying threads loop within loop, somewhat in the manner of knitting used by our ladies to make purses. This bag the man carries loose upon his back by a small string which passes over his head; it generally contains a lump or two of paint and resin, some fish-hooks and lines, a shell or two, out which their hooks are made, a few points of darts, and their usual ornaments, which includes the whole worldly treasure of the richest man among them. Their fish-hooks are very neatly made, and some of them are exceedingly small. For striking turtle they have a peg of wood which is about a foot long, and very well bearded; this fits into a socket at the end of a staff of light wood, about as thick as a man's wrist, and about seven or eight feet long: to the staff is tied one end of a loose line about three or four fathom long, the other end of which is fastened to the peg. To strike the turtle, the peg is fixed into the socket, and when it has entered his body, and is retained there by the barb, the staff flies off, and serves for a float to trace their victim in the water; it assists also to tire him, till they can overtake him with their canoes, and haul him ashore. One of these pegs, as I have mentioned already, we found buried in the body of a turtle, which had healed up over it. Their lines are from the thickness of a half-inch rope to the fineness of a hair, and are made of some vegetable substance, but what in particular we had no opportunity to learn*. Their food is chiefly fish, though they sometimes contrive to kill the kanguroo, and even birds of various kinds; notwithstanding, they are so shy that we found it difficult to get within reach of them with a fowling-piece. The only vegetable that can be considered as an article of food is the yam; yet doubtless they eat the several fruits which have been mentioned among other productions of the country; and indeed we saw the shells and hulls of several of them lying about the places where they had kindled their fire. They do not appear to eat any animal food raw; but having no vessel in which water can be boiled, they either broil it upon the coals, or bake it in a hole by the help of hot stones, in the same manner as is practised by the inhabitants of the islands in the South Seas. Whether they are acquainted with any plant that has an intoxicating quality, we do not know; but we observed that several of them held leaves of some sort constantly in their mouths, as a European does tobacco, and an East Indian betel: we never saw the plant, but when they took it from their mouths at our request; possibly it might be a species of the betel, but whatever it was, it had no effect upon the teeth or the lips. As they have no nets, they catch fish only by striking, or with a hook and line, except such as they find in the hollows of the rocks and shoals, which are dry at half ebb. Their manner of hunting we had no opportunity to see; but we conjectured by the notches which they had everywhere cut in large trees in order to climb them, that they took their station near the tops of them, and there watched for such animals as might happen to pass near enough to be reached by their lances: it is possible, also, that in this situation they might take birds when they came to roost. *Captain King has the following note upon this passage: "The above method differs only from that used by the natives of Rockingham Bay and Cape Flinders, in that the float is another piece of light buoyant wood-the staff being retained in the hand when the turtle is struck. The reader will here recognise in this instrument, a striking resemblance to the oonak and katteelik, the weapons which Captain Parry describes the Esquimaux to use in spearing the seal and whale."-King's Survey of the Coasts of Australia, vol. i. p. 246. I have observed that when they went from our tents upon the banks of Endeavour River, we could trace them by the fires which they kindled in their way; and we imagined that these fires were intended some way for the taking the kanguroo, which we observed to be so much afraid of fire, that our dogs could scarcely force it over places which had been newly burnt, though the fire was extinguished. They produce fire with great facility, and spread it in a wonderful manner. To produce it they take two pieces of dry soft wood, one is a stick about eight or nine inches long, the other piece is flat: the stick they shape into an obtuse point at one end, and pressing it upon the other, turn it nimbly by holding it between both their hands as we do a chocolate mill, often shifting their hands up, and then moving them down upon it, to increase the pressure as much as possible. By this method they get fire in less than two minutes, and from the smallest spark, they increase it with great speed and dexterity. We have often seen one of them run along the shore, to all appearance with nothing in his hand, who stooping down for a moment, at the distance of every fifty or hundred yards, left fire behind him, as we could see first by the smoke, and then by the flame among the drift wood, and other litter which was scattered along the place. We had the curiosity to examine one of these planters of fire, when he set off, and we saw him wrap up a small spark in dry grass, which, when he had run a little way, having been fanned by the air that his motion produced, began to blaze; he then laid it down in a place convenient for his purpose, inclosing a spark of it in another quantity of grass, and so continued his course. There are perhaps few things in the history of mankind more extraordinary than the discovery and application of fire: it will scarcely be disputed that the manner of producing it, whether by collision or attrition, was discovered by chance: but its first effects would naturally strike those to whom it was a new object with consternation and terror: it would appear to be an enemy to life and nature, and to torment and destroy whatever was capable of being destroyed or tormented; and therefore it seems not easy to conceive what should incline those who first saw it receive a transient existence from chance, to reproduce it by design. It is by no means probable that those who first saw fire approached it with the same caution as those who are familiar with its effects, so as to be warmed only, and not burnt; and it is reasonable to think that the intolerable pain which, at its first appearance, it must produce upon ignorant curiosity, would sow perpetual enmity between this element and mankind; and that the same principle which incites them to crush a serpent would incite them to destroy fire, and avoid all means by which it would be produced, as soon as they were known. These circumstances considered, how men became sufficiently familiar with it to render it useful seems to be a problem very difficult to solve: nor is it easy to account for the first application of it to culinary purposes, as the eating both animal and vegetable food raw must have become a habit before there was fire to dress it, and those who have considered the force of habit will readily believe, that to men who had always eaten the flesh of animals raw, it would be as disagreeable dressed, as to those who have always eaten it dressed, it would be raw. It is remarkable that the inhabitants of Terra del Fuego produce fire from a spark by collision, and that the happier natives of this country, New Zealand, and Otaheite, produce it by the attrition of one combustible substance against another is there not, then, some reason to suppose that these different operations correspond with the manner in which chance produced fire in the neighbourhood of the torrid and frigid zones? Among the rude inhabitants of a cold country, neither any operation of art, or occurrence of accident, could be supposed so easily to produce fire by attrition, as in a climate where everything is hot, dry, and adust, teeming with a latent fire which a slight degree of motion was sufficient to call forth; in a cold country, therefore, it is natural to suppose that fire was produced by the accidental collision of two metallic substances, and in a cold country, for that reason, the same expedient was used to produce it by design: but in hot countries, where two combustible substances easily kindle by attrition, it is probable that the attrition of such substances first produced fire, and here it was therefore natural for art to adopt the same operation, with a view to produce the same effect. It may indeed be true that fire is now produced in many cold countries by attrition, and in many hot by a stroke; but perhaps upon inquiry there may appear reason to conclude that this has arisen went away; but in places where they remained only f same weather which enables th The only furniture belong oblong vessel made of bs.' withy, which not being e to fetch water from t distance. They hav which is made by ' used by our ladi small string w' resin, some f points of dar richest man Their f striking this fit and al four peg ba a , and these are of different kinds: some wat had four prongs, pointed with bone, and Aries, which gave them a polish, and stick the northward, the lance has but the sofa am somewhat resembling a bulrush, wght to sig, consisting of several joints, where er to this are fitted points of different (1) was at se deze bones of fish: we saw several that of that they could procure, and barbed wall & Intrary direction; the points of wood were para seils, which were stuck in, and at the arbed are indeed dreadful weapons; u ever e irawn back without tearing away eone or shell which forms the beard wn with great force and dexterity: if twenty yards, simply with the hand; ment which we called a throwing si, very highly polished, about two win a small knob, or hook at one end, ter the knob at one end is received in the shaft of the lance near the atei cu forward: when the lance is laid by the knob, the person that is Stivers both the throwing-stick SUNG THR THROWING-STICK. might be mistaken*. We saw, howabout three feet long and eighteen As mentioned page 205.-ED. broad, which was made of the bark of a tree: this was fetched out of a hut by one men that opposed our landing, who, when he ran away, left it behind him, and taking it up, we found that it had been pierced agh with a single pointed lance near the centre. Inese shields are certainly in frequent use among the people here; for though this was the only one that we saw in their possession, we frequently found trees from which they appeared manifestly to have been cut, the marks being easily distinguished from those that were made by cutting buckets: sometimes also we found the shields cut out, but not yet taken off from the tree, the edges of the bark only being a little raised by wedges, so that these people appear to have discovered that the bark of a tree becomes thicker and stronger by being suffered to remain upon the trunk after it has been cut round. The canoes of New Holland are as mean and rude as the houses. Those on the southern part NEW HOLLAND SHIELD. of the coast are nothing more than a piece of bark, about twelve feet long, tied together at the ends, and kept open in the middle by small bows of wood: yet in a vessel of this construction we once saw three people. In shallow water they are set forward by a pole, and in deeper by paddles, about eighteen inches long, one of which the boatman holds in each hand; mean as they are, they have many conveniences, they draw but little water, and they are very light, so that they go upon mud banks to pick up shellfish, the most important use to which they can be applied, better perhaps than vessels of any other construction. We observed, that in the middle of these canoes there was a heap of sea-weed, and upon that a small fire; probably that the fish may be broiled and eaten the moment it is caught. The canoes that we saw when we advanced farther to the northward, are not made of bark, but of the trunk of a tree hollowed, perhaps by fire. They are about fourteen feet long, and, being very narrow, are fitted with an outrigger to prevent their oversetting. These are worked with paddles, that are so large as to require both hands to manage one of them the outside is wholly unmarked by any tool, but at each end the wood is left longer at the top than at the bottom, so that there is a projection beyond the hollow part resembling the end of a plank; the sides are tolerably thin, but how the tree is felled and fashioned, we had no opportunity to learn. The only tools that we saw among them are an adze, wretchedly made of stone, some small pieces of the same substance in form of a wedge, a wooden mallet, and some shells and fragments of coral. For polishing their throwing-sticks, and the points of their lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which bites upon wood almost as keenly as the shave-grass of Europe, which is used by our joiners: with such tools, the making even such a canoe as I have described must be a most difficult and tedious labour: to those who have been accustomed to the use of metal, it appears altogether impracticable; but there are few difficulties that will not yield to patient perseverance; and he who does all he can will certainly produce effects that greatly exceed his apparent power. The utmost freight of these canoes is four people; and if more at any time wanted to come over the river, one of those who came first was obliged to go back for the rest: from this circumstance, we conjectured that the boat we saw, when we were lying in Endeavour River, was the only one in the neighbourhood: we have however some reason to believe that the bark canoes are also used where the wooden ones are constructed; for upon one of the small islands where the natives had been fishing for turtle, we found one of the little paddles which had belonged to such a boat, and would have been useless on board any other. By what means the inhabitants of this country are reduced to such a number as it can subsist, is not perhaps very easy to guess; whether, like the inhabitants of New Zealand, they are destroyed by the hands of each other in contests for food; whether they are swept off by accidental famine, or whether there is any cause which prevents the increase of the species, must be left for future adventurers to determine. That they have wars, appears by |