# Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks/Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII
SOME ACCOUNT OF THAT PART OF NEW HOLLAND NOW CALLED NEW SOUTH WALES
General appearance of the coast—Dampier's narrative—Barrenness of the country—Scarcity of water—Vegetables and fruits—Timber—Palms—Gum trees—Quadrupeds—Birds—Insects—Ants and their habitations—Fish—Turtle—Shell-fish—Scarcity of people—Absence of cultivation—Description of natives—Ornaments—Absence of vermin—Implements for catching fish—Food—Cooking—Habitations—Furniture—Vessels for carrying water—Bags—Tools—Absence of sharp instruments—Native method of procuring fire—Weapons—Throwing-sticks—Shield—Cowardice of the people—Canoes—Climate—Language.
Having now, I believe, fairly passed through between New Holland and New Guinea, and having an open sea to the westward, so that to-morrow we intend to steer more to the northwards in order to make the south coast of New Guinea, it seems high time to take leave of New Holland, which I shall do by summing up the few observations I have been able to make on the country and people. I much wished, indeed, to have had better opportunities of seeing and observing the people, as they differ so much from the account that Dampier (the only man I know of who has seen them besides us) has given of them: he indeed saw them on a part of the coast very distant from where we were, and consequently the people might be different; but I should rather conclude them to be the same, chiefly from having observed an universal conformity in such of their ​customs as came under my observation in the several places we landed upon during the run along the coast. Dampier in general seems to be a faithful relater; but in the voyage in which he touched on the coast of New Holland he was in a ship of pirates; possibly himself not a little tainted by their idle examples, he might have kept no written journal of anything more than the navigation of the ship, and when upon coming home he was solicited to publish an account of his voyage, may have referred to his memory for many particulars relating to the people, etc. These Indians, when covered with their filth, which I believe they never wash off, are, if not coal black, very near it. As negroes, then, he might well esteem them, and add the woolly hair and want of two front teeth in consequence of the similitude in complexion between these and the natives of Africa; but from whatever cause it might arise, certain it is that Dampier either was very much mistaken in his account, or else saw a very different race of people from those we have seen.
In the whole length of coast which we sailed along, there was a very unusual sameness to be observed in the face of the country. Barren it may justly be called, and in a very high degree, so far at least as we saw. The soil in general is sandy and very light; on it grow grass, tall enough but thin set, and trees of a tolerable size; never, however, near together, being in general 40, 50, and 60 feet apart. This, and spots of loose sand, sometimes very large, constitute the general face of the country as you sail along it, and indeed the greater part even after penetrating inland as far as our situation would allow us to do. The banks of the bays were generally clothed with thick mangroves, sometimes for a mile or more in breadth. The soil under these is rank mud, always overflowed every spring tide. Inland you sometimes meet with a bog upon which the grass grows rank and thick, so that no doubt the soil is sufficiently fertile. The valleys also between the hills, where runs of water come down, are thickly clothed with underwood; but they are generally very steep and narrow, so that upon the ​whole the fertile soil bears no kind of proportion to that which seems by nature doomed to everlasting barrenness.
Water is a scarce article, or at least was so while we were there, which I believe to have been in the very height of the dry season. At some places we were in we saw not a drop, and at the two places where we filled for the ship's use it was done from pools, not brooks. This drought is probably owing to the dryness of a soil almost entirely composed of sand, in which high hills are scarce. That there is plenty, however, in the rainy season is sufficiently evinced by the channels we saw cut even in rocks down the sides of inconsiderable hills: these were in general dry, or if any of them contained water, it was such as ran in the woody valleys, and they seldom carried water above half-way down the hill. Some, indeed, we saw that formed brooks, and ran quite down to the sea; but these were scarce and in general brackish a good way up from the beach.
A soil so barren, and at the same time entirely void of the help derived from cultivation, could not be supposed to yield much to the support of man. We had been so long at sea with but a scanty supply of fresh provisions, that we had long been used to eat everything we could lay our hands upon, fish, flesh, and vegetables, if only they were not poisonous. Yet we could only now and then procure a dish of bad greens for our own table, and never, except in the place where the ship was careened, did we meet with a sufficient quantity to supply the ship. There, indeed, palm cabbage, and what is called in the West Indies Indian kale, were in tolerable plenty; as also was a sort of purslane. The other plants which we ate were a kind of bean (very bad), a kind of parsley, and a plant something resembling spinach, which two last grew only to the southward. I shall give their botanical names, as I believe some of them were never eaten by Europeans before: Indian kale (Arum esculentum), red-flowered purslane (Sesuvium portulacastrum), beans (Glycine speciosa), parsley (Apium), spinach (Tetragonia cornuta).
​We had still fewer fruits; to the southwards was one somewhat resembling a heart cherry (Eugenia), only the stone was soft: it had nothing but a slight acid to recommend it. To the northward, we had a kind of very indifferent fig (Ficus caudiciflora) growing from the stalk of a tree, a fruit we called plums—like them in colour, but flat like a little cheese—and another much like a damson both in appearance and taste. Both these last, however, were so full of a large stone, that eating them was but an unprofitable business. Wild plantains we had also, but so full of seeds that they had little or no pulp.
For the article of timber there is certainly no want of trees of more than the middling size, and some in the valleys are very large, but all of a very hard nature. Our carpenters, who cut them down for firewood, complained much that their tools were damaged by them. Some trees there are also to the northward, whose soft bark, which easily peels off, is in the East Indies used for caulking ships in lieu of oakum.
Palms here are of three different sorts: the first, which grew plentifully to the southward, has leaves plaited like a fan; the cabbage of these is small, but exquisitely sweet, and the nuts which it bears in great abundance make a very good food for hogs. The second is very like the real cabbage tree of the West Indies, bearing pinnated leaves like those of a cocoanut: this also yields cabbage, which, if not so sweet as the other sort, yet makes ample amends in quantity. The third, which like the second is found only in the northern parts, is low, seldom 10 feet in height, with small pinnated leaves resembling those of some kinds of fern. Cabbage it has none, but generally bears a plentiful crop of nuts, about the size of a large chestnut, and rounder. By the hulls of these, which we found plentifully near the Indian fires, we were assured that these people ate them, and some of our gentlemen tried to do the same, but were deterred from a second experiment by a hearty fit of vomiting. The hogs, however, which were still shorter of ​provision than we were, ate them heartily, and we considered their constitutions stronger than ours, until after about a week they were all taken extremely ill of indigestion; two died, and the rest were saved with difficulty.
Other useful plants we saw none, except perhaps two, which might be found so, yielding resin in abundance. The one, a tree tolerably large, with narrow leaves not unlike a willow, was plentiful in every place into which we went, and yielded a blood-red resin or rather gum-resin, very nearly resembling Sanguis draconis; indeed, as Sanguis draconis is the produce of several different plants, this may be perhaps one of the sorts. This I should suppose to be the gum mentioned by Dampier in his voyage round the world, and by him compared with Sanguis draconis, as possibly also that which Tasman saw upon Van Diemen's Land, where he says he saw gum on the trees, and gum lac on the ground. (See his voyage in a collection published at London in 1694, p. 133.) The other was a small plant with long narrow grassy leaves and a spike of flowers resembling much that kind of bulrush which is called in England cat's tail: this yielded a resin of a bright yellow colour perfectly resembling gamboge, only that it did not stain; it had a sweet smell, but what its properties are the chemists may be able to determine.
Of plants in general the country affords a far larger variety than its barren appearance seemed to promise: many of these no doubt possess properties which might be useful for physical and economical purposes, which we were not able to investigate. Could we have understood the Indians, or made them by any means our friends, we might perchance have learnt some of these; for though their manner of life, but one degree removed from brutes, does not seem to promise much, yet they had some knowledge of plants, as we could plainly perceive by their having names for them.
Thus much for plants. I have been rather particular in mentioning those which we ate, hoping that such a record might be of use to some or other into whose hands ​these papers fall. For quadrupeds, birds, fish, etc., I shall say no more than that we had some time ago learned to eat every single species which came in our way; a hawk or a crow was to us as delicate, and perhaps a better-relished meal, than a partridge or pheasant to those who have plenty of dainties. We wanted nothing to recommend any food but its not being salt; that alone was sufficient to make it a delicacy. Shags, sea-gulls, and all that tribe of sea-fowl which are reckoned bad from their trainy or fishy taste, were to us an agreeable food: we did not at all taste the rankness, which no doubt has been and possibly will again be highly nauseous to us, whenever we have plenty of beef and mutton, etc.
Quadrupeds we saw but few, and were able to catch but few of those we did see. The largest was called by the natives kangooroo; it is different from any European, and, indeed, any animal I have heard or read of, except the jerboa of Egypt, which is not larger than a rat, while this is as large as a middling lamb. The largest we shot weighed 84 lbs. It may, however, be easily known from all other animals by the singular property of running, or rather hopping, upon only its hinder legs, carrying its fore-feet close to its breast. In this manner it hops so fast that in the rocky bad ground where it is commonly found, it easily beat my greyhound, who, though he was fairly started at several, killed only one, and that quite a young one. Another animal was called by the natives je-quoll; it is about the size of, and something like, a pole-cat, of a light brown, spotted with white on the back, and white under the belly. The third was of the opossum kind, and much resembled that called by De Buffon Phalanger. Of these two last I took only one individual of each. Bats here were many: one small one was much if not identically the same as that described by De Buffon under the name of Fer de cheval. Another sort was as large as, or larger than, a partridge; but of this species we were not fortunate enough to take one. We supposed it, however, to be the Rousette or Rougette of the same author. Besides these, ​wolves were, I believe, seen by several of our people, and some other animals described; but from the unintelligible style of the describers, I could not even determine whether they were such as I myself had seen, or of different kinds. Of these descriptions I shall insert one, as it is not unentertaining.
A seaman who had been out on duty declared that he had seen an animal about the size of, and much like a one-gallon cagg. "It was," says he, "as black as the devil, and had wings, indeed I took it for the devil, or I might easily have catched it, for it crawled very slowly through the grass." After taking some pains, I found out that the animal he had seen was no other than the large bat.
Of sea-fowl there were several species: gulls, shags, solan geese or gannets of two sorts, boobies, etc., and pelicans of an enormous size; but these last, though we saw many thousands of them, were so shy that we never got one, as were the cranes also, of which we saw several very large and some beautiful species. In the rivers were ducks which flew in very large flocks, but were very hard to come at; and on the beach were curlews of several sorts, some very like our English ones, and many small beach birds. The land birds were crows, very like if not quite the same as our English ones, most beautiful parrots and parroquets, white and black cockatoos, pigeons, beautiful doves, bustards and many others which did not at all resemble those of Europe. Most of these were extremely shy, so that it was with difficulty that we shot any of them. A crow in England, though in general sufficiently wary, is, I must say, a fool to a New Holland crow, and the same may be said of almost all if not all the birds in the country. The only ones we ever got in any plenty were pigeons, of which we met large flocks, and of which the men who were sent out on purpose would sometimes kill ten or twelve a day. They were beautiful birds, crested differently from any other pigeon I have seen. What can be the reason of this extraordinary shyness in the birds is difficult to say, unless perhaps the Indians are very clever in deceiving them, ​which we have very little reason to suppose, as we never saw any instrument with them with which a bird could be killed or taken, except their lances, and these must be very improper tools for the purpose. Yet one of our people saw a white cockatoo in their possession, which very bird we looked upon to be one of the wariest of them all.
Of insects there were but few sorts, and among them only the ants were troublesome to us. Mosquitos, indeed, were in some places tolerably plentiful, but it was our good fortune never to stay any time in such places. The ants, however, made ample amends for the want of the mosquitos; two sorts in particular, one green as a leaf, and living upon trees, where it built a nest, in size between that of a man's head and his fist, by bending the leaves together, and gluing them with a whitish papery substance which held them firmly together. In doing this their management was most curious: they bend down four leaves broader than a man's hand, and place them in such a direction as they choose. This requires a much larger force than these animals seem capable of; many thousands indeed are employed in the joint work. I have seen as many as could stand by one another, holding down such a leaf, each drawing down with all his might, while others within were employed to fasten the glue. How they had bent it down, I had not an opportunity of seeing, but that it was held down by main strength, I easily proved by disturbing a part of them, on which the leaf, bursting from the rest, returned to its natural situation, and I had an opportunity of trying with my finger the strength that these little animals must have used to get it down. But industrious as they are, their courage, if possible, excels their industry; if we accidentally shook the branches on which such a nest was hung, thousands would immediately throw themselves down, many of which falling upon us made us sensible of their stings and revengeful dispositions, especially if, as was often the case, they got possession of our necks and hair. Their stings were by some esteemed not much less painful than those of a bee; the pain, however, lasted only a few seconds.
​Another sort there were, quite black, whose manner of living was most extraordinary. They inhabited the inside of the branches of one sort of tree, the pith of which they hollowed out almost to the very end of the branches, nevertheless the tree flourished as well to all appearance as if no such accident had happened to it. When first we found the tree, we of course gathered the branches, and were surprised to find our hands instantly covered with legions of these small animals, who stung most intolerbly; experience, however, taught us to be more careful for the future. Rumphius mentions a similar instance to this in his Herbarium Amboinense, vol. ii. p. 257; his tree, however, does not at all resemble ours.
A third sort nested inside the root of a plant which grew upon the bark of trees in the same manner as mistletoe. The root was the size of a large turnip, and often much larger; when cut, the inside showed innumerable winding passages in which these animals lived. The plant itself throve to all appearance not a bit the worse for its numerous inhabitants. Several hundreds have I seen, and never one but what was inhabited; though some were so young as not to be much larger than a hazel nut. The ants themselves were very small, not above half as large as our red ants in England; they sting indeed, but so little that it was scarcely felt. The chief inconvenience in handling the roots came from the infinite number; myriads would come in an instant out of many holes, and running over the hand tickle so as to be scarcely endurable. Rumphius has an account of this very bulb and its ants in vol. vi. p. 120, where he describes also another sort, the ants of which are black.
The fourth kind were perfectly harmless, at least they proved so to us, though they resembled almost exactly the white ants of the East Indies, the most mischievous insect I believe known in the world. Their architecture was, however, far superior to that of any other species. They had two kinds of houses, one suspended on the branches of trees, the other standing upright on the ​ground. The first sort were generally three or four times as large as a man's head; they were built of a brittle substance, seemingly made of small parts of vegetables kneaded together with some glutinous matter, probably afforded by themselves. On breaking this outer crust innumerable cells appeared, full of inhabitants, winding in all directions, communicating with each other, as well as with divers doors which led from the nest. From each of these an arched passage led to different parts of the tree, and generally one large one to the ground. This I am inclined to believe communicated with the other kind of house, for as the animals inhabiting both were precisely the same, I see no reason why they should be supposed, contrary to every instance that I know in nature, to build two different kinds of houses, unless, according to the season, prey, etc., they inhabited both equally.
This second kind of house was very often built near the foot of a tree, on the bark of which their covered ways, though but seldom the first kind of house, were always to be found. It was formed like an irregularly sided cone, and was sometimes more than six feet high, and nearly as much in diameter. The smaller ones were generally flat-sided, and resembled very much the old stones which are seen in many parts of England, and supposed to be remains of Druidical worship. The outer coat of these was 2 inches thick at least, of hard, well-tempered clay, under which were their cells; to these no doors were to be seen. All their passages were underground, where probably they were carried on till they met the root of some tree, up which they ascended, and so up the trunks and branches by the covered way before mentioned. These I should suppose to be the houses to which they retire in the winter season, as they are undoubtedly able to defend them from any rain that can fall, while the others, though generally built under the shelter of some overhanging branch, must, from the thinness of the covering, be but a slight defence against a heavy rain.
Thus much for the ants, an industrious race which in all countries have for that reason been admired by man, though ​probably in no country more admirable than in this. The few observations I have written down concerning them are chiefly from conjecture, and therefore are not at all to be depended upon. Were any man, however, to settle here who had time and inclination to observe their economy, I am convinced that it would far exceed that of any insects we know, not excepting our much-admired bees.
The sea, however, made some amends for the barrenness of the land. Fish, though not so plentiful as they generally are in the higher latitudes, were far from scarce; when we had an opportunity of hauling the seine we generally caught from 50 to 200 lbs. of fish in a tide. The kinds were various, none I think but mullets being known in Europe. In general, however, they were sufficiently palatable, and some very delicate food. The sting-rays, indeed, which were caught on the southern part of the coast were very coarse; so that, as little else was caught there, we were obliged to be satisfied with the comforts of plenty, and enjoy more pleasure in satiety than in eating. To the northward again, when we were entangled within the great reef, was a quantity of turtle hardly to be credited, every shoal swarmed with them. The weather indeed was generally so boisterous, that our boats could not row after them as fast as they could swim, so that we got but few; but they were excellent, and so large that a single turtle always served for the whole ship. Had we been there either at the time of laying or in a more moderate season, we might doubtless have taken any quantity. All the shoals that were dry at half ebb afforded plenty of fish, left dry in small hollows of the rocks, and a profusion of large shell-fish (Chama gigas) such as Dampier describes, vol. iii. p. 191. The largest of these had ten or fifteen pounds of meat in them; it was indeed rather strong, but I believe a very wholesome food, and well relished by the people in general. On different parts of the coast were also found oysters, which were said to be very well tasted; the shells also of good-sized lobsters and crabs were seen, but these it was never our fortune to catch.
​Upon the whole, New Holland, though in every respect the most barren country I have seen, is not so bad but that between the productions of sea and land, a company who had the misfortune to be shipwrecked upon it might support themselves, even by the resources that we have seen: undoubtedly a longer stay and a visit to different parts would discover many more.
This immense tract of land, the largest known which does not bear the name of a continent, as it is considerably larger than all Europe, is thinly inhabited, even to admiration, at least that part of it that we saw. We never but once saw so many as thirty Indians together, and that was a family, men, women, and children, assembled upon a rock to see the ship pass by. At Sting-ray's Bay, where they evidently came down several times to fight us, they never could muster above fourteen or fifteen fighting men, indeed in other places they generally ran away from us, whence it might be concluded that there were greater numbers than we saw, but their houses and sheds in the woods, which we never failed to find, convinced us of the smallness of their parties. We saw, indeed, only the sea coast; what the immense tract of inland country may produce is to us totally unknown. We may have liberty to conjecture, however, that it is totally uninhabited. The sea has, I believe, been universally found to be the chief source of supplies to Indians ignorant of the arts of cultivation. The wild produce of the land alone seems scarcely able to support them at all seasons, at least I do not remember to have read of any inland nation who did not cultivate the ground more or less: even the North Americans, who are so well versed in hunting, sow their maize. But should a people live inland, who supported themselves by cultivation, these inhabitants of the sea coast must certainly have learned to imitate them in some degree at least, otherwise their reason must be supposed to hold a rank little superior to that of monkeys.
What may be the reason of this absence of people is ​difficult to guess, unless it be the barrenness of the soil and the scarcity of fresh water. But why should not mankind increase here as fast as in other places, unless their small tribes have frequent wars in which many are destroyed? They were indeed generally furnished with plenty of weapons, whose points of the stings of sting-rays seemed intended for use against none but their own species.
That their customs are nearly the same throughout the whole length of the coast along which we sailed, I should think very probable, though we had connections with them at only one place. Yet we saw them with our eyes or glasses many times, and at Sting-ray's Bay had some experience of their manners. Their colour, arms, and method of using them were the same as those we afterwards had a nearer view of. They likewise in the same manner went naked, and painted themselves, their houses were the same, they notched large trees in the same manner, and even the bags they carried their furniture in were of exactly the same manufacture, something between netting and knitting, which I have nowhere else seen. In the intermediate places our glasses might deceive us in many things, but their colour and want of clothes we certainly did see, and whenever we came ashore the houses and sheds, places where they had dressed victuals with heated stones, and trees notched for the convenience of climbing them, sufficiently evinced them to be the same people.
The tribe with which we had connections consisted of twenty-one people, twelve men, seven women, a boy and a girl; so many at least we saw, and there might have been more, especially women, whom we did not see. The men were remarkably short and slenderly built in proportion; the tallest we measured was 5 feet 9 inches, the shortest 5 feet 2 inches; the average height seemed to be about 5 feet 6 inches. What their absolute colour is, is difficult to say, they were so completely covered with dirt, which seemed to have stuck to their hides from the day of their birth, without their once having attempted to remove it. I tried indeed by spitting upon my finger and ​rubbing, but altered the colour very little, which as nearly as might be resembled chocolate. The beards of several were bushy and thick; their hair, which as well as their beards was black, they wore close cropped round their ears. In some it was as lank as an European's, in others a little crisped, as is common in the South Sea Islands, but in none of them at all resembling the wool of the negroes. They had also all their fore teeth, in which two points they differ chiefly from those seen by Dampier, supposing him not to be mistaken. As for colour they would undoubtedly be called black by any one not used to consider attentively the colours of different nations. I myself should never have thought of such distinctions, had I not seen the effect of sun and wind upon the natives of the South Sea Islands, where many of the better sort of people, who keep themselves close at home, are nearly as white as Europeans; while the poorer sort, obliged in their business of fishing, etc., to expose their naked bodies to all the inclemencies of the climate, are in some cases but little lighter than the New Hollanders. They were all to a man lean and clean-limbed, and seemed very light and active. Their countenances were not without some expression, though I cannot charge them with much, their voices in general shrill and effeminate.
Of clothes they had not the least part, but were naked as ever our general father was before his fall, whether from idleness or want of invention is difficult to say. In the article of ornaments, however, useless as they are, neither has the one hindered them from contriving, nor the other from making them. Of these the chief, and that on which they seem to set the greatest value, is a bone 5 or 6 inches in length, and as thick as a man's finger, which they thrust into a hole bored through that part which divides the nostrils, so that it sticks across the face, making in the eyes of Europeans a most ludicrous appearance, though no doubt they esteem even this as an addition to their beauty, which they purchase by hourly inconvenience; for when this bone was in its place, or, as our seamen termed it, when their ​spritsail-yard was rigged across, it completely stopped up both nostrils, so that they spoke in the nose in a manner one would think scarcely intelligible. Besides these extraordinary bones, they had necklaces of shells neatly cut and strung together; bracelets also, if one may call by that name four or five rings of small cord worn round the upper part of the arm; and a belt or string tied round the waist about as thick as worsted yarn, which last was frequently made of either human hair or that of the beast called by them kangooroo.
They paint themselves with red and white. The former they commonly lay on in broad patches on their shoulders or breasts; the white in strips, some of which are narrow and confined to small parts of their bodies, others broad and carried with some degree of taste across their bodies, round their legs and arms, etc. They also lay it on in circles round their eyes, and in patches in different parts of their faces. The red seems to be red ochre, but what the white was we could not find out, it was heavy and close-grained, almost as white lead, and had a saponaceous feel; possibly it might be a kind of steatite. We lamented not being able to procure a bit to examine.
These people seemed to have no idea of traffic, nor could we teach them; indeed, it seemed that we had no one thing upon which they set a value sufficient to induce them to part with the smallest trifle, except one fish which weighed about half a pound. That they brought as a kind of peace token. No one in the ship procured, I believe, from them the smallest article; they readily received the things we gave them, but never would understand our signs, when we asked for returns. This, however, must not be forgotten, that whatever opportunities they had they never once attempted to take anything in a clandestine manner; whatever they wanted they openly asked for, and in almost all cases bore the refusal, if they met with one, with much indifference, except in the case of turtles.
Dirty as these people are, they seem to be entirely free from lice, a circumstance rarely observed among the most cleanly Indians, and which is here the more remarkable, as ​their hair was generally matted, and filthy enough. In all of them, indeed, it was very thin, and seemed as if seldom disturbed by the combing even of their fingers, much less to have any oil or grease put into it. Nor did the custom of oiling their bodies, so common among most uncivilised nations, seem to have the least footing here.
On their bodies we observed very few marks of cutaneous disorders, such as scurf, scars of sores, etc. Their spare thin bodies indicate a temperance in eating, the consequence either of necessity or inclination, equally productive of health, particularly in this respect. On the fleshy parts of their arms and thighs, and some of their sides, were large scars in regular lines, which by their breadth and the convexity with which they had healed, showed plainly that they had been made by deep cuts of some blunt instrument, possibly a shell or the edge of a broken stone. These, as far as we could understand the signs they made use of, were the marks of their lamentations for the deceased, in honour of whose memory, or to show the excess of their grief, they had in this manner wept in blood.
For food they seemed to depend very much, though not entirely, upon the sea. Fish of all kinds, turtle, and even crabs, they strike with their lances very dexterously. These are generally bearded with broad beards, and their points smeared over with a kind of hard resin, which makes them pierce a hard body far more easily than they would without it. In the southern parts these fish-spears had four prongs, and besides the resin were pointed with the sharp bone of a fish. To the northward their spears had only one point, yet both, I believe, struck fish with equal dexterity. For the northern ones I can witness, who several times saw them through a glass throw a spear from ten to twenty yards, and generally succeed. To the southward again the quantity of fish bones we saw near their fires proved them to be no indifferent artists.
In striking turtle they use a peg of wood well bearded, and about a foot long; this fastens into the socket of a staff of light wood as thick as a man's wrist, and eight or nine ​feet long, besides which it is tied to a loose line of three or four fathoms. The use of this is undoubtedly to enable the staff to serve as a float to show where the turtle is when struck, as well as to assist in tiring it till they can with their canoes overtake and haul it in. That they throw this dart with great force we had occasion to observe while we lay in Endeavour's river, where a turtle which we killed had one of these pegs entirely buried in his body just across its breast; it seemed to have entered at the soft place where the fore-fin works, but not the least outward mark of the wound remained.
We saw near their fire-places plentiful remains of lobsters, shell-fish of all kinds, and to the southward the skins of those sea animals which, from their property of spouting out water when touched, are commonly called sea-squirts. These last, however disgustful they may seem to an European palate, we found to contain, under a coat as tough as leather, a substance like the guts of a shell-fish, of a taste, though not equal to an oyster, yet by no means to be despised by a hungry man.
Of land animals they probably eat every kind that they can kill, which probably does not amount to any large number, every species being here shy and cautious in a high degree. The only vegetables which we saw them use were yams of two sorts, the one long and like a finger, the other round and covered with stringy roots; both sorts very small but sweet. They were so scarce where we were that we never could find the plants that produced them, though we often saw the places where they had been dug up by the Indians very recently. It is very probable that the dry season, which was at its height when we were there, had destroyed the leaves of the plants, so that we had no guide, while the Indians, knowing well the stalks, might find them easily. Whether they knew or ever made use of the cocos, I cannot tell; the immense sharpness of every part of this vegetable before it is dressed makes it probable that any people who have not learned the uses of it from others may remain for ever ignorant of them. Near their fires were ​great abundance of the shells of a kind of fruit resembling a pine-apple, though its taste was disagreeable enough. It is common to all the East Indies, and called by the Dutch Pyn appel Boomen (Pandanus). We found also the fruits of a low palm called by the Dutch Moeskruidige Callapus (Cycas circinalis), which they certainly eat, though this fruit is so unwholesome that some of our people, who, though forewarned, followed their example and ate one or two of them, were violently affected by them; and our hogs, whose constitutions we thought might be as strong as those of the Indians, literally died after having eaten them. It is probable, however, that these people have some method of preparing them by which their poisonous quality is destroyed, as the inhabitants of the East Indian Isles are said to do by boiling them, steeping them twenty-four hours in water, then drying them, and using them to thicken broth, from whence it would seem that the poisonous quality lies entirely in the juices, as it does in the roots of the mandihoca or cassada of the West Indies, and that when thoroughly cleared of them, the pulp remaining may be a wholesome and nutritious food.
Their victuals they generally dress by broiling or toasting them upon the coals, so we judged by the remains we saw; they understood, however, the method of baking or stewing with hot stones, and sometimes practised it, as we now and then saw the pits and burned stones which had been used for that purpose.
We observed that some, though but few, held constantly in their mouths the leaves of a herb which they chewed as a European does tobacco, or an East Indian betel; what sort of a plant it was we had no opportunity of learning, as we never saw anything but the chaws, which they took from their mouth to show us. It might be of the betel kind, and so far as we could judge from the fragments was so; but whatever it was, it was used without any addition, and seemed to have no kind of effect upon either the teeth or lips of those who used it.
​Naked as these people are when abroad, they are scarcely at all better defended from the injuries of the weather when at home; if that name can with propriety be given to their houses, as I believe they never make any stay in them, but wandering like the Arabs from place to place, set them up whenever they meet with a spot where sufficient supplies of food are to be met with. As soon as these are exhausted they remove to another, leaving the houses behind, which are framed probably with less art, or rather less industry, than any habitations of human beings that the world can show. At Sting-ray's Bay, where they were the best, each was capable of containing within it four or five people, but not one of all these could extend himself his whole length in any direction; he might just sit upright, but if inclined to sleep, must coil himself up in some crooked position, as the dimensions were in no direction enough to receive him otherwise. They were built in the form of an oven, of pliable rods about as thick as a man's finger, the ends of which were stuck into the ground, and the whole covered with palm leaves and broad pieces of bark. The door was a fairly large hole at one end, opposite to which there seemed from the ashes to be a fire kept pretty constantly. To the northward, where the warmth of the climate made houses less necessary, they were in proportion still more slight: a house there was nothing but a hollow shelter about three or four feet deep, built like the former, and like them covered with bark. One side of this was entirely open; it was always the side sheltered from the course of the prevailing wind, and opposite to this door was always a heap of ashes, the remains of a fire, probably more necessary to defend them from mosquitos than cold. In these it is probable that they only sought to protect their heads and the upper part of their bodies from the draught of air, trusting their feet to the care of the fire. So small they were that even in this manner not above three or four people could possibly crowd into them, but small as the trouble of erecting such houses must be, they did not always do it: we saw many places in the woods where they had slept with no other shelter than ​a few bushes and grass a foot or two high to shelter them from the wind. This probably is their custom while they travel from place to place, and sleep upon the road, in situations where they do not intend to make any stay.
The only furniture belonging to these houses, that we saw at least, was oblong vessels of bark made by the simple contrivance of tying up the ends of a longish piece with a withe, which not being cut off serves for a handle: these we imagined served as buckets to fetch water from the springs, which may sometimes be distant. We have reason to suppose that when they travel these are carried by the women from place to place; indeed, during the few opportunities we had of seeing the women they were generally employed in some laborious occupation, as fetching wood, gathering shell-fish, etc The men, again, maybe constantly carry their arms in their hands, three or four lances in the one, and the machine with which they throw them in the other. These serve the double object of defending them from their enemies and striking any animal or fish they may meet with. Each has also a small bag about the size of a moderate cabbage-net hanging loose upon his back and fastened to a small string which passes over the crown of his head. This seems to contain all their earthly treasures: a lump or two of paint, some fish-hooks and lines, shells to make the fish-hooks of, points of darts, resin, and their usual ornaments, were the general contents.
Thus live these, I had almost said happy, people, content with little, nay, almost nothing; far enough removed from the anxieties attending upon riches, or even the possession of what we Europeans call common necessaries: anxieties intended, maybe, by Providence to counterbalance the pleasure arising from the possession of wished-for attainments consequently increasing with increasing wealth, and in some measure keeping up the balance of happiness between the rich and the poor. From them appear how small are the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have increased to an excess which would certainly appear incredible to these people could they be told it; nor shall we cease to ​increase them as long as luxuries can be invented and riches found for the purchase of them. How soon these luxuries degenerate into necessaries may be sufficiently evinced by the universal use of strong liquors, tobacco, spices, tea, etc. In this instance, again, Providence seems to act the part of a leveller, doing much towards putting all ranks into an equal state of wants, and consequently of real poverty: the great and magnificent want as much, and maybe more, than the middle classes: they again in proportion more than the inferior, each rank looking higher than its station, but confining itself to a certain point above which it knows not how to wish, not knowing at least perfectly what is there enjoyed.
Tools among these people we saw almost none, indeed, having no arts which require any, it is not to be expected that they should have many. A stone sharpened at the edge and a wooden mallet were the only ones that we saw formed by art: the use of these we supposed to be to make the notches in the bark of high trees by which they climb them for purposes unknown to us; and for cutting and perhaps driving in wedges to take off the bark which they must have in large pieces for making canoes, shields, and water-buckets, and also for covering their houses. Besides these they use shells and corals to scrape the points of their darts, and polish them with the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree (Ficus radula), which bites upon wood almost as keenly as our European shave-grass, used by the joiners. Their fish-hooks are very neatly made of shell, and some are exceedingly small: their lines are also well twisted, and they have them from the size of a half-inch rope to almost the fineness of a hair, made of some vegetable.
Of netting they seem to be quite ignorant, but make their bags, the only thing of the kind we saw among them, by laying the threads loop within loop, something like knitting, only very coarse and open, in the very same manner as I have seen ladies make purses in England. That they had no sharp instruments among them we ventured to guess from the circumstance of an old man ​coming to us one day with a beard rather longer than his fellows: the next day he came again, and his beard was then almost cropped close to his chin, and upon examination we found the ends of the hairs all burned, so that he had certainly singed it off. Their manner of hunting and taking wild animals we had no opportunity of seeing; we only guessed that the notches which they had everywhere cut in the bark of the large trees, which certainly seems to make climbing more easy to them, might be intended to allow them to ascend these trees in order either to watch for any animal unwarily passing under them which they might pierce with their darts, or to take birds which might roost in them at night. We guessed also that the fires which we saw so frequently as we passed along shore, extending over a large tract of country, and by which we could constantly trace the passage of Indians who went from us in Endeavour's river up into the country, were intended in some way or other for taking the animal called by them kangooroo, which we found to be so much afraid of fire that we could hardly force it with our dogs to go over places newly burnt.
They get fire very expeditiously with two pieces of stick: the one must be round and eight or nine inches long, and both it and the other should be dry and soft: the round they sharpen a little at one end, and pressing it upon the other turn it round with the palms of their hand, just as Europeans do a chocolate-mill, often shifting their hands up and running them down quickly to make the pressure as hard as possible: in this manner they will get fire in less than two minutes, and when once possessed of the smallest spark increase it in a manner truly wonderful. We often admired a man running along shore and apparently carrying nothing in his hand, yet as he ran along just stooping down every 50 or 100 yards; smoke and fire were seen among the drift-wood and dirt at that place almost the instant he had left it. This we afterwards found was done by the infinite readiness every kind of rubbish, sticks, withered leaves, or dry grass, already almost like tinder by the heat ​of the sun and dryness of the season, would take fire. He took, for instance, when he set off a small bit of fire, and wrapping it up in dry grass ran on: this soon blazed; he then laid it down on the most convenient place for his purpose that he could find, and taking up a small part of it, wrapped that in part of the dry rubbish in which he had laid it, proceeding in this manner as long as he thought proper.
Their weapons, offensive at least, were precisely the same wherever we saw them, except that at the very last view we had of the country we saw through our glasses a man who carried a bow and arrows. In this we might have been, but I believe were not, mistaken. Their weapons consisted of only one species, a pike or lance from eight to fourteen feet long: this they threw short distances with their hands, and longer (forty or more yards), with an instrument made for the purpose. The upper part of these lances was made either of cane or the stalk of a plant resembling a bulrush, which was very straight and light: the point was made of very heavy and hard wood, the whole artfully balanced for throwing, though very clumsily made, in two, three, or four joints, at each of which the parts were let into each other. Besides being tied round, the joint was thickly smeared with thin resin, which made it larger and more clumsy than any other part. The points were of several sorts: those which we concluded to be intended to be used against men were most cruel weapons; they were all single pointed, either with the stings of sting-rays, a large one of which served for the point and three or four smaller ones tied the contrary way for barbs, or simply of wood made very sharp and smeared over with resin, into which were stuck many broken bits of sharp shells, so that if such a weapon pierced a man it could scarcely be drawn out without leaving several of those unwelcome guests in his flesh, certain to make the wound ten times more difficult to cure than it otherwise would be. Those lances which we supposed to be used merely for striking fish, birds, etc., ​had generally simple points of wood; or if they were barbed, it was with only one splinter of wood. The instrument with which they threw them was a plain stick or piece of wood 2½ or 3 feet in length, at one end of which was a small knob or hook, and near the other a kind of cross-piece
to hinder it from slipping out of their hands. With this contrivance, simple as it is, and ill-fitted for that purpose, they throw the lances forty yards or more with a swiftness and steadiness truly surprising. The knob being hooked into a small dent made in the top of the lance, they hold it over their shoulder, and shaking it an instant, as if balancing it, throw it with the greatest ease imaginable. The neatest of these throwing sticks that we saw was made of a hard reddish wood, polished and shining: the sides were flat. and about two inches in breadth, and the handle, or part to keep it from dropping out of the hand, covered with thin layers of very white polished bone. These I believe to be the things which many of our people were deceived by, imagining them to be wooden swords, clubs, etc., according to the direction in which they happened to see them. Defensive weapons we saw only in Sting-ray's Bay and there only a single instance: a man who attempted to oppose our landing came down to the beach with a shield of an oblong shape about 3 feet long and 1½ broad, made of the bark of a tree. This he left behind when he ran away, and we found upon taking it up that it had plainly been pierced through with a single-pointed lance near the centre. That such shields were frequently used in that neighbourhood we had, however, sufficient proof, often seeing upon trees the places from whence they had been cut, and sometimes the shields themselves cut out but not yet taken from the tree, the edges of the bark only being a little raised with wedges. This shows that these people certainly know how much thicker and stronger bark becomes by being suffered to remain upon the tree some time after it is cut round.
​That they are a very pusillanimous people we had reason to suppose from their conduct in every place where we were, except at Sting-ray's Bay, and then only two people opposed the landing of our two boats full of men for nearly a quarter of an hour, and were not to be driven away until several times wounded with small shot, which we were obliged to do, as at that time we suspected their lances to be poisoned, from the quantity of gum which was about their points. But upon every other occasion, both there and everywhere else, they behaved alike, shunning us, and giving up any part of the country we landed upon at once. That they use stratagems in war we learnt by the instance in Sting-ray's Bay, where our surgeon with another man was walking in the woods and met six Indians: they stood still, but directed another who was up a tree how and when he should throw a lance at them, which he did, and on its not taking effect they all ran away as fast as possible.
Their canoes were the only things in which we saw a manifest difference between the southern and northern people. Those to the southward were little better contrived or executed than their houses; a piece of bark tied together in plaits at the ends, and kept extended in the middle by small bows of wood, was the whole embarkation which carried one or two people, nay, we once saw three, who moved it along in shallow water with long poles, and in deeper with paddles about eighteen inches long, one of which they held in each hand. In the middle of these canoes was generally a small fire upon a heap of seaweed, for what purpose intended we did not know, except perhaps to give the fisherman an opportunity of eating fish in perfection, by broiling it the moment it is taken. To the northward their canoes, though exceedingly bad, were far superior to these; they were small, but regularly hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, and fitted with an outrigger to prevent them from upsetting. In these they had paddles large enough to require both hands to work them. Of this sort we saw few, and had an opportunity of examining only one of them, which might be about ten or eleven feet long, but was ​extremely narrow. The sides of the tree were left in their natural state untouched by tools, but at each end they had cut away from the under part, and left part of the upper side overhanging. The inside also was not badly hollowed, and the sides tolerably thin. We had many times an opportunity of seeing what burthen it was capable of carrying. Three people, or at most four, were as many as dare venture in it; and if any others wanted to cross the river, which in that place was about half a mile broad, one of these would take the canoe back and fetch them.
This was the only piece of workmanship which I saw among the New Hollanders that seemed to require tools. How they had hollowed her out or cut the ends I cannot guess, but upon the whole the work was not ill done. Indian patience might do a good deal with shells, etc., without the use of stone axes, which, if they had them, they would probably have used to form her outside. That such a canoe takes much time and trouble to make may be concluded from our seeing so few, and still more from the moral certainty which we have that the tribe which visited us, consisting to our knowledge of twenty-one people, and possibly of several more, had only one such belonging to them. How tedious it must be for these people to be ferried over a river a mile or two wide by threes and fours at a time; how well, therefore, worth the pains for them to stock themselves better with boats if they could do it.
I am inclined to believe that, besides these canoes, the northern people make use of the bark canoe of the south. I judge from having seen one of the small paddles left by them upon a small island where they had been fishing for turtle: it lay upon a heap of turtle shells and bones, trophies of the good living they had had when there. With it lay the broken staff of a turtle peg and a rotten line, tools which had been worn out, I suppose, in the service of catching them. We had great reason to believe that at some season of the year the weather is much more moderate than we found it, otherwise the Indians could never have ventured in any canoes that we saw half so far from the ​mainland as were islands on which we saw evident marks of their having been, such as decayed houses, fires, the before-mentioned turtle bones, etc. Maybe, at this more moderate time, they make and use such canoes, and when the blustering season comes on, may convert the bark of which they were made to the purposes of covering houses, water-buckets, etc., well knowing that when the next season returns they will not want for a supply of bark to rebuild their vessels. Another reason we have to imagine that such a moderate season exists, and that the winds are [not] then upon the eastern board as we found them is, that whatever Indian houses or sleeping places we saw on these islands were built upon the summit of small hills, if there were any, or if not, in places where no bushes or wood could intercept the course of the wind, and their shelter was always turned to the eastward. On the main, again, their houses were universally built in valleys or under the shelter of trees which might defend them from the very winds, which in the islands they exposed themselves to.
Of their language I can say very little; our acquaintance with them was of so short a duration that none of us attempted to use a single word of it to them, consequently words could be learned in no other manner than by signs, inquiring of them what in their language signified such a thing, a method obnoxious as leading to many mistakes. For instance, a man holds in his hand a stone and asks the name of it, the Indian may return him for answer either the real name of a stone, or one of the properties of it, as hardness, roughness, smoothness, etc., or one of its uses, or the name peculiar to some particular species of stone, which name the inquirer immediately sets down as that of a stone. To avoid, however, as much as possible this inconvenience, myself and two or three others got from them as many words as we could, and having noted down those which we thought from circumstances we were not mistaken in, we compared our lists; those in which all agreed, or rather were contradicted by none, we thought ourselves morally certain not to be mistaken in. They very ​often use the article ge, which seems to answer to our English a, as ge gurka—a rope.
| Wageegee | the head | Meanang | | fire |
| Morye | the hair | Walba | | a stone |
| Melœa | the ears | Yowall | | sand |
| Yembe | the lips | Gurká | | a rope |
| Bonjoo | the nose | Bāmā | | a man |
| Unjar | the tongue | Poinja | | a male turtle |
| Wallar | the beard | Mameingo | | a female turtle |
| Doomboo | the neck | Maragan | | a canoe |
| Cayo | the nipples | Pelango | | to paddle |
| Soolpoor | the navel | Takai | | set down |
| Mangal | the hands | Mierbarrar | | smooth |
| Coman | the thighs | Garmbe | | blood |
| Pongo | the knees | Yo-core | | wood |
| Edamal | the feet | Tapool | | bone in nose |
| Kniorror | the heel | Charngala | | a bag |
| Chumal | the sole | Cherr | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Expressions maybe of admiration which they continually used while in company. |
| Chongain | the ankle | Cherco | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Expressions maybe of admiration which they continually used while in company. |
| Kulke | the nails | Yarcaw | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Expressions maybe of admiration which they continually used while in company. |
| Gallan | the sun | Tut tut tut tut | $\scriptstyle {\left.{\begin{matrix}\ \\\\\ \\\ \\\ \ \end{matrix}}\right\}\,$ | Expressions maybe of admiration which they continually used while in company. |
* ↑ This chapter is thus entitled by Banks. The name "New Wales" was bestowed by Cook on the whole eastern coast from lat. 38 S. to Cape York: the Admiralty copy of Cook's Journal, and that belonging to Her Majesty, call it "New South Wales" (Wharton's Cook, p. 312).
* ↑ Livistona australis, Mart.
* ↑ Cycas media, Br.
* ↑ Eucalyptus.
* ↑ Xanthorrhœa.
* ↑ Species of Myrmecodia or Hydnophytum.
* ↑ Afterwards called Botany Bay.
* ↑ Cycas media, Br., closely allied to C. circinalis. See pp. 299 and 421.
* ↑ Xanthorrhœa.