Their Excellent Habit Of Body*,
The Effect Of Drinking Water Only, Speedily Heals Wounds Without An Exterior
Application Which With Us Would Take Weeks Or Months To Close.
They Are, Nevertheless, Sadly Tormented By A Cutaneous Eruption,
But We Never Found It Contagious.
After receiving a contusion,
if the part swell they fasten a ligature very tightly above it, so as to stop
all circulation.
Whether to this application, or to their undebauched habit,
it be attributable, I know not, but it is certain that a disabled limb
among them is rarely seen, although violent inflammations from bruises,
which in us would bring on a gangrene, daily happen. If they get burned,
either from rolling into the fire when asleep, or from the flame catching
the grass on which they lie (both of which are common accidents)
they cover the part with a thin paste of kneaded clay, which excludes the air
and adheres to the wound until it be cured, and the eschar falls off.
[*Their native hardiness of constitution is great. I saw a woman on the day
she was brought to bed, carry her new-born infant from Botany Bay
to Port Jackson, a distance of six miles, and afterwards light a fire
and dress fish.]
Their form of government, and the detail of domestic life, yet remain untold.
The former cannot occupy much space. Without distinctions of rank,
except those which youth and vigour confer, theirs is strictly a system
of 'equality' attended with only one inconvenience - the strong triumph
over the weak.
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