From Their Easy Reception Of Us In The Beginning, Many Were Induced
To Call In Question The Accounts Which Mr. Cook Had Given Of This People.
That Celebrated Navigator, We Were Willing Believe, Had Somehow By His Conduct
Offended Them, Which Prevented The Intercourse That Would Otherwise
Have Taken Place.
The result, however, of our repeated endeavours to induce
them to come among us has been such as to
Confirm me in an opinion, that they
either fear or despise us too much, to be anxious for a closer connection.
And I beg leave at once, to apprize the reader, that all I can here, or in any
future part of this work, relate with fidelity of the natives
of New South Wales, must be made up of detached observations, taken at
different times, and not from a regular series of knowledge of the customs
and manners of a people, with whom opportunities of communication
are so scarce, as to have been seldom obtained.
In their persons, they are far from being a stout race of men, though nimble,
sprightly, and vigorous. The deficiency of one of the fore teeth of the
upper jaw, mentioned by Dampier, we have seen in almost the whole of the men;
but their organs of sight so far from being defective, as that author mentions
those of the inhabitants of the western side of the continent to be,
are remarkably quick and piercing. Their colour, Mr. Cook is inclined to think
rather a deep chocolate, than an absolute black, though he confesses,
they have the appearance of the latter, which he attributes to the greasy filth
their skins are loaded with. Of their want of cleanliness we have had
sufficient proofs, but I am of opinion, all the washing in the world would not
render them two degrees less black than an African negro. At some of our
first interviews, we had several droll instances of their mistaking
the Africans we brought with us for their own countrymen.
Notwithstanding the disregard they have invariably shewn for all the finery
we could deck them with, they are fond of adorning themselves with scars,
which increase their natural hideousness. It is hardly possible to see
any thing in human shape more ugly, than one of these savages thus scarified,
and farther ornamented with a fish bone struck through the gristle of the nose.
The custom of daubing themselves with white earth is also frequent among
both sexes: but, unlike the inhabitants of the Islands in the Pacific Ocean,
they reject the beautiful feathers which the birds of their country afford.
Exclusive of their weapons of offence, and a few stone hatchets very rudely
fashioned, their ingenuity is confined to manufacturing small nets,
in which they put the fish they catch, and to fish-hooks made of bone,
neither of which are unskilfully executed. On many of the rocks are also
to be found delineations of the figures of men and birds, very poorly cut.
Of the use or benefit of cloathing, these people appear to have no
comprehension, though their sufferings from the climate they live in,
strongly point out the necessity of a covering from the rigour of the seasons.
Both sexes, and those of all ages, are invariably found naked.
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