It Was A Small Eminence Having No Habitation Near.
We counted
the marks of fifteen different fires that had been employed in cooking
fish and other eatables, the bones of which were strewed about.
Among
them we picked up part of a human skull - the os frontis with the sockets
of the eyes and part of the bones of the nose still attached to it. A
little distance from where we found this we discovered a part of the
upper jaw with one of the molars or back teeth in it, also one of the
vertebrae of the back having marks of fire which the others had not.
"The grass was much trodden down, and many of the bones of the animals
eaten appeared fresh...I brought off the human bones and on getting on
board showed them to Euranabie. Finding two of the natives from the shore
in the vessel, I desired him to ask them whether these bones belonged to
a white man or not, and if they had killed and eaten him. I was anxious
to have this cleared up, as the ship Sydney Cove from India to Port
Jackson had been wrecked about twelve months before to the southward and
it was reported that some of the crew were killed by the natives near
this place."* (* The Sydney Cove from Bengal to New South Wales was
wrecked on Preservation Island, Tasmania, on 8th February, 1797. Her
long-boat was equipped and despatched on 27th February to Sydney, but the
boat filled and went to pieces at a spot called Ninety Mile beach.
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