in England. About the head of the harbour, where there
are large flats of sand and mud, there is great plenty of water-fowl,
most of which were altogether unknown to us: One of the most remarkable
was black and white, much larger than a swan, and in shape somewhat
resembling a pelican. On these banks of sand and mud there are great
quantities of oysters, mussels, cockles, and other shell-fish, which
seem to be the principal subsistence of the inhabitants, who go into
shoal water with their little canoes, and pick them out with their
hands. We did not observe that they eat any of them raw, nor do they
always go on shore to dress them, for they have frequently fires in
their canoes for that purpose. They do not however subsist wholly upon
this food, for they catch a variety of other fish, some of which they
strike with gigs, and some they take with hook and line. All the
inhabitants that we saw were stark naked: They did not appear to be
numerous, nor to live in societies, but like other animals were
scattered about along the coast, and in the woods. Of their manner of
life, however, we could know but little, as we were never able to form
the least connection with them: After the first contest at our landing,
they would never come near enough to parley; nor did they touch a single
article of all that we had left at their huts, and the places they
frequented, on purpose for them to take away.

[Footnote 72: The reader will be plentifully supplied with information
respecting this noted place, and the settlement of British convicts made
at Port Jackson, in another part of this work. It would be very
injudicious to break down the matter intended to be given there, for
the purpose of ekeing out the limited remarks here made. This intimation
may be equally applied to the whole subject of New Holland: about which
the reader may promise himself very ample satisfaction in the course of
this collection. Let this then be accepted as a pledge in apology for
the paucity of observations on the text.--E.]

During my stay in this harbour, I caused the English colours to be
displayed on shore every day, and the ship's name, and the date of the
year, to be inscribed upon one of the trees near the watering-place.

It is high water here at the full and change of the moon about eight
o'clock, and the tide rises and falls perpendicularly between four and
five feet.

SECTION XXIX.

_The Range from Botany Bay to Trinity Bay; with a farthe