159, 160.--D.]

"However, we must have a far more intimate acquaintance with the
languages spoken here, and in the more northern parts of New Holland,
before we can be warranted to pronounce that they are totally different.
Nay, we have good grounds for the opposite opinion; for we found that
the animal called _kangooroo_ at Endeavour river, was known under the
same name here; and I need not observe, that it is scarcely possible to
suppose that this was not transmitted from one another, but accidentally
adopted by two nations, differing in language and extraction. Besides,
as it seems very improbable that the Van Diemen's Land inhabitants
should have ever lost the use of canoes or sailing vessels, if they had
been originally conveyed thither by sea, we must necessarily admit that
they, as well as the _kangooroo_ itself, have been stragglers by land
from the more northern parts of the country. And if there be any force
in this observation, while it traces the origin of the people, it will,
at the same time, serve to fix another point, if Captain Cook and
Captain Furneaux have not already decided it, that New Holland is no
where totally divided by the sea into islands, as some have
imagined."[140]

[Footnote 140: The reader is aware of the erroneous opinion generally
entertained at this time, of Van Diemen's Land being connected with the
continent of New Holland. He will therefore modify the remark above
given, as to its inhabitants being stragglers by land from the more
northern parts of the country. It is of some consequence also to inform
him, that in the visit of D'Entrecasteaux, it was found that the people
who inhabited the shores of the channel were in possession of bark
canoes.--E.]

"As the New Hollanders seem all to be of the same extraction, so neither
do I think there is any thing peculiar in them. On the contrary, they
much resemble many of the inhabitants whom I have seen at the islands
Tanna and Mallicolla. Nay, there is even some foundation for hazarding a
supposition, that they may have originally come from the same place with
all the inhabitants of the South Sea. For, of only about ten words which
we could get from them, that which expresses _cold_, differs little from
that of New Zealand and Otaheite; the first being _Mallareede_, the
second _Makkareede_, and the third _Mareede_. The rest of our very
scanty Van Diemen's Land Vocabulary is as follows:

Quadne, _A woman._
Everai,