Cook returned to the
vessel, leaving Lieutenant King in charge: soon after, the women and
children arrived: they were introduced by the men to the English. The
children were thought pretty; of the beauty of the women the account was
not equally favorable. They rejected with disdain the presents and
freedoms of the officers, and were ordered by an elderly man to
retire--a command, to which they submitted with reluctance.

Dr. Anderson, the surgeon of the _Resolution_, describes the natives as
a mild, cheerful race, with an appearance less wild than is common to
savages. He considered them devoid of activity, genius, and
intelligence; their countenance, he delineates as plump and pleasing.

[1792.] But though later on the spot, assisted by the remarks of
previous observers, Labillardiere, of all, was the most assiduous and
exact. The naturalist of D'Entrecasteaux's expedition, he saw mankind
with the eye of a philosopher. He was pleased to examine the passions of
a race, least of all indebted to art; yet the prevailing notions of
Citizen Frenchmen, perhaps, gave him a bias, when estimating an
uncivilised people. He left Europe when the dreams of Rousseau were the
toys of the speculative, and before they became the phantoms of the
populace. His observations were, doubtlessly, correct; but his grouping
is artistic, and not without illusion. In his work, the Tasmanian blacks
appear in the most charming simplicity, harmless and content; an
extraordinary remnant of primitive innocence. At first they fled from
the French: an old woman they chased, took a leap which, if credible,
was terrific; she dashed over a precipice forty feet high, and was lost
among the rocks!

Labillardiere having landed, with several companions, proceeded towards
a lake; hearing human voices, they followed the direction of the sound;
the sudden cry of the natives induced them to return for their arms.
Then proceeding towards the woods, they met the tribe--the men and boys
in a semicircle, with the women and children behind. Labillardiere
offered a piece of biscuit, and held out his hand, which a savage chief
accepted, and smiling drew back one foot, and bowed with admirable
grace. He gave to the French a necklace, which he called _cantaride_,
formed of wilk shells, in exchange for articles of dress, a poll-axe,
and knives.

The proportions are worth remarking: in a party of forty, there were
eight men and seven women; of forty-eight, there were ten