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,
s