islands still known as Dampier's
Archipelago, one island of which they named Rosemary Island, because
"there grow here two or three sorts of shrubs, one just like rosemary."
Once again he comes across natives--"very much the same blinking
creatures, also abundance of the same kind of flesh-flies teasing them,
with the same black skins and hair frizzled." Indeed, he writes as
though the whole country of New Holland was a savage and worthless
land inhabited by dreadful monsters.

"If it were not," he writes, "for that sort of pleasure which results
from the discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the globe, this
coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much." His first sight
of the kangaroo--now the emblem of Australia--is interesting. He
describes it as "a sort of raccoon, different from that of the West
Indies, chiefly as to the legs, for these have very short fore-legs,
but go jumping upon them as the others do, and like them are very good
meat." This must have been the small kangaroo, for the large kind was
not found till later by Captain Cook in New South Wales.

But Dampier and his mates could not find fresh water, and soon wearied
of the coast of New Holland; an outbreak of scurvy, too, decided them
to sail away in search of fresh foods. Dampier had spent five weeks
cruising off the coast; he had sailed along some nine hundred miles
of the Australian shore without making any startling discoveries. A
few months later the _Roebuck_ stood off the coast of New Guinea, "a
high and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical
vegetation, and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately
trees." Innumerable dusky-faced natives peeped at the ship from behind
the rocks, but they were not friendly, and this they showed by climbing
the cocoanut trees and throwing down cocoanuts at the English, with
passionate signs to them to depart. But with plenty of fresh water,
this was unlikely, and the crews rowed ashore, killed and salted a
good load of wild hogs, while the savages still peeped at them from
afar.

Thus then they sailed on, thinking they were still coasting New Guinea.
So doing, they arrived at the straits which still bear the name of
the explorer, and discovered a little island which he called New
Britain. He had now been over fifteen months at sea and the _Roebuck_
was only provisioned for twenty months, so Dampier, who never had the
true spirit of the explorer in him, left his discoveries and