were luxuriant, owing to
the abundance of rain which had lately fallen, and to the warmth of the
climate: in the dry season, I should judge the country would be almost
burnt up. The _casuarina_ was plentiful in the sandy places, and the
_eucalyptus_ amongst the rocks, where it reached a tolerable size; the
wild nutmeg was found upon Point Middle, and there alone; our apple, the
new species of _eugenia_, grew on Point Alexander and elsewhere, and also
a few other plants bearing small fruits of little use. Foot marks of the
kangaroo were seen in different places, but none of the animals, nor
indeed any quadruped; and birds seemed to be rare, both in the woods and
on the shores.

The natives of Caledon Bay are the same race of men as those of Port
Jackson and King George's Sound, places at nearly the two opposite
extremities of Terra Australis;* in personal appearance they were behind
some tribes we had seen, but the difference did not go beyond what a less
abundant supply of food might produce. All those who came to the tents
had lost the upper front tooth on the left side, whereas at Port Jackson
it is the right tooth which is knocked out at the age of puberty; whether
the women undergo the same operation, contrary to the usage at Port
Jackson, we had no opportunity of knowing, having seen only one female,
and that at a distance. This girl wore a small piece of bark, in guise of
a fig leaf, which was the sole approximation to clothing seen among them.
Above the elbow the men usually wore a bandage of net work, in which was
stuck a short piece of strong grass, called _tomo_, and used as a tooth
pick; but the most remarkable circumstance in their persons was, that the
whole of them appeared to have undergone the Jewish and Mahometan rite of
circumcision. The same thing was before noticed in a native of Isle
Woodah, and in two at Wellesley's Islands; it would seem, therefore, to
be general on the west side of the Gulph of Carpentaria; but with what
view it may be done, or whence the custom were received, it is not in my
power to state. No such practice was found on the South or East Coasts,
nor was it observed in the natives of the islands in Torres' Strait, who
however, go naked as the Australians.

[* In Van Diemen's Land, according to captain Cook and succeeding
visitors, and on the North-west Coast, according to Dampier, the
inhabitants have woolly hair; in which particular they are different from
the race above menti