oned. Which of them may be aborigines can be only
conjectured, until the interior of the new continent shall be explored.]

No other weapons than spears were seen amongst these people; but they
were not unacquainted with bows and arrows. It is probable that they have
bark canoes, though none were seen, for several trees were found
stripped, as if for that purpose; yet when Bongaree made them a present
of the canoe brought from Blue-mud Bay, they expressed very little
pleasure at the gift, and did not seem to know how to repair it.

That this bay had before received the visits of some strangers, was
evinced by the knowledge which the natives had of fire arms; they
imitated the act of shooting when we first landed, and when a musket was
fired at their request, were not much alarmed. A quantity of posts was
lying near the water, which had been evidently cut with iron instruments;
and when we inquired of the inhabitants concerning them, they imitated
with their hands the motion of an axe cutting down a tree, and then
stopping, exclaimed _Poo!_ Whence we understood that the people who cut
the wood had fire arms. This was all that could be learned from the
natives; but from the bamboos and partitions of frame work found here,
similar to those at Pellew's Group, they were doubtless the same Asiatic
nation, if not the same individuals, of whom so many traces had been seen
all the way from the head of the gulph. The propensity shown by the
natives to steal, especially our axes, so contrary to all I have known
and heard of their countrymen, is not only a proof that they had been
previously visited by people possessing iron implements, but from their
audacity it would appear, that the effect of fire arms was either not
very certain in the hands of the strangers, or had seldom been resorted
to in the punishment of aggression; and from the circumstance of the
Indians bringing us a few berries, as a recompense for the last stolen
axe, it should seem that they had been accustomed to make very easy
atonements for their thefts. I have some hope that those who may follow
us will not be robbed, at least with so much effrontery; and at the same
time, that the inhabitants of Caledon Bay will not avoid, but be desirous
of further communication with Europeans.

I do not know that the language at any two parts of Terra Australis,
however near, has been found to be entirely the same; for even at Botany
Bay, Port Jackson, and Broken Bay, not on